Online meetings spread governance to remote village residents far and wide

GUIYANG — As night settled over remote Zhouzhai village in Southwest China's Guizhou province, locals gathered for the scheduled village meeting, though not in a hall or square but in a livestream group on the popular Chinese short-video app Douyin.

People hailing from this mountain village in Sinan county, scattered across the country from factory dormitories in Guangdong province to university campuses in distant cities, could be seen joining the meeting online to discuss matters that directly affected their lives, from reimbursement of medical bills to the future of the local sweet potato industry.

At a recent similar meeting on Dec 27, village official Zhang Cheng faced the camera to report on local affairs and answer questions in real time for villagers.

"Medical insurance premiums will be paid by individuals first and then reimbursed by the village collective," Zhang explained during the livestream. On another agenda, he cautioned: "Extravagant feasts are strictly forbidden; violators will temporarily lose access to collective benefits." At times, village doctors also give livestreamed lectures sharing healthcare tips.

Zhang has been a central figure in the village's transformation from an isolated community to a frontrunner in e-commerce and digitally empowered public governance.

In 2018, Zhang, who had been working in the construction sector in Guiyang, the provincial capital, returned home to start a business. He led villagers in developing the sweet potato industry and founded Guizhou Jialijia Agricultural Development Co, aiming to build an integrated industrial chain covering planting, processing and sales.

Thanks to livestreaming, the village's sour and spicy instant noodles, made from sweet potato powder, have become popular online. The product lines today cover over 40 varieties of noodles, with monthly orders exceeding one million packets. As a result, the villagers' per capita disposable income has risen from 7,600 yuan ($1,091) in 2018 to 28,000 yuan in 2024.

With economic growth has come new expectations. After Zhang was elected secretary of the village committee of the Communist Party of China, he sought to involve more villagers in local affairs, especially those working away for much of the year.

Participation had once been tepid, and it was becoming impractical to ask empty-nest seniors to move about on dark evenings. The village, therefore, decided to harness existing social media exposure and the widespread use of mobile phones among the locals to livestream their meetings.

In April 2024, the village committee held its first online meeting via livestream. The response exceeded expectations. The real-time audience grew from just a few dozen at the start to a peak of over 20,000, and the reach extended to 95 percent of the village's households.

Besides discussing topics set in advance, village committee members also responded to comments during the livestream, while unresolved matters were followed up afterward by phone or in person.

To date, the village has held 19 livestreamed meetings, with cumulative views exceeding one million. The online meetings, usually held at 8 pm on the last Saturday each month, have collected 65 suggestions, which have all been addressed.

"Watching the meeting live made me feel connected to home," commented one university student. Many other viewers felt the same way and wrote on social media, "This is such an innovative way of governance" and "The benefits are real, and everything is transparent".

This novel form of village meeting aligns with China's push to modernize rural governance by harnessing the rise of digital technology. In the country's plan to revitalize the countryside from 2024 to 2027, both the digital countryside and the modernization of rural governance are highlighted as key objectives.

"The internet is reshaping social governance. The application of digital technology in rural vitalization could bridge the rural-urban divide and ensure that more farmers benefit from equitable development," said Li Huahong, a researcher at the Guizhou Academy of Social Sciences.

Xinhua