A Survey of the Chinese Peasants
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| Author | Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao |
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| Translator | Zhu Hong |
| Country | China |
| Language | Chinese |
| Publisher | (Eng. trans.) PublicAffairs |
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Publication date
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January 2004 |
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Published in English
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June 2006 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 256 pp (Eng. trans. edition) |
| ISBN | |
Will the Boat Sink the Water?:The Life of China's Peasants, is a 2006 non-fiction book authored by husband and wife team Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao. It is the English translation of Zhongguo Nongmin Diaocha (中国农民调查, “An Investigation of Chinese Peasants”), published in Chinese in 2004.
The book features four cases of villages where there was excessive extraction of taxes and the like by local CCP cadres and peasant protest in response to this, in the poorer parts of predominantly rural Anhui province. It then provides a more analytical discussion of the historical background and the institutional sources of the conflicts between the local CCP leadership and the peasantry.
Excerpts of the Chinese-language edition of "An Investigation of Chinese Peasants" was published in late 2003 in China, selling roughly 100,000 copies. When the full-length publication was released in January 2004, it sold nearly 200,000 copies in under two months. In March 2004, the book was banned in the People’s Republic of China. Despite the ban, it became an “underground mega-bestseller,” according to the Asia Times, selling more than 7 million unlicensed copies as of 2005. Copies of the book can reportedly be found in some of China's bookshops for 22 yuan (US $2.65).
Will the Boat Sink the Water garnered favorable reviews, and was the recipient of the 2004 Lettre Ulysses Award.
An Investigation of Chinese Peasants had a considerable impact within mainland China. According to Joseph Kahn of the New York Times, it "stirred consciousness of how the country’s fantastic economic growth had left behind the roughly two-thirds of the Chinese people who are still tied, directly or indirectly, to the land." A reviewer with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences describe the book as an "alarm bell," speaking to the state of Chinese society as a whole. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, known for his populist policies oriented towards easing the rural-urban divide, reportedly keeps a copy of the book on his bedside table, according to a top adviser. Under the rule of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, policies were implemented to ease some of the sources of discontent in rural China. Notably, Wen Jiaobao abolished the main agricultural tax. Joseph Kahn suggests that Chen and Wu's book may deserve some credit for these policies.
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