Farmer-Turned-Activist Plants Seeds of Reform

Lu Banglie makes use of China's laws to try to help farmers who so often are on the losing end of government land acquisition. (Edward Cody -- The Washington Post)

A decisive moment came when he stumbled on a book, "Talking Straight to the Premier," by political theorist Li Changping. For Lu, whose formal education had ended at age 17 before he graduated from high school, the book was a revelation.

"I was very moved," he said. "Li was speaking up for the farmers."

Soon Lu paid a visit to the author in Beijing. While in the capital, he came across a magazine called Chinese Reform, which also contained ideas about how to change the situation in the countryside. So he visited the magazine's offices, becoming acquainted with other political activists, including the well-known theorists Yao Lifa and Guo Feixiong, and returning home with stacks of the magazines to sell to fellow peasants.

Inspired by his new readings and his ideological conversations in the capital, Lu staged a hunger strike demanding an investigation into his village's elections and a public accounting of the village budget. By 2003, with broad support from villagers and citing the party regulations, he had pushed out the village administration and taken over the local government.

Even though he is not a party member, Lu also was chosen twice as a member of the local People's Congress. But each time, including in his own village, he found he was unable to dent the party-run bureaucracy. As a result, he abandoned attempts to force change from within and decided on full-time activism. More recently, he has entered a period of study, again discussing ideology with Beijing intellectuals and girding himself for the next chapter.

It is likely to focus on the suburbs of large cities, he said, where the price of land is so high that local officials often find it irresistible to confiscate fields and resell them to developers. Such sales -- in which the price paid by developers far exceeds the compensation given farmers -- have become a major source of funding for many localities, according to official accounts. According to Lu and other disgruntled farmers, they also have become a major source of graft for local party leaders, the stuff of struggles to come.

"I am getting myself ready," Lu said.

To read more of these features, go to the Worldview page at www.washingtonpost.com/worldview.