In the cold winter of 1972, a schoolteacher in a poor Chinese village asked his whole class: “The U.S. president, Nixon, and his adviser Dr. Kissinger will be in China.

The county government demanded villages "donate" money starting in 2010, with each village forced to give between 6,000 and 10,000 yuan depending on their size, it added.

Residents of a village in China's northwest Shaanxi province have elected a 19-year-old as village chief. Bai Yitong, part of a new wave of young, educated village officials, is taking innovative ...