Koperasi Pertanian China

Dengan pertumbuhan ekonomi paling pesat di dunia, China diprediksi bakal

menjadi negara adidaya ekonomi dunia di masa depan. Koperasi pertanian
ternyata memberikan kontribusi besar terhadap pencapaian itu.
Dalam konstelasi ekonomi dunia dewasa ini, China tampil sebagai kekuatan yang
mecengangkan. Negeri Tirai Bambu ini melaju dengan pertumbuhan rata-rata 10
persen, tercepat dibandingkan negara maju manapun. Berbagai produk made in
China, bukan cuma menggelontori pasar negara berkembang seperti Indonesia,
tetapi juga membanjiri hampir semua negara maju. Dengan surplus perdagangan
internasionalnya, China mampu menghimpun cadangan devisa paling gemuk di
dunia.
Perkembangan ekonomi China itu, memang merupakan buah reformasi yang
dilakukan secara konsisten. Namun, kunci masuknya tetap saja sektor pertanian.
Sebagai negara berpenduduk 1,3 miliar, masalah mendasar yang harus diamankan
dulu oleh China, sudah pasti pemenuhan kebutuhan pangan penduduknya.
Karena itu, sektor pertanian mendapat sentuhan pertama dari proses reformasi
ekonomi China. Hasilnya, pada era 70-an sektor ini sudah mampu menciptakan
swasembada pangan. Dengan sektor pertanian yang tangguh, China pun mulai
mengembangkan industri manufaktur, yang menghasilkan berbagai produk.
Namun begitu, perhatian terhadap sektor pertanian, tidak pernah dikendurkan,
kendati dengan lahan yang makin menyempit. Dari luas wilayah mencapai 9,6 juta
km2, tinggal 1,27 juta km2 yang tersisa untuk pertanian.
Sukses pertanian China, tidak lepas dari kawalan koperasi, yang sudah menjadi bagian dari kehidupan petani sejak lebih dari 80 tahun lalu. Nama koperasi
petani China cukup unik, yang dipopulerkan dalam bahasa Inggris dengan Supply
and Marketing Cooperative (SMC). Sesuai dengan namanya, koperasi berperan
penting dalam melakukan pengadaan untuk semua kebutuhan usaha tani seperti
bibit, pupuk, peralatan dan lainnya, serta pemasaran komoditi pertanian yang
dihasilkan.
Kegiatan pengadaan dan pemasaran tersebut bisa dilakukan secara sangat efisien,
karena SMC sudah membentuk jaringan yang sangat luas dan solid. Di level
nasional, koperasi petani tersebut mempunyai sekunder bernama All-China
Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives (ACFSMC). Secara
keseluruhan, ACFSMC menghimpun 22.537 SMC, dengan anggota perorangan
mencapai 160 juta petani. Jaringan ini, tersebar di 31 provinsi, 336 prefecture dan
2.370 country federation.

Dengan memanfaatkan jaringannya, saat ini ACFSMC menguasai lebih dari 60

persen perdagangan pupuk dan pestisida di China. Untuk memaksimalkan
jaringan, koperasi ini kemudian melebarkan sayap bisnisnya hingga merambah ke
bidang ritel, mulai dari tingkat grosir sampai eceran. Tercatat ada 1.504 toko
grosir dan 89 ribu outlet milik koperasi, yang mendukung bisnis yang berkibar
dengan bendera Suguo Supermarket Co. Ltd, ini.
Tidak berhenti sampai di sini, ACFSMC kemudian mengalokasikan surplus dari
bisnis pertanian dan ritel, dengan melakukan ekspansi lebih luas lagi. Industri
manufaktur, tektil, perhotelan, pendidikan sampai restoran, menjadi rambahan
bidang bisnis selanjutnya, yang membikin kinerja bisnis makin berotot.
Khusus untuk pemasaran komoditi pertanian, sasarannya tidak lagi sebatas
seluruh daratan China, tetapi juga ke sentero dunia. Dengan efisiensi yang
diciptakan oleh jaringan koperasi hingga ke tingkat petani, beberapa komoditi
pertanian China mengalami surplus, hingga secara ekspansif menyerbu pasar
ekspor dan sempat membuat sektor pertanian negara lain termasuk raksasa
Amerika Serikat, keteteran menghadapinya.
Selain mengekspor, ACFSMC juga melakukan impor berbagai produk yang
dibutuhkan di China. Sebagai gambaran, pada 2005 volume ekspor yang dicetak
mencapai 3 miliar dolar AS, sedangkam impor 2 miliar dolar AS.
Pencapaian gemilang yang digapai jaringan koperasi petani China, memang tidak
lepas dari peran pemerintah yang sangat kuat. Sebagai negara yang menganut
sistem komunis, Pemerintah China mengandalkan koperasi untuk menjadi wadah
untuk memobilisasi petani dalam menjalankan usaha taninya.
Namun, peran para pengelola koperasi juga tidak bisa diabaikan. Mereka mampu
memaksimalkan berbagai dukungan pemerintah, untuk memperkuat basis bisnis
koperasi, bukan malah makin tergantung. Dengan begitu, ketika ekonomi China
membuka diri sebagai tuntutan globalisasi, koperasi benar-benar siap untuk
mempertahankan bisnis, bahkan melakukan ekspansi hingga ke berbagai belahan
dunia.
Kendati tumbuh di tanah komunis yang pekat dengan campur tangan
pemerintah, koperasi petani China tidak lantas kehilangan nilai dasar (jatidiri)
sebagai koperasi, terutama dalam menjalankan misi utama untuk meningkatkan
kesejahteraan petani yang menjadi anggotanya. Sebagai sekunder nasional,
ACFSMC juga banyak melakukan kerja sama bahkan bantuan untuk
pengembangan koperasi pertanian di negara lain. Pada Mei 2008 lalu, misalnya,

ACFSMC menyumbang dana sebesar 20 ribu dolar AS untuk pengembangan

koperasi pertanian di Myanmar.
Andalan di Masa Revolusi dan Reformasi
Pergolakan dan pertumbuhan ekonomi China, selalu ditandai dengan peran
penting petani. Posisi petani selalu tak tergoyahkan, karena mereka bergabung
dalam koperasi.
Sudah sekitar 80 tahun koperasi hadir di tanah China, terutama di lingkungan
petani. Selama itu pula, koperasi mengawal petani melewati pergolakan revolusi,
hingga reformasi di bidang agragria. Petani China memainkan peran sangat penting, dari dua peristiwa yang sangat menentukan dalam sejarah Republik Rakyat
China itu.
Revolusi pertama terjadi pada 1923, setelah perang candu. Gerakan petani
menjadi andalan untuk melawan pendudukan Jepang. Setelah Jepang terusir,
petani mempunyai kekuatan untuk mendesak pemerintah agar dilakukan
landreform atau pembagian tanah pertanian secara adil. Koperasi sudah berperan
dalam proses landreform.
Revolusi kedua, meletus pada 1949, menyusul diproklamirkannya negeri
Republik Rakyat Tiongkok (RRT), yang kemudian dikenal dengan Republik
Rakyat China sampai sekarang., sekaligus menandai dianutnya sistem komunisme
secara penuh. Lagi-lagi para petani menjadi tulang punggung, untuk menggulingkan kekuasaan borjuis.
Sejalan dengan nasionalisasi perusahaan secara besar-besaran, pemerintah pun
berperan aktif dalam melakukan landreform, yang mengarah pada pemilikan
kolektif lahan pertanian. Para petani dihimpun kembali dalam koperasi, yang
diberi nama Hu-chu-tsu (koperasi suka rela). Koperasi beroperasi dalam
kelompok kecil 4 sampai 5 keluarga, kerjasama dibidang pengumpulan tenaga,
tanah, binatang, alat-alat milik perorangan. Dalam periode 1950-1952 anggota
koperasi meningkat dari 10,7 persen menjadi 40 persen
Pada 1953, bentuk koperasi dirubah menjadi Agricultural Producers Cooperative
(APC) atau Nung-Ych Shen-Chan Lo-Tso She (Koperasi Produsen Pertanian).
Model kerjanya, tanah dimiliki kolektif, pemilik tanah semula masih menerima
deviden sebagai tambahan upah berdasarkan butir kerja (work points). Pada 1956
koperasi model seperti ini baru disahkan. Sampai 1953, jumlah anggota mencapai
15 orang atau hanya 1,2 persen dari jumlah keluarga, kemudian meningkat
menjadi 633.000 serta mempertahankan anggota 20-30 rumah tangga.

Model koperasi kemudian diubah lagi menjadi Koperasi Produsen yang Lebih
Maju (Kao-Chi/Advance APC`S). Koperasi ini disebut juga Koperasi Maju Tipe
Sosialis Penuh. Model kerjanya, progam pertanian 12 tahun, kepemilikan bersama
alat produksi, keuntungan hanya dari penghasilan berdasarkan butir jam, kerja
meliputi subsidi air, perternakan, holtikultura, kebudayaan, dan pelayanan
kesehatan, membentuk brigade produksi (Sheng-Ch`an-Tu). Jumlah anggota
meningkat menjadi 96 persen.
Pro dan kontra yang kemudian muncul adalah apakah anggota koperasi itu kecil
atau besar, semisal anggotanya yang 171 rumah tangga diturunkan menjadi 100
rumah tangga saja. Di sisi lain, APC`S memiliki sumber kelemahan dalam hal
akuntansi, manajemen dan tekhnik.
Sepanjang 1953-1956, meski terjadi gagal penen sehingga menciptakan krisis
pangan yang berdampak eksodusnya penduduk desa ke kota serta inflasi, tetapi
secara umum sektor pertanian menunjukan kemajuan. Produksi pertanian dan
pedesaan naik antara 3,1 persen -7,7 persen, atau rata-rata 4,8 persen pertahun.
Kendati namanya diubah-ubah, namun koperasi yang ada di lingkungan petani
sebetulnya masih bersifat semu, terutama karena proses pembentukan dan sistem
kerjanya benar-benar diarahkan pemerintah. Ketika itu, perekonomian China
secara umum masih memprihatinkan.
Keadaan mulai berubah angin reformasi mulai bertiup, seiring dengan rencana
besar pemerintah untuk melakukan da yue din, lompatan jauh ke depan. Gerakan
ini dimulai dengan upaya-upaya untuk mengentaskan rakyat dari kemiskinan.
Karena sebagian besar rakyat miskin hidup di sektor pertanian, maka sektor ini
menjadi salah satu prioritas pengembangan.
Sekali lagi, koperasi dijadikan andalan untuk mencapai tujuan tersebut. Namun,
pengelolaan koperasi sudah mulai seperti yang berjalan pada koperasi secara
universal, kendati peran pemerintah sangat besar. Kendati pada awalnya koperasi
hanya menyalurkan berbagai kebutuhan usaha tani yang disediakan pemerintah,
namun secara bertahap koperasi mampu membangun fondasi bisnis.
Setelah menghantarkan China pada swasembada pangan pada era 70-an, koperasi
mulai melakukan langkah pemasaran produksi pertanian, hingga namanya
menjadi Supply and Marketing Cooperative (SMC). Ketika reformasi di China
makin mengarah pada terciptakan sistem pasar terbuka, koperasi sudah benarbenar siap mengembangkan sayap bisnisnya. Terlebih setelah di tingkat nasional
membentuk All-China Federation Supply and Market Cooperative, sebagai
koperasi sekunder koperasi pertanian

Sumber : http://wargaksusejahtera.blogspot.com/2012/07/koperasi-pertanianchina.html diakses tanggal 9 oktober 2014

Pemerintah pusat juga memberikan peluang kepada pemerintah daerah untuk
mendirikan bank-bank lokal pada pertengahan tahun 1990-an dengan koperasi di
daerah pedesaan. Mereka mengambil bentuk shareholding sebagai koperasi
simpan pinjam, dengan usaha dibatasi hanya pada daerah tersebut. Hingga akhir
1999, telah 90 bank yang beroperasi di China, dengan total aset 554,7 miliar yuan
(PBOC 2000).
Chinese Industrial Cooperatives (Chinese: ; pinyin: Gngy
Hzush) (INDUSCO) were organisations established by a movement, involving
various Western expatriates, to promote grass roots industrial and economic
development in China. The movement was especially active in the 1930s and
1940s with bipartisan support from both the left and right wings of Chinese
politics. The movement was led through the Chinese Industrial Cooperative
Association (CIC) founded in 1938, and its international arm the International
Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives (known
as Gung Ho - ICCIC). The movement disappeared after the 1950s due to
suppression by the People's Republic of China government, but CIC and Gung
Ho-ICCIC were revived in the 1980s and are still active today.
In the English-speaking world, the Industrial Cooperatives' best known legacy is
perhaps the transliteration Gung-ho.
The Chinese Industrial Cooperative Association was formally established in
August, 1938 in Hankow, then the wartime capital of China. The goal was to
replace industrial capacity lost to bombing, but to do so by dispersing and giving
workers voting shares in their CIC.
Some of the principal organizers were Rewi Alley of New Zealand; Edgar Snow,
Nym Wales (Helen Foster Snow), and Ida Pruitt of the USA and a group of
Chinese including Hu Yuzhi and Sha Qianqi. Through the sponsorship
of Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Finance Minister Dr. H. H. Kung supplied
government financial support.
The slogan "gonghe" (Gung Ho) was created, which also became popular in
English. The phrase translates: "Work Together!" but its use in English is rather to
express whole-hearted devotion to a cause.
The CIC organized small scale self-supporting cooperatives, mainly in rural areas,
to create employment for workers and refugees and goods to support the War of
Resistanceagainst the Japanese.[1]

In January, 1939 The International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese

Industrial Cooperatives (the Gung Ho International Committee, or, ICCIC) was
established in Hong Kong. Ida Pruitt toured the United States to raise substantial
financial support. The number of cooperatives reached its peak in 1941 at
approximately 3,000 cooperatives with a membership of approximately 300,000.
Their factories mainly produced blankets, uniforms and other army supplies.
Both the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek and the Communist
movement of Mao Zedong supported the movement and tried to control it. Alley
placated the Nationalists but his sympathies and eventual loyalties were to the
emerging Communist government. (Chiang fired him in 1942). After Maos
victory in 1949 Alley stayed in China, but there was no need for the CIC and
ICCIC. Work was suspended in 1952, but in 1983 a new CIC was formed, and a
new Gung Ho ICCIC was formed in 1987.
An excellent discussion of the CICs appears in Graham Peck's book Two Kinds of
Time (1950). Peck traveled with Alley to a number of CICs early in 1941 and was able to
see them at their height, but as his experience grew he came to understand their
limitations and the fact that their course was ultimately downwards, not upwards, for a
variety of reasons.
Sumber : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Industrial_Cooperatives

Li Chunsheng is clearly aware of the opportunities offered by the UN International

Year of Co-operatives . He talks of the chance to improve what he calls "the cooperative brand" by stressing co-operatives' values and social responsibilities.
Private enterprises have invested enormously to influence young people, he says,
and now is the time for co-operatives to respond: "We shall aim to transform our
brand and image into attractive ones, and make co-operation a fashion among
students," he maintains.
Li's views are probably worth noting. As both the vice president of the giant AllChina Federation of Supply and Marketing Co-operatives (ACFSMC) and the
representative from China on the board of the International Co-operative Alliance , he
occupies a unique point of contact between China and the global co-operative
movement. And China's co-operative sector can boast some clout.
Li's own federation, for example, is the apex body of a pyramid which ultimately
represents about 22,000 primary supply and marketing co-operatives (SMCs),
between them claiming 160 million members. According to one source, over three
million people are employed by chinese SMCs. China also has a broadly
dispersed credit union network of rural credit co-operatives, with 200 million
households in membership. And to complete the picture, there are farmers' co-

operatives (many very sizeable) and handicrafts co-operatives, the latter organised
into the apex All-China Federation of Handicraft and Industrial Co-operatives.
Any story of the history of Chinese co-operatives falls naturally into three parts.
Firstly, there was the period up to 1958, before the launch of Mao's economically
catastrophic Great Leap Forward, a time which in hindsight can seem something
of a golden period. Co-operatives began to develop in the late 1930s during the
period of resistance to Japanese imperialism, helped by the newly established
International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Co-operatives
which had been founded with help from western supporters, including US
journalist Edgar Snow, author of Red Star over China. After the 1949 Revolution,
co-operatives fitted well with communist objectives and the 1950 Co-operatives
Law established a framework which, when combined with preferential tax and
credit assistance, meant that co-ops spread quickly in rural areas. By 1957,
approaching a third of the rural population were members of 19,000 supply and
marketing co-operatives, which between them handled a quarter of total farm
products. These SMCs were initially run with participation from the peasantfarmers and villagers who were their members.
After 1958, however, co-operatives in China were turned into state-run
organisations. China's approach was not untypical of the time. Much the same
process took place in many developing countries, where the idea of co-operatives
as autonomous, member-led enterprises rapidly disappeared as the state took over.
The long, slow task of rebuilding a member-led co-operative sector began in
China after December 1978, when the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Party
Congress set China on the course of modernisation and broad-based economic
development. It has clearly not always been easy. The SMCs, for example, have
gone through a series of reforms, which have tried among other things to bring in
member participation and modern management practices. Despite this, a Cornell
university study in 2007 found that the majority of SMCs are still not effectively
controlled by their farmer-members. The Cornell researchers argued for a deeper
process of reform and improved governance structures.
SMCs occupy a vital role in Chinese rural life, where they both act as purchasers
and distributors of agricultural produce to urban areas and suppliers of agricultural
inputs such as fertiliser and machinery for farmers. However, the market reforms
introduced after 1978 have brought in private sector competition, and SMC total
market share has declined. Nevertheless, the All-China Federation last year turned
2.02 trillion yuan (USD 320 bn), and proudly announced that this was a 29%
increase on the year before. Its strategic plan adopted last May plans among other
things to make more use of information technology in distribution.

The introduction of new legislation, the Farmer Professional Co-operative Law, in

2007, helped to give a firm foundation to the numerous so-called farmers'
specialised co-operatives, their specialisms ranging from water melon cultivation
to banana growing. The law reflects recent efforts internationally, led by the UN's
International Labour Organization, to encourage the reform of co-operative
legislation and there is a strong emphasis in the Chinese law on core co-operative
values. The third clause, for example, sets out five principles for farmers' cooperatives, establishing that "the key purpose is to serve members and act in the
common interests of all members" and that "all members are equal and cooperatives are democratically controlled". The law also insists that farmers should
play the dominant role in their co-ops.
Impetus for the new law came from, among others, the International Committee
for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Co-operatives (ICCIC) , which having
been effectively abolished by the state was re-formed in the early 1980s. The
ICCIC also known slightly curiously by its nickname Gung Ho continues to
have both Chinese and western input and operates as a type of non-governmental
organisation. In recent years it has helped run co-operative development projects
funded by, among others, Canadian and New Zealand co-operatives. The ICCIC is
keen to foster genuinely democratic co-operatives, and for a time used to try to
distinguish "real" co-ops from those which were co-operative in name only. Its
approach now is more finessed, but it continues to try to promote co-operative
enterprises which are properly accountable to their members.
The future role of co-operatives in China's economy remains to be written, but Li
Chengyu, the President of ACFSMC, was keen to encourage the co-operative
movement elsewhere to become better informed about developments in China
when he spoke at the UN last October at the launch of the International Year of
Co-operatives. He gave an upbeat assessment of the potential. "As a developing
country, China does not have a co-operative sector as strong as that in developed
countries, particularly in terms of economic prowess and operational expertise."
However, as China opens wider to the outside world in the modernisation drive,
the co-operative movement starts to exhibit strong viability and vitality," he
maintained.
Sumber : http://www.theguardian.com/social-enterprisenetwork/2012/jun/01/china-cooperation-social-responsibility
Diakses tanggal 9 oktober 2014
Cooperative's Status and Role in Rural Area of China
By Yintang Du

Rural Development Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

For the international conference on Co-operative Alternatives to Capitalist
Globalization
2006, South Africa

The Chinese cooperative movement started from the 1920s and has gone
through the three historical development stages.
The first period was from the 1920s to the 1949. During this period the
cooperative movement divided into three branches. The one was the cooperative
movement launched by the people, the second was the cooperative movement
launched by the Kuomingtang government and the third was the cooperative one
launched by the Chinese Communist Party. The cooperatives at this stage were
established as the main agricultural marketing cooperatives and credit ones and
the most of them were at the scattered and experimental stage.
The second development period was from 1949 to 1952. The cooperatives
were mainly set up on the basis of agricultural production cooperatives.
Meanwhile, the Supply and Marketing Cooperative and Rural Credit Cooperative
were also established.
Since 1982 the third development period has began. For this
period China has extensively carried out the system of land contracted and run by
the households in the countryside on the basis of the collective ownership. Under
the condition of the households engaging in agricultural production and
management the original agricultural production cooperatives of the collective
ownership disintegrated one after another. At the same time the farmers
specialized technical associations and farmers specialized cooperatives have
appeared on the farmer voluntary basis. These two organizations are the main
patterns of the Chinese farmers cooperatives at present.

A. Briefly Historical Review

In the early 1920s and 1930s the various experimental cooperatives started
among the people in China. Among them the most famous China and Foreign
Relief Fund, Liang Shuming and Yan Yangchu, conducted cooperative
experiment respectively in Xianghe County of Hebei Province, Zouping County
of Shandong Province and Ding XianCounty of Hebei Province. The cooperatives
established by the China and Foreign Relief Fund were mainly credit ones, and
the most of them developed into more than 10,000. The cooperatives established

by Liang Shuming were mainly agricultural marketing cooperatives, the most of

them developed into over 300. The cooperatives set up by Yan Yangchu were
mainly credit ones and engaged in agricultural marketing and purchase of goods,
the most of them developed into over 100. From the whole the above cooperatives
were mainly established by a number of Chinese excellent intellectuals, and the
number was limited and their cover field was very small.
In addition to the experiment of the non-governmental cooperative, the then
Kuomingtang government launched a series of cooperative experiment in China's
countryside in the 1930s and passed a first cooperative law in the Chinese history.
However, the most of the rural cooperatives promoted and established by the
Kuomintang government accepted landlords and rich peasants as their main
members. The credit cooperatives were main bodies and agricultural marketing
cooperatives and purchase ones occupied a small proportion of them. At that time
the tenant peasants and farm labors who occupied the majority of the rural
population had been basically excluded and hardly benefited from such
cooperatives.
Before 1949 the third branch was the agricultural mutual aid cooperatives
and supply and marketing cooperatives by the Chinese Communist Party in the
revolutionary bases. At that time the revolutionary bases carried out the agrarian
reform, the broad masses of peasants became the land-holding ones. During the
war period the laboring forces were lacked, the agricultural commercialization
level was not high, the peasants universally lacked draught animals, production
tools and industrial goods for daily use. Under such circumstance the Communist
Party government in the revolutionary bases organized the peasants to set up
agricultural production and mutual aid cooperatives and supply and marketing
cooperatives which engaged in exchange of agricultural products and coordinated
surplus and shortage of agricultural products and by-products. Therefore, such
cooperatives were greatly welcomed by the peasants of the revolutionary base.
Although it was, in the pro-liberation period the cooperative movement was
generally in the scattered and small-scale experimental situation in the old China.
Particularly the development of Agricultural marketing cooperatives was not
positively responded by the broad masses of peasants in the large scope. The basic
reasons were two: Firstly, at that time the Chinese agricultural commercialization
level was very low, except for the cotton for the textile industry, the most of
agricultural products were for the peasants' own use, and thus it was not necessary
to organize the cooperatives to sell them, and secondly, in the pro-liberation the
most of Chinese peasants were tenant and farm laborers, they were not
independent producers of commercial goods and to organize the marketing
cooperatives was not in the close interest of them. In the opposite they as tenant
peasants and farm laborers urgently demanded for the reduction of rent and loan

interest. Therefore, the peasants' association whose main purpose was to lead the
peasants to fight for the reduction of reducing rent and loan interest became the
major peasants organization pattern with the extensive basis at that time.
After the liberation in 1949, China carried out the agrarian reform
nationwide, the broad masses of peasants became land-holding ones. On the basis
of land returning to the peasants, the Chinese government led the peasants to
launch production mutual assistance groups and use their land to be a share
holding member of the agricultural production cooperatives afterwards.
Meanwhile, the Supply and Marketing Cooperative and Rural Credit Cooperative
with the peasants hold shares were established nationwide. In 1958 the Chinese
government changed the agricultural production cooperative which carries out the
land share dividends system into the people's commune of the collective
ownership of production means and calculation of payment according to their
work. The original Supply and Marketing Cooperative and the Rural Credit
Cooperative with the peasants hold shares were incorporated in the state-owned
commercial departments and state-owned financial sectors one after another and
broke away from the principle of peasants' voluntary mutual aid. Under the
system of the planned economy, the basic people's communes, Supply and
Marketing Cooperative and Rural Credit Cooperative had not the right to
independently run. The task targets of various production plans, purchase and
sales and deposits had been assigned the basic cooperatives by administrative
means at each level and enforced them to implement. Within the cooperatives
there was no encourage system so that the members and staffers of the
cooperatives lost enthusiasm for production and management. Thus the
cooperatives fell into the difficult position of low efficiency and income falling
short of expenditure.

B. Change of Rural Cooperative Organizational System since the 1980s

1. The Reform of People's Commune System
After the 1980s the original people's commune system rapidly dissolved,
because the system of the household contracted responsibility linking the
remuneration to output was widely pursued in China. The collective properties
constituted under the original people's communes and production brigades were
divided or sold out to the individuals during the process of carrying out the
responsible system of household contracted land, and some of them were reserved
and became the properties of township and village management organizations.
Thus the two-layer system of the household and collective management has been
formed. Except for the original people's commune and brigade enterprises, the
scope of the collective management mainly included production items like

orchards, pasturelands and fish ponds run by the townships and villages and
service items run by the tractor-ploughing teams.
Since the entry into the 1990s, with the reform of economic system being
further pursued, the system of township and village management has further
undergone a change. In the agricultural and service field some collective
management items have become ones run by the individuals or partners through
the contracts. Some of them have become joint-capital ones, because the
contractors have bought shares, offered funds or equipment replcement, and even
some of them have turned into the individual holding business. In the second and
tertiary industries some township and village enterprises have turned into ones of
Share holding cooperative or pure share holding enterprises through the reform of
stock properties and newly added properties which absorbed staff stock and social
stocks. Still some township and village enterprises have become mixed ones
through mutual participation in the stocks and joint management by the stateowned, private and foreign-capital enterprises. Thus the township and village
collective enterprises have not simply been community collective economy and
become the pattern of crisscross, mergence of multiple economic elements and
increasing differentiation and heterogeneous.
2. The Reform of Supply and Marketing Cooperative System
The reform of Supply and Marketing Cooperative system is similar to the
reform of the production field. The system reform of agricultural products
circulation field has realized multiple circulation channels and rearrangement of
Supply and Marketing Cooperative system according to the gradual opening-up of
agricultural products market and final cancellation of the system of state
monopoly for purchase and marketing.
Before 1985 the new arrangement of the internal system of Supply and
Marketing Cooperative was mainly involved in restoring "three characters''
(organizational mass character, management flexibility and democratic
management). Such an arrangement also changed the form of "turning
government ownership into non-government ownership'' and "restored
cooperative nature.'' The implemented measures included two aspects: One was to
clear up shares and share out bonuses, finance to increase stock and restore the
representative conference of the cooperative members and another was that the
quasi-state-owned system of Supply and Marketing Cooperative of the whole
country which used to be conducted unified accounting, turned over their profits
to the state and assumed the responsibility for their profits or losses, and has been
changed into the collective operated system at the basic branches and county
unions of Supply and Marketing Cooperative which now is conducted
independent accounting, assumed the responsibility for the profits and losses and

paid their income taxes. However, before the end of 1985 the reform of "restoring
three characters'', "turning government ownership into non-governmental one'' or
even "resuming cooperative nature'' did not realize its scheduled goal. The main
reason had three aspects: One was that in history the Supply and Marketing
Cooperative merged into the state-owned commerce and broke away from it for
two times, thus leading to the unclear ownership of original money paid for shares
and other huge properties. The second was that a large number of the old staff
members of Supply and Marketing Cooperative had become state staffers and
constituted such a situation of that they took the "iron bowls'' and "messed
together''. The third was that the Supply and Marketing Cooperative carried out
the state task of implementing the policies of levy, assignment and purchase, and
they often appeared as the state agents, but not as the farmers agents. Under such
a circumstance it was difficult for the farmers interests to integrate with them so
that such Supply and Marketing Cooperative could not become a real farmers
commercial cooperative organization.
After 1985 with the state monopoly for purchase and marketing being
cancelled, the Supply and Marketing Cooperative withdrew from some markets of
commercial goods and led to the decrease of economic benefits, increased policy
losses and management ones and the burden for their staff welfare keeping
increasing, but not reduced. This situation forced the Supply and Marketing
Cooperative to embark on the reform road around the economic benefits.
To reverse the trend of economic benefit declination and expansion losses,
the reform of Supply and Marketing Cooperative had been adopted the following
forms from 1985 to 1995: 1. Contracted management. On the basis of checking
the cost and revenue the target of benefit and loss and quota were contracted with
the staff individuals or groups. 2. Renting some properties and selling goods. It
was to rent the fixed assets of business sectors of Supply and Marketing
Cooperative to the staff members to run and sell goods and floating assets to
them. 3. Reform of stock system. To absorb the staff shares, social shares and
external legal persons' shares turned the Supply and Marketing Cooperative into
share holding enterprises or share holding cooperative enterprises. During the
process of the above reforms the arrangement of Supply and Marketing
Cooperative system like the township and village collective business
organizations was gradually differentiated and becoming heterogeneous.
3. The Reform of Rural Credit Cooperative System
The rural credit cooperatives have gone through the process basically similar
to the one of Supply and Marketing Cooperative. Before the reform of the
economic system the rural credit cooperatives were emerged into the agricultural
bank and became the basic branches of the agricultural bank. After the reform of

the rural economic system the credit cooperatives firstly broke away from the
agricultural bank and resumed their cooperative character. Because the credit
cooperatives had only basic ones and did not have cooperative unions, the
financing scope was limited within the counties and townships and their fund
turnover was still controlled by the agricultural bank. Their credit business was
often intervened by the local governments, thus it led to their large management
losses, and they were forced to take the road of the commercial bank in order to
increase their own economic benefits.

C. Development of New farmers Cooperative Organization

After the above reforms the Chinese farmers face a completely new situation.
Because in one aspect the land is contracted to run by the households, the farmers'
enthusiasm for production has greatly been enhanced, the households have
become the main body of production, they have the right to independently choose
what they produce and how they produce, therefore, their demand for new
varieties of production development and new technology increased rapidly. With
the production capability being raised, the supplies of agricultural products have
also greatly increased. In another one because the guide system of the agricultural
production and sales channels under the planned economy have not existed, the
scattered business agricultural households have been in the situation of blind
development of production and disorderly competition. The urban and rural
markets are not perfectly integrated and local markets are separated so that the
phenomenon of surplus and shortage of agricultural products appeared at the
various places at the same time. Under such a situation the farmers' specialized
technological associations and specialized cooperatives as two new farmers
organizations have emerged as the times require.
The largest differences between the cooperatives and associations are: The
associations are non-profitable organizations in charge of spreading technologies
and exchanging information, but the cooperatives are economic entities which are
mainly to marketing agricultural products. According to the statistics of the
Agricultural Ministry at the end of 2003 among the various new farmers'
organizations, the cooperatives were only 5 percent, the associations were 85
percent and share holding cooperatives 10 percent. From the regions new farmers'
organizations have rapidly developed in the eastern and central regions
of China and slowly developed in the western region. Among them the
cooperatives and stock cooperative enterprises are mainly concentrated in the
eastern coast areas.
1. Farmers' Specialized Technological Associations

The farmers' specialized technological association emerged in the early

1980s. According to the statistics of the Chinese Scientific and Technological
Association there were 90,000 farmers' specialized technological associations
inChina by the end of 2004.
On the basis of the background of their formation the farmers' specialized
technological associations generally have five types: The first is initiated and
established by the scientific and technological associations in various places of
China, the second is initiated and established by the government agricultural
technological service organs including the stations of agricultural technology
extension service, the third is initiated and established by the Supply and
Marketing Cooperative, the fourth is initiated and established by the rural skill
specialized households and crackajacks and last one is initiated and set up by the
agricultural products processing enterprises. According to the investigation,
among the 758 members of 14 specialized technological associations in Dayi
County of Sichuan Province, 11 percent of them were official technicians, 9
percent were semi-official technicians, 49 percent were farmer crackajacks and 31
percent were ordinary farmers in 1987. From this the official and semi-official
technicians and farmer technicians played a backbone role in the associations.
Among the above farmers' specialized technological associations, some of them
simply engaged in information exchange activities, some of them provided paid
services and others set up economic entities. According to the related statistics, by
the end of 1991 among the 120,000 agricultural technological associations
in China 50 percent of them had been loose technological exchange ones'', about
40 percent of them had been "economic and technical service ones'', and about 10
percent "economic entities''. Among the economic entities set up by the
associations there were different institutional enterprises. There were cooperative
enterprises, joint-stock enterprises, private and partnership ones. Thus it can be
seen that the farmers' specialized technological associations are largely different
and multiple organizations.
Up to now farmers' specialized technological associations have developed for
more than 30 years. The number of associations set up in all places of China is
large, and they cover wide regions. However, absolute majority of them have still
been at the stage of engaging in information exchanges, spreading technologies
and conducting guidance activities. A few of them have extended their businesses
to the commercial field, but they have also mainly been intermediary agencies.
They only do business occasionally in small scale and do things in their own way.
2. Farmers' Specialized Cooperatives
In addition to the farmers' specialized technological associations, the farmers'
specialized cooperatives are another new-type cooperative organizations which

have developed in recent years. These new-type farmers' specialized cooperatives

early emerged respectively in Shanxi and Shangdong provinces and quickly
developed in the coast provinces.
Similar to the farmers' specialized technological associations, the main
bodies established by the farmers' specialized cooperatives also have multiple
characteristics. Some of them are initiated and established by the Supply and
Marketing Cooperative, state-owned enterprises, village self-rule organizations,
governmental service organs. Some of them are initiatively established by the
farmers and a quite number of them have directly come out from the farmers'
specialized technological associations or specialized technological associations set
up by the agricultural products processing enterprises.
According to the investigation of Hebei provincial agricultural department,
till October of 2003 there were total number of 2694 new farmers' cooperative
organizations in Hebei Province and their members were 1.056 million, making
up 7.4 percent of the total agricultural households; contacted agricultural
households were 3.24 million, making up 22.6 percent of the total agricultural
households. The character of these organizations' initiators were largely divided
into five types: The first was that about 30 percent of the cooperatives were
established by rural skill specialized households, brokers and scientific and
technical crackajacks; the second was about 20 percent of the cooperatives were
established by the rural administrative cadres; the third was that about 18 percent
of the cooperatives were established by large agricultural products processing
enterprises and marketing enterprises, based on the specialized markets and
production districts; the fourth was that about 17 percent of the cooperatives were
set up by the county and township Supply and Marketing Cooperative; and the
fifth was that about 15 percent of the cooperatives were set up by the government
technical service organs.
The pluralistic origin of the farmers' specialized cooperatives has decided the
institutional arrangements are multiple and heterogeneous. The investigation of
typical cases shows that in the proprietary structure the farmers' share and
corporate share respectively occupied for certain proportion in many specialized
cooperatives. In some cases, the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, companies,
enterprises, township and village collectives, and governmental departments own
big share and the cooperative members have a small share, and in some
cooperatives the cooperative members' share holds a major proportion. In the
shares owned by the cooperative members some cooperatives pursue the pattern
of average share or one share one person according to the traditional principle.
Some cooperatives have adopted the form of deducting share funds from the
patronage dividends and constituted proportional shares in conformity with the

trade volume. In some cooperatives, there is no limitation on their members'

shares and the skill specialized households usually own major shares.
In the field of profitable assignment, it is generally stipulated to draw a
certain proportion of accumulation funds and particularly the cooperatives where
the corporate share is big have stipulated the high proportion of accumulation
funds. Some cooperatives have stipulated not to separate the public accumulation
resulted from this. Some cooperatives have stipulated to allocate them to the
members share record book or increase members new shares according to their
original share. After deducting the accumulation funds the profits can be assigned,
some cooperatives have adopted the form of limiting the share interests and other
profits are returned to members as the patronage dividends according to their trade
volume. Some cooperatives have adopted the pattern of assigning partial profits
according to the shares and partial profits are returned to members as the
patronage dividends according to their trade volume. Among them the assigned
proportions based on shares ranged from 10 percent to 50 percent. A few
cooperatives assign all the profits according to the shares. Some cooperatives set
up by Supply and Marketing Cooperative have adopted the pattern of freely
buying share and withdrawing them, and those who have bought shares over the
one year can draw profitable dividends. Their interest rate of drawing extra
dividends are a number of percentages higher than the deposit interest one of the
bank. Those who have bought shares for less a year can draw their interest rate
according to that of the bank. Thus there is not big differences between the buying
shares and deposit in the bank.
In management a large number of cooperatives have established the system
of members' representative conference, council and supervisory committee. In the
cooperatives in which the corporate shares are big the corporate representatives
often take the posts of council directors or deputy directors and appoint managers
to control the right to decision-making and management of the cooperatives. In
the cooperatives set up by the farmers' specialized associations and by the farmers
themselves a large number of technical crackajacks or skill specialized households
take the posts of council directors or cooperative managers, and these
cooperatives have well conducted the democratic management and carried out the
system of one vote one person.
Although the present farmers' specialized cooperatives have big differences
in the arrangement of their internal system, they have common characteristics.
One of them is that in these cooperatives farmer members preserve the status of
their independent producers, voluntarily join the cooperatives and freely withdraw
from them, and this is entirely different from the past collective-owned economy.
The second of them is that these cooperatives receive the skill specialized
households as their members, engaging in the management of specific agricultural

products. The cooperatives and their members have allied relations of coexistence
and co-prosperity, and this is entirely different from the past Supply and
Marketing Cooperative. The third of them is that in addition to that the specialized
cooperatives hosted by Supply and Marketing Cooperative carry out the system of
guaranteeing interest and drawing extra dividends, the most of specialized
cooperatives return more or less profits to their members as the patronage
dividends according to the trade volume, thus having close interest relations with
the farmers. It is just these characteristics that the specialized cooperatives have a
strong appeal to the farmers.

D. The Role of Farmers' Specialized Cooperatives in China's Rural

Development
The Chinese farmers' specialized cooperatives have played multiple roles in
organizing the farmers to jointly richen:
First, these cooperatives have played a big role in spreading new
technologies and new varieties. In the past the peasants of the most of Chinese
areas mainly grew grain for generation after generation, used backward farming
technique and low-yield varieties. They had a little surplus agricultural products to
sell on the local markets, and the most of them had fallen in the poor situation.
According to the statistics by the State Statistical Bureau before 1985 the poor
population in China's countryside was 250 million. In recent years with a large
number of farmers' specialized technological associations emerging and new
technique of agricultural production and new varieties being quickly spread and
popularized, the farmers in many places have turned to grow vegetables, fruits and
cash crops from simply growing grain. Their mode of production has changed into
specialization and mechanization. In the past the grain of per Mu (a unit of area,
equal to 0.0667 hectare) grain yield was about 1,000 Jin ( a unit of weight, equal
to a half of kilogram) and the net income was 300-400 Yuan (Reminbi) after
deduction of the cost. At present the net income of per Mu vegetables and fruits
can amount to 1,000-3,000 Yuan, even more. With the production capability being
enhanced and production structure improved, in 2004 the rural poor population
of China decreased to 64 million.
Secondly, these cooperatives have played a great role in organizing the farmers to
enter into market and raising added value of agricultural products. In the past a
large number of peasants of China were a family as a household, scattered to run
and produced on a small scale. Their agricultural products could sell only in local
fairs or sold to the mobile pedlars. The price of agricultural products was slightly
higher than the production cost and the cost of laboring forces. All the profits of
processing and sales were earned by the middlemen and processing enterprises.

After the establishment of the farmers' cooperatives the agricultural products

produced by the small agricultural households can sell into far markets on a large
scale through the cooperatives, the profits of processing and sales can been drawn
through the cooperatives and the dividends are returned to the agricultural
households. According to the survey by the Agricultural Ministry, the average net
income of those who have taken part in the agricultural cooperatives are 300-400
Yuan higher than those who did not join the cooperatives due to the improvement
of the conditions of agricultural products exchanges.
Thirdly, the farmers' capability to resist the market risk is enhanced. With the
level of agricultural mechanization being constantly raised in recent years, the
regional and periodic agricultural products surplus on the domestic markets has
sometimes arisen. When the supply of some agricultural products falls short to
demand and the market is tight, some commercial companies and enterprises have
signed a lot of contracts with the farmers to expand production for their own
profits. Once the great deal of agricultural products are on the market, these
companies and enterprises force the price down to purchase these products, even
scrap their contracts signed with the farmers and refuse to purchase or withdraw
their funds to transfer them. This has brought about the unexpected losses and
market risk upon the farmers. In order to deal with such a situation, the farmers in
some places have initiatively organized cooperatives and safeguard their own
right and interest with the contracts of these cooperative with companies and
enterprises. When the companies and enterprises force the price down and refuse
to purchase, these cooperatives organize to sell and process by themselves and
play a role in stabilizing the market and production, reducing the market risk and
farmers' losses.
Although the new farmers' specialized cooperatives have developed in China,
many problems still exist at present.
First, up to now there is no law on the cooperative inside of China which
definitely stipulates the legal status of the farmers' specialized cooperatives and
especially does not give their legal status of enterprise corporate. Thus it is
difficult for the farmers' specialized cooperatives to launch normal business
activities and prevent their development.
Next, in history the Chinese government had taken the rural cooperatives as a
mode of social transformation and deprived the farmers' initiative right to produce
and manage and come along many tortuous roads, thus causing misunderstanding
and bias toward the cooperatives from the people. Therefore, it is brought about
the ideological and opinion obstacles upon the reorganization of the rural
cooperatives.

Third, because there is no law on the cooperatives and there are no

government guidance and typical example, the development of Chinese farmers'
specialized cooperatives is not standard. The internal proprietary relations of
many cooperatives, management ways and assignment system do not conform
with the international current cooperative principles.
Fourth, the development of many farmers' specialized cooperatives is at the
initial stage and their scale is small. These cooperatives lack professional talents
and management experience and have not established extensive allied and
network relations. In the market competition with the big companies and
enterprises they are in an unfavorable position.
Fifth, the cooperatives' capital strength is weak, their circulating funds are
universally not enough and their financial development is stagnant. All these
seriously prevent the farmers' specialized cooperatives from developing and
become stronger.
In the light of above issues, the Chinese government is now speeding up to
draft the law on the farmers' specialized cooperative and working to formulate the
corresponding favorable policies toward them. It is believable that with the
Chinese economic systematic reform deepening, the above issues will be resolved
one by one in the near future.
Sumber : http://www.gungho.org.cn/en-info-show.php?infoid=644
Diakses tanggal 9 oktober 2014
Gung Ho and Cooperatives in China
By Robert Ware, Prof. Emeritus in Philosophy, Calgary
The International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial
Cooperatives (ICCIC), known as Gung Ho, is a remarkable organization that
promotes and supports producer cooperatives throughout China. From its
founding, over seventy years ago, Gung Ho has encouraged and sustained - with
international support - industrial, agricultural and other cooperatives with training,
assessment, and funding and many other services.
Gung Ho, in its contemporary form, was re-registered in 1987, with the Ministry
of Civil Affairs as an international non-profit organization. It is a democratically
structured organization with Chinese and international members. The members
are mostly individuals but some are organizations, cooperatives, and federations.
Members establish plans and policies and appoint an executive at their annual
general meetings. The organization is now following its second five-year plan for

the development of its network and the promotion of cooperatives in China. Its
members are principled cooperants; many would regard themselves as socialists.
The name, Gung Ho, uses the Chinese words meaning "working together," and
their motto adds "working hard," the meaning of the English word which was
derived from the Chinese in the period of the organization's inception. I found this
combination of working hard and working together strongly in effect when, in
July 2010, I revisited friends in Beijing at Gung Ho, including Michael Crook, its
Vice Chair. I also had occasion to meet Du Yintang, Gung Ho's Secretary
General.
I have watched Gung Ho, since its revival in the late 1980s, go from halting steps
of rejuvenation to its present dynamism. It supports cooperatives and their legal
framework in China and develops ties with organizations throughout the world. It
is an organization that needs to be better known both internationally and inside
China.
Gung Ho was founded in 1938 by a group of influential foreign experts in China
and by Chinese patriots to mobilize a resistance industry against the Japanese
occupation of China. Once established, the Gung Ho movement played an
important role in giving material support to diverse groups in the Chinese United
Front against Japanese forces. At the same time it helped to sustain the United
Front and to delay its eventual breakup.
Rewi Alley, the famous New Zealander, was one of the founders of Gung Ho,
along with his friends Edgar and Helen Snow, the well-known chroniclers of Mao
Zedong and Chinese Communism. Others quickly joined. From the beginning
Gung Ho gained respectability from the backing of Mme. Soong Ching Ling
(widow of Dr. Sun Yatsen) and her banker brother. It was also strongly supported
by Soong Meiling, wife of General Chiang Kaishek, leader of the Guomindang.
At the same time, Gung Ho and Rewi Alley, as its technical advisor, got the full
support of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and other Communist leaders. The United
Front brought together two groups with very different sympathies. Both sides
recognized the effective work of industrial cooperatives and the role of Gung Ho
in organizing, funding, and guiding the cooperatives. (Some cooperatives had
already been established in China by the parties separately.)
At the peak of the movement to build cooperatives in Gung Ho's early years, it
oversaw close to 3000 Gung Ho cooperatives whose members numbered from a
few workers to several hundred. The original plan was for much greater numbers,
but that was unachievable due to the difficulties of the war of resistance and the
precariousness of the United Front.

The Gung Ho cooperatives produced hundreds of products in over fifty types of

industry including "textiles, blanket factories, printing shops, transport
cooperatives, small iron plants, foundries, coal and gold mines, chemical plants,
electrical machinery plants, and factories for making medicines, army uniforms,
grenades, animal-drawn carts and tents." (Rewi Alley, An Autobiography
(Beijiing, New World Press, 1986, 3rd edition 1997, p. 174) One million blankets
were made for the Guomindang. All sorts of products, in smaller numbers, were
sent to the front for the guerilla armies of the Communist Party.
An international committee was formed to seek foreign support for the movement.
This committee was made up of Chinese and foreign Chinese experts, including
Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge biologist and author of a massive
history of Chinese science, who has become better known through Simon
Winchester's The Man Who Loved China. Many other important foreign
supporters were active in Gung Ho. General Stilwell, Chief of the Allied Staff
arranged for some small mechanized shops to be flown in for cooperatives serving
the Eighth Route Army of the Communist Party.
Through the work of promotion committees that were set up in many countries,
including the United States and Canada, during the war years in China (1930s and
'40s), Gung Ho received almost ten million US dollars in cash and goods. Many
skilled volunteers from around the world came to China to help.
The vast internationally-supported network of cooperatives served both sides of
the Chinese divide, Mao Zedong's Communist forces and Chiang Kaishek's
Guomindang forces under the United Front. But the United Front faltered due to
corruption, excessive bureaucracy (especially in the Guomindang), mutual
suspicions and mistrust, and irreconcilable differences of ideologies. With the
egalitarian nature of cooperative production and the organization of large number
of workers, especially peasant workers, the cooperative movement sided much
more with the Communists, who in any case became the dominant power.
In the end, the Communist Party became the only practical option. Gung Ho
cooperatives began to dwindle towards the end of the war, but those that
continued served workers and peasants and the Chinese economy through
liberation in 1949 and into the early years of the new China. In the 1950s, the
whole Chinese economy was reorganized into collectives and then communes,
along with revolutionary committees in factories, during the Cultural Revolution
of 1966-76. Production in cooperatives was replaced by the new universal model
of socialist production in people's communes.
This closed a dramatic and venturesome period for Gung Ho and the cooperatives
it supported, assisted, and advised. From the late 1950s, there was a long hiatus in
its operation until its revival, beginning in 1983. In the mid-1980s there was also a

change in the economy in China, with 'new responsibility' systems. The collective
farming of people's communes was replaced by a system of household farming
and various forms of marketing by individual families. Various cooperative forms
of agriculture grew from the individual household farming. Some state-owned
factories with collective production became township enterprises, foreign-owned
companies in special zones, and private industries of various forms. Some of these
also had a large component of state ownership. Even state-owned companies took
a variety of forms as ownership laws developed and shifted.
With the uncertainty created by the disbanding of communes there arose a variety
of technological associations and specialized cooperatives. The forms that they
took depended on the variety of sources that established them. Cooperatives were
mostly formed by skilled individuals, technological groups, marketing
cooperatives, village enterprises, administrative cadres, or government service
groups. The result was a heterogeneity of cooperatives in structure, size,
principles, and governance. A diversity of experiments and models arose
throughout China, although cooperatives were concentrated on the eastern coast.
It was in this period of development and uncertainty that Gung Ho was revived,
backed by pioneers from the past and new supporters of cooperative work. Rewi
Alley was again at the forefront. It was Alley's lifelong belief that a "Gung Ho
cooperative is a group in which all members have a share, take full responsibility
for profits or losses, and appoint their own officers. It is ... an organization ... for
the mass of ordinary people to whom the idea of working together has a powerful
and comforting appeal." (Alley, p. 310)
In 1982, he told the alumni of the Shandan school (established in 1940 partly to
support the cooperative movement) that success comes from "struggling to gain
the objective view, training oneself, gathering knowledge and experience, learning
how to work in cooperation with others, [and] retaining the humility of Zhou
Enlai." (Alley, p. 307)
In very short time, old cooperatives resumed activity and new ones formed.
Hundreds of cooperatives were soon operating with many provincial chapters of
Gung Ho. Some of the cooperatives struggled to follow the strong cooperative
principles to which Alley and his friends were committed. In 1987, I visited
several cooperatives that fell short of good cooperative work and management.
Much has changed since then, especially in the cooperatives promoted by Gung
Ho.
The needs that Gung Ho serves now are different from those at its founding, when
the work was urgent and adventurous. There are now many cooperatives in China,
and many of them need help in developing good policies and governance. Gung
Ho still helps establish some cooperatives, as in the case of the irrigation and tea

growing cooperatives in the 2010 Pengzhou earthquake area. Now, however, with
the end of government funding, the skilled, but small, staff is more focused on
assessing, training, and the promotion of good cooperative governing principles.
Gung Ho is now engaged in the slower, more mundane work of establishing
democratic cooperative workplaces with socialist ownership. These goals are
urgent and important for those who are committed to the ideals of cooperative
production and workers control and the cultures that support those ideals definitely those in Gung Ho.
A very important factor for Chinese cooperatives in general and Gung Ho in
particular is the Farmers' Specialized Cooperative Law that was passed by the
National People's Congress and promulgated in 2007. The law was the result of
interested and dedicated individuals working in the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference, the parallel policy organization of fraternal democratic
parties.
This law in many ways makes the work of Gung Ho easier, as Michael
Crook, Gung Ho's dynamic and committed Vice Chair, told me. Cooperatives are
now recognized legally and supported politically. Gung Ho can operate in an
established network. It is a drawback that the law is limited to agricultural
cooperatives, but a major goal of Gung Ho is to promote further laws that would
apply to other parts of the economy.
In July 2010, I was accompanied by my old friend Lu Wanru (of the Chinese
People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries), a friend of Rewi
Alley and a former Vice Chair of Gung Ho, on a visit to the sparse but active
headquarters of the organization where I was briefed by Du Yintang, Gung Ho's
knowledgeable and efficient Secretary General. (Many Gung Ho activities are
outlined in its well maintained website: http://www.iccic.org.cn/en-index.php ,
where there are discussions of past projects, recent assemblies, and future
development plans.)
The 2007 law on cooperatives, as Du explained, allows individual ownership of
up to 40% of the shares within the cooperative structure, often skewing the nonhierarchical democratic side of the cooperatives. (Elsewhere, I was told that
various government stimulus packages to promote farmers cooperatives have led
to some private entrepreneurs masquerading as cooperatives.) Gung Ho has to
work around many complexities of contemporary Chinese cooperatives to
promote cooperative production and governance by equal participation and votes.
Without strong organizational principles, and sometimes even with them, money
biases productive and governing methods. Cooperative work and democratic
governance often suffers from such pressures of unequal ownership and the lack

of cooperant attention to it. Naturally, Gung Ho has had to struggle with such
problems, but the organization has clear principles and is dedicated to fostering
genuine cooperatives.
Despite limitations, the law on cooperatives has been important and certainly
partially accounts for the dramatic increase of cooperatives in China in recent
years. In 2009, there were almost 250,000 agricultural cooperatives in the country
as a whole, with about 21 million households. In Beijing alone, there are 3,406
agricultural cooperatives with over 425,000 households. The Ministry of
Agriculture, along with other ministries of the central government, has called for
demonstration cooperatives with the improvement of democratic management
being the priority.
Gung Ho worked with the Beijing Rural Economy Operation Administration
Station to assess and give guidance to cooperatives in the Beijing suburbs. This is
an ongoing project that has been very important. (See the report on the Gung Ho
website.) In this case, Gung Ho's international connections have been significant
in its success.
In a Canada-China cooperative project, ICCIC partnered with the Canadian CoOperative Association (CCA) to create a Chinese version of a cooperative
development ladder assessment tool, which serves to assess how well a
cooperative has developed the ideals of a genuine producer cooperative. The
assessment mechanism used by the CCA was reworked to fit Chinese culture and
conditions and is now used in the ongoing assessment of cooperatives in Beijing
and elsewhere.
Gung Ho is further developing its international links. In 2010, Gung Ho joined the
International Cooperative Association. Beyond the Canada-China projects and
relations with organizations in other countries, members have visited Mondragon
and other cooperatives abroad and have participated in international conferences.
The international connections will be further promoted by the United Nation's
International Year of Cooperatives in 2012.
Gung Ho takes its international work seriously. It benefits from international
cooperation and provides lessons from Chinese experiences for others. I
appreciated the time that Du Yintang took with me as a foreign visitor. Later, in
August, he and other members of the organization briefed Noam Chomsky (on
Chomsky's first visit to China) about Gung Ho and then discussed with him the
importance of cooperatives throughout the world.
In China, especially, there is a rich variety of cooperatives, which come from a
multiplicity of sources and institutions and a long persistent history of working
together. Furthermore, this is in the context of state-owned enterprises and private

enterprises, both domestic and foreign and many with state support. This diversity
and heterogeneity is true of most of what a careful observer finds in China,
locally, provincially, and nationally rather than an authoritarian uniformity. It is
important to consider the institutional forces and pressures in China that influence
cooperatives and supporting organizations like Gung Ho.
Legal Structure
With a sectoral (agricultural) national law, and additional laws at the provincial
level, Gung Ho gets strength in the legal structure of policy and bureaus.
(Although, some of the gains have been compromised by the loss of central state
funding.) There are interests (in national and local ministries and bureaus, in the
Consultative Conference, in technical associations, and in civil society) pushing
for broader laws encompassing cooperatives beyond the agricultural sector,
especially in the industrial and financial sectors.
Political Culture
The political culture promoted by Mao of 'serving the people' and the
constitutional recognition of China as a socialist country makes cooperatives
reasonable. Gung Ho is operating in a country of rich dynamism and pluralism, a
variety of strong socialist forces, and a state-party complex that calls for
"harmonious socialist developments," in the current terminology, while promoting
progressive socialist projects.
Historical Context
There is a long history in China of dependence on and dedication to collective
activity, especially in the countryside. Collective activity is still important for
farmers who are seen, and see themselves, as agents of change in modern China.
The historical mission of Gung Ho is still "to make cooperatives an important
backbone of the Chinese economy and coordinated social development." (From
the Second Development Plan of ICCIC (2010-2015): Basic Principles)
Economic Circumstances
The shifting economic circumstances with continuing growth and sluggish
employment makes cooperation especially desirable. The economy is still the
focus of attention, from new experiments to workers' actions to scientific
development. There is need for more experiments in cooperative production and
room for model cooperatives, one of many Gung Ho projects. There are also many
new sectors of the economy ripe for establishing cooperatives, another part of
Gung Ho's mission in their second five-year plan.

The particular nature of the International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese
Industrial Cooperatives (Gung Ho) makes it the ideal organization for developing
a strong network of cooperatives across economic sectors throughout China. Its
international connections are strong and developing. It is trying now to establish a
partnership with fair-trade labeling. It is also trying to promote domestic links, for
example with university students in China.
Cooperatives in China are productive experiments within the broader experiments
in Chinese-style socialism. They help show that there are alternative economies,
but they also show that there can be better work environments and participatory
forms of governance in both state and private workplaces.
Gung Ho is playing a leading role in helping both the productive experiments and
the social experiments work in progressive ways. It is eager to learn from others
and grateful for support, just as the rest of us can benefit from following and
learning from its successes, and difficulties.
The permanent link to this issue is http://geo.coop/node/603.
Photos courtesy of Gung Ho.

Sumber : http://www.geo.coop/node/603
Diakses tanggal 9 oktober 2014