Seeding Prosperity
After the successful effort to eradicate extreme poverty, China is pivoting to large-scale solutions for entrenched rural issues which have caused a large gap with urban areas
On February 21, China's central government released this year's “No.1 central document.” The first policy statement released by central authorities each year, the document is an indicator of the country's annual policy priorities. The document, while it lists agriculture, rural areas and farmers' issues as China's top priorities for the 18th consecutive year, stresses that the country will “make [the] comprehensive advancement of rural revitalization a major task in realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and accelerate the modernization of agriculture and the countryside.”
As China announced it has successfully alleviated extreme poverty in impoverished counties by the end of 2020, the country is reorienting to ensure its achievements are sustained.
Wang Sangui, president of the China Poverty Alleviation Research Institute of the Renmin University of China in Beijing, told Newschina that this year's No.1 central document provides more diverse policies and has adopted some new wording. Some policies were proposed in the past, but in this new document, they are more systematic, have clarified targets and are easier to roll out.
Key Transition
The document proposes consolidating and expanding poverty relief achievements and integrating them into the rural revitalization program. In counties that have already shaken off poverty, a five-year transition will allow a gradual policy shift from poverty alleviation toward promoting rural revitalization. This indicates a transfer in focus to the broader issues of “agriculture, rural areas and farmers.”
In an interview with Newschina, Lei Ming, a professor at the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, said that “transition” was a key word in this year's No.1 central document. According to Lei, how to achieve this transition is the next step.
Lei said that during the five-year transition, it will be important to build complete and stable long-term mechanisms as soon as possible. This will require a dynamic monitoring mechanism to prevent a slide back into extreme poverty and long-term solutions to build on existing achievements. Eradicating extreme poverty still provides just enough for basic living expenses, so enhancing rural incomes is key to giving rural dwellers the capability to improve their lives and avoid slipping back into poverty. The five-year transition will allow poverty eradication approaches to develop into revitalization work, Lei said.
Dang Guoying, a researcher at the Institute of Rural Development with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, shares the same view. It will take much more than short-term measures to solve the basic problems that cause poverty, thus a transition period is needed, Dang said.
In this regard, the document states it is necessary to promote planting and animal husbandry industries, facilitate and organize labor export, adhere to and improve cooperation between eastern and western regions and help more low-income people access local employment opportunities.
Lei believes that in five years, efforts in rural areas will eliminate the risks of vulnerable groups returning to poverty or becoming trapped in it.
Structural Changes
At the end of the poverty alleviation campaign, the office that oversaw the mission, the State Council Poverty Alleviation Office, underwent a critical transformation. As the focus on agriculture, rural areas and farmers needs to shift from concentrating resources on poverty alleviation to promoting rural revitalization, according to Wang Sangui, a new organization called the National Rural Revitalization Bureau (NRRB) was set up in its stead.
From the information available, the new organization will retain the staff, internal department settings and its administrative position related to other government organizations.
The goals of rural revitalization and poverty relief are significantly different. Poverty alleviation targeted people below the poverty line,
while rural revitalization covers all aspects relating to agriculture, rural areas and farmers' issues. Policy system construction, resource allocation and organizational support adapt as the target scope expands. Lei suggested that the experience of the former poverty alleviation office in overcoming poverty can be built upon, but the functions of the NRRB should be expanded.
These functions may include the formulation of public policies for rural revitalization, plans to allocate funds and coordinating departments to promote rural revitalization and development, as well as supervision of rural revitalization policies and departments at the grass-roots level.
Wang said that previously, rural revitalization was considered the responsibility of the agricultural sector so it did not need a designated bureau. “We can see from this that the central government attaches great importance to this. It indicates a recognition that rural revitalization is a comprehensive problem which will require coordination among all departments and stakeholders to solve.”
County Focus
Rural revitalization was proposed for the first time in the Report of the 19th National People's Congress in 2017. In September 2018, the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council issued the Strategic Plan for Rural Revitalization (2018-2022), which requires all departments across the country to implement it.
According to targets set out by the Central Rural Work Conference held in late December 2020 in Beijing, by 2035, there will be decisive progress on rural revitalization and agricultural and rural areas will be basically modernized. By 2050, rural revitalization will be fully attained, achieving the goal of strengthening agriculture, constructing a beautiful countryside and enriching farmers. This year's No.1 central document includes and elaborates more policy arrangements on how to achieve these goals.
The document proposes speeding up the modernization of agriculture, including ensuring the supply of grain and major agricultural products, enhancing the seed industry, retaining a red line of 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares) of arable land, and building a modern rural industrial system.
Regarding countryside beautification, the document states it is necessary to vigorously implement rural construction plans, including speeding up village planning, strengthening infrastructure, upgrading essential public services and speeding up integration of urban and rural development within the county domain.
While enriching farmers is closely linked to both goals, agricultural modernization particularly targets income improvement.
Dang Guoying told Newschina that “county” is another key word highlighted in the document, but it was largely ignored. The document states that to “build the whole agricultural industry chain and retain the main body of the industrial chain within the county seat,” the whole county should be regarded as an important entry point for the integration and development of urban and rural areas, the county economy should be enhanced, and the comprehensive service capacity of the county seat should be strengthened. To promote the county seat as an important carrier of urbanization, construction of the county seat should be in accordance with the standards of small cities.
Dang said that as the agricultural industrial chain is very long, if the chain is concentrated in big cities, farmers will have difficulty finding local employment. He suggested that most of the agricultural industry chain should be placed at the county level, and the role of the county should be strengthened. In the future, the State should guide industrial departments suitable for county development to invest in them and expand public sector investment in counties.
Zhang Qi, president of the China Poverty Alleviation Research Institute of Beijing Normal University, agrees. He told Newschina that while poverty alleviation targets the problems faced by villages and individual households, future efforts will focus on the county as a basic unit for development.
Lei told the reporter that rural revitalization faces challenges in terms of competent people and capital resources. Village decay is a major problem in rural China, and cities have sucked in people, money and resources, resulting in significant disparities between rural and urban areas. For rural revitalization, how to gather resources, and in particular attract human resources, is critical.
Another issue is where the money comes from. Poverty relief is like a sprint that can be overcome by the injection of financial resources. Rural revitalization will take nearly 30 years, thus it is necessary to form a regular mechanism, he said.
Lei believes the central government should adjust its previous leading role in overcoming poverty to a position of guiding and mobilizing more social funds and actors to participate in rural revitalization.
“The key issue for rural revitalization is people, and it should be based on local solutions to promote human resources. So they should urgently encourage local leading figures to create better career platforms,” Lei said.