Villagers' Committees are not a level of government. Instead, they are defined as an establishment of self-governance in rural China.

In law, heads and members of such committees should be chosen through direct elections, and the committees themselves operate under direct oversight by villagers.

As a well-touted example of grassroots democracy in present-day China, these committees carry considerable hopes for the growth of genuine democracy on our soils.

Having ordinary people taking care of their own concerns via their own elected representatives is indeed a promising break from the traditional Chinese ways of administration.

Yet, as is obvious in the cases of abuse by village cadres investigated by the local judiciary in the past five years in Hangzhou, mere forms of democracy are no guarantee of democratic and clean governance.

In the past five years, 75 village cadres in Hangzhou were found guilty of power abuse, most commonly in the forms of accepting bribes and the embezzlement of public funds.

This confirms the popular belief that where there is public money there is also corruption. But with the direct supervision of villagers, corruption is more visible at the village level, and therefore more easily prevented.

Some might be eager to cite these examples as evidence that democracy does not fit Chinese realities. But that would be an erroneous conclusion.

That such abuse has taken place shows the democratic designs have failed to work as expected. It is a worrisome sign that the otherwise wonderful mechanisms of community self-governance have in some places been reduced to nominal existence.

Instead of questioning the validity of democratic experiments in rural China, we should try to make sure the democratic devices work as they are supposed to.