Beijing News (reporter Tian Jiexiong) What are the main points that need to be paid attention to in this year's Central Document No. 1? How to establish a competitive rural industrial system? To improve the level of rural public services, how can we achieve a real balance between urban and rural services and guarantees? In response to these key issues, a reporter from the Beijing News interviewed Dang Guoying, a senior researcher at the Institute of Rural Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Dang Guoying: Researcher, Institute of Rural Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Research Direction: Rural Institutional Change
Beijing News: Promoting agricultural and rural modernization is the main theme of China's rural work in recent years, and this year's No. 1 document of the Central Committee once again emphasizes this grand goal. What do you think are the main points of attention in this year's Document One?
Dang Guoying: In general, the new document still reflects the continuity of rural policies, and at the same time, according to the changing situation and understanding, it also puts forward some specific guidelines for the implementation of new policies in some aspects. This year coincides with the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan, and rural policies also need to be effectively linked with other policies in accordance with the deployment of large-scale economic development.
As a researcher of rural development, I am accustomed to understanding official documents from my own perspective, not necessarily comprehensively. I believe that the main thrust of the document, including some new policy adjustments, can be addressed in three ways. The first is to improve the quality and efficiency of agriculture as the key to promoting China's agricultural modernization; the second is to improve social equality as the goal, so that poverty alleviation and rural revitalization continue to be carried out, under the new policy operation mechanism of improving the low-income population in rural areas, to achieve coordinated development of urban and rural areas, and to consolidate the results of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way; the third is to implement rural construction actions, with increasing investment in the rural public sector as a means to improve the level of rural modernization. Compared with the past, the central document proposes clearer and more operational policy measures in these three aspects. Some of the contents of the document are put forward on the basis of summing up the experience of rural development in recent years, which has a strong practical pertinence and is worthy of attention.
Beijing News: The document points out that it is necessary to "build a rural industrial system and leave the industry in the county", but in fact, most of the rural industrial systems at this stage are very weak, so in your opinion, how to establish a competitive rural industrial system?
Dang Guoying: "Build the whole agricultural industrial chain and leave the main body of the industrial chain in the county", this formulation is in line with the law of agricultural economy, and it is also realistically targeted. The total value-added value of the agricultural industry chain is far more than the planting link in the field. In the transportation of agricultural products and agricultural production materials, the service links and processing links of the whole process of agriculture, not only huge capital equipment is required, but also a fairly high level of human capital, and these elements need to be paid. More importantly, in the service and processing links, capital and labor factors have certain requirements for spatial aggregation, which can be met by small cities with a population of 20,000 or 30,000.
Some people worry that if the development of small cities is not supported by industry, it may disappoint the development goals. In my opinion, this worry is not necessary. Because if we estimate the total value of China's agricultural industry chain according to indicators such as the Engel coefficient, this value is about 20 trillion. In addition, we must not only deduct the value appreciation of the agricultural industry chain outside the county, but also add the value appreciation of other sectors of the county economy, and this scale can support the economic development of small towns in the county.
In the future, while supporting the adjustment of the population layout of the county, the state should also actively guide the industrial departments suitable for the development of the county to invest in the county, and the public sector investment in the county should also be further expanded. Document No. 1 clearly proposes to expand investment in county health care, education, culture and other aspects, which is a positive signal.
Beijing News: The document points out that by 2025, about 500 rural industrial demonstration zones will be established.
Dang Guoying: The document requires the establishment of demonstration areas in counties (cities, districts), which is a big project. In fact, there is already a certain foundation in this aspect. The state already has a number of large grain counties and large animal husbandry counties, which have become the foundation of national food safety. The construction of about 500 rural industrial demonstration zones will enable these areas to have a greater leap forward in development on the existing basis. I think the point of attention is to avoid icing on the cake as much as possible. We should let everyone have a roughly the same starting line in policy support, actively carry out competition on the basis of the role of the market mechanism, and ensure that the industrial development of the demonstration zone has sufficient efficiency.
Beijing News: To promote the construction of a new agricultural management system and grasp the main body of new agriculture, what are the starting points and directions?
Dang Guoying: The core of the modern agricultural management system is the development of family farms and farmers' cooperatives, and the policy focus has been very clear.
There are three problems that need to be solved in the future. The first is to speed up the pace of urbanization, and for the rural population who are basically separated from agriculture, we must create conditions to help them enter all kinds of cities with their families. At present, the central government has put forward some support policies, such as the original basic rights of peasants in the countryside who have not changed, which is very important. In the future, it is necessary to reduce urban housing prices so that the agricultural transfer population can really settle down in the cities. Second, the policy of transferring land contracting rights to professional family farms should be appropriately relaxed, so as to avoid a family farm mainly relying on leased land to operate, and help family rural areas reduce operating costs. Third, in developing peasant cooperatives, it is necessary to strengthen policy support, especially to encourage the development of cooperatives across administrative regions, and to make cooperatives bigger and stronger. The country does not need more than 2 million cooperatives, cooperatives are not many, but fine, so that they can be competitive and compete in the international market with agricultural products enterprises in other countries. Such a large country cannot rely on a "COFCO" to work hard in the international market.
Beijing News: Poverty alleviation continues rural revitalization, where are the advantages and difficulties of continuation?
Dang Guoying: The concept of a "transition period" put forward in the central document on consolidating the achievements in poverty alleviation is, in my opinion, very realistic and targeted. In 2020, we eliminated the problem of poverty in contiguous regions, and the problem of poverty in rural households was also solved through a bottom-up policy. However, in addition to poverty caused by physical conditions and other reasons, general poverty also needs to be supported by solving employment problems, which is further said to be the expansion of social division of labor, the expansion of the job market, and the education and training of the employed population.
To solve these basic problems, we cannot always rely on short-term exercise methods. Therefore, there must be a transition period so that there is a reliable path to the solution of these fundamental problems. The central document proposes that it is necessary to further normalize the social assistance to the low-income population through the export of labor services, the use of work for relief, and the cooperation between the east and the west, especially to absorb more low-income people to find local employment. The realization of this policy goal is not a one-time thing, in order to truly build a considerable economy within the county scope, it is best to make each county have several key towns, so that they can develop into small cities with tens of thousands of people, otherwise, local employment is an empty phrase. In the long run, this initiative is significant. China must eliminate the dual structure of urban and rural areas in order to achieve high-quality development, and small urban development is an effective means to achieve this goal.
Beijing News: The document points out that it is necessary to improve the level of rural public services and establish a balanced allocation mechanism for urban and rural public resources. In fact, social security and public services are areas where the gap between urban and rural areas is still very obvious.
Dang Guoying: This is an important issue for the state to implement rural construction actions in the future. One of the characteristics of our country's urban-rural dual structure is the backwardness of rural public services. If this problem is not solved, there will be no high-quality development.
Many of the reasons for this situation are familiar to us, but there is another reason that we do not pay enough attention to, that is, good public services require service facilities to have a certain scale, which is also doomed to be inseparable from maintenance costs, but also has certain requirements for the professional quality of public service personnel. In a village of a few hundred people, it is uneconomical to build public service facilities at the same level as the city, so we have seen that even developed countries generally do not build public service facilities on small rural settlements, some do not have sewage systems, and roads are mostly simple roads that are not paved.
An effective approach is to distribute small cities at the highest possible density in rural areas, for example, for every 300 square kilometers or so, there is a small city, and farmers have a high degree of access to small city services, forming a pattern in which farmers and small cities share public services. Developed countries generally do the same. Document No. 1 advocates the construction of key towns and advocates that townships become peasant service centers, and this is the significance.
The population size of the built-up areas of key townships should not be too small. Relying on the township government station to build new residential areas, it is best to ensure that the total population of the built-up area is more than 20,000 people. This scale is conducive to the deployment of public service facilities and improves the construction quality of settlements. In principle, it is necessary to build new settlements against the standard city, to ensure the quality of this "starting point", and not to lower the standard because it is classified into the rural area. If, when it is built, it is doomed to be backward, then this construction is meaningless. If this goal cannot be guaranteed, it is better to be slower and must not be too hasty, and we cannot build a few buildings at will to resettle the peasants; still less can we demolish and build them later, thus infringing on the interests of the peasants.
The central document also pointed out that the construction of villages should be classified and implemented, and it is also highly targeted. At present, there are about 500,000 administrative villages in agricultural areas in China, of which 80,000-100,000 will be combined into small cities in the future (when 1 organized town develops into a small city, it will absorb the agricultural transfer population of several villages and a certain amount of land), or become the functional area of a larger city. Among the remaining administrative villages, it is estimated that about 10% will maintain the existing population size due to historical factors, special geographical factors, etc., and become professional villages for the development of rural tourism and production and service industries. The remaining administrative villages will gradually shrink into small professional farming settlements for a long or short period of time, and some will even disappear completely. For the latter type of village, there is no need to invest in permanent public service facilities in rural revitalization. For "professional villages", only selective construction of certain public service facilities. These two types of villages, especially the latter type of villages, even if they invest in the construction of public service facilities, will because of the small population and high cost of facility maintenance, making public services inefficient and unattractive to the people.
As for the social security of rural residents, as mentioned earlier, it is still necessary to continue to improve the unified social security system between urban and rural areas, and it will take time for urban and rural residents to actually enjoy the same level of social security. Social security, especially old-age security, must be linked to the income of residents, and eliminating the gap between the income level of urban and rural residents requires the development of rural industries, which requires a process.
Beijing News reporter Tian Jiexiong
Edited by Zhang Shujing Proofreader Zhao Lin
![Dang Guoying: Some major guiding issues on rural revitalization[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)