Calling for actions to push ahead rural revitalization in full swing and to expedite agricultural and rural modernization, the No.1 document of the Central Government in 2021 was released on February 21 and marks the 18th No.1 document released by the Central Government in the 21st century to steer the work of "agriculture, rural areas and rural people", well highlighting the great importance attached by the CPC Central Committee to the work concerning agriculture and rural areas in the new stage of development. In the same month, the National Administration for Rural Revitalization, an agency directly under the State Council, was officially inaugurated to signal the official launch of the rural revitalization strategy after China's accomplishments in poverty alleviation.
CHENG Guoqiang delivering his speech
Roll-out of the rural revitalization strategy and its implementation
As one of the seven essential strategies put forth at the 19th CPC National Congress for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the rural revitalization strategy is a major decision and arrangement made by the CPC Central Committee for the work of "agriculture, rural areas and rural people", an overarching and historic task for China to secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and a modern socialist country in an all-around way, and the main focus of the work of "agriculture, rural areas and rural people" in the new era.
While China's major social contradiction in the new era lies in the gap between unbalanced and inadequate development and the growing expectation of the people for a better life, the most evident imbalance inheres in the gap between urban and rural areas, and the most prominent inadequacy rests in the inadequate agricultural and rural development. Hence, there is an urgent need to strengthen areas of weakness in agriculture and rural areas and rev up the elimination of imbalances and inadequacies.
The implementation timetable and the targets of the rural revitalization strategy were designed to gear the actions to China's march toward the Two Centenary Goals. According to the Report of the 19th CPC National Congress, the rural revitalization strategy must make the important progress of forming an institutional framework and policy system by 2020, make the decisive headway of basically realizing agricultural and rural modernization by 2035, and achieve comprehensive rural revitalization by 2050, i.e., rural areas should have strong agriculture, a beautiful countryside and well-off peasants; agriculture should become a promising industry; farming should become an appealing career choice; and the rural areas should become the beautiful home for living and working in peace and contentment.
As stipulated in the Report of the 19th CPC National Congress, to push ahead the rural revitalization strategy, we must prioritize matters related to agriculture, rural areas and rural people, put in place sound systems, mechanisms and policies for promoting integrated urban-rural development, and achieve the revitalization of rural industries, rural human resources, rural culture, rural eco-environment and rural organizations.
So far, the rural revitalization strategy has made the following important progress: 1) The institutional framework and policy system for rural revitalization have been basically set up, and the historic goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects simultaneously in rural areas has been accomplished; 2) Significant headway has been made in modern agriculture construction, marking a good start of rural revitalization; 3) China has accomplished on schedule the goal of poverty alleviation for the new era by lifting all rural poor population out of poverty (based on the current standards), removing all poor counties from the poverty list and eradicating absolute poverty and regional poverty; 4) The living environment in rural areas has seen significant improvement, rural reforms have continued with further measures, and rural society has remained harmonious and stable. Over the past years, China has encountered a torrent of challenges from the Sino-US trade war in 2018 to the outbreak of COVID-19 last year, which significantly held back its socioeconomic development. The solid progress of the rural revitalization strategy is pivotal for China to overcome these difficulties and to stabilize the overall landscape of socioeconomic development.
The historical position and strategic positioning of rural revitalization
With the successful accomplishment of the first Centenary Goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, China has embarked on its march toward the second Centenary Goal and ushered in a brand-new development stage of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee called to bear in mind both domestic and external situations and to put emphasis on both development and security, and specifically urged to ratchet up efforts to foster a new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other.
Against the backdrop of fostering a new development paradigm in the new development stage, we must base our understanding of the historical position and strategic positioning of rural revitalization on both domestic and external situations.
First, from the perspective of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, if the Chinese nation is to rejuvenate, rural areas must be rejuvenated. In building a modern socialist country in an all-round way, the most arduous tasks are to be performed in rural areas, and the broadest base is to be found in rural areas. We must speed up the resolution of unbalanced and inadequate development in rural areas, strengthen areas of weakness in agriculture and rural areas and push for the coordinated development of urban and rural areas.
Second, to foster a new development paradigm, we must put our strategic focus on expanding domestic demand and turn the spotlight on "agriculture, rural areas and rural people". Accordingly, there is a pressing need to expand rural demand and to promote urban and rural economic circulations. In 2019, the urban-rural income ratio and consumption ratio stood at 2.64 to 1 and 2.11 to 1 respectively. Although the income gap between urban and rural residents narrowed in 2020, the urban-rural income ratio remained at 2.56 to 1. The retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas amounted to only RMB 6 trillion, accounting for less than 15% of the total retail sales of consumer goods, which were RMB 41 trillion. By comprehensively pushing ahead rural revitalization, increasing the incomes of rural people and reinforcing public services and social security in rural areas, we can expand the retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas from RMB 6 trillion to RMB 10 trillion or even 20 trillion. In one word, the potential of rural areas for boosting domestic demand is self-evident. By making rural areas suitable to live and work in and ensuring that rural people are affluent and well-off, rural areas will rise as a gigantic consumption and investment market and the important foothold for expanding domestic demand and promoting steady growth in consumption. Meanwhile, given the ever-increasing demand of urban residents for material and non-material products such as premium agricultural products, rural leisure tourism, etc., sustained efforts should be made to push for in-depth rural development in a bid to spur supply with strong demand, to foster demand with sufficient supply and to forge the dual-circulation in which urban and rural markets will bolster each other.
Third, from the perspective of the stupendous global changes unseen in a century, the responses to varying risks and challenges at home and abroad are underlain by "agriculture, rural areas and rural people", and thus it is imperative to secure the fundamentals of agriculture.
Therefore, the Central Government has particularly emphasized that the work of "agriculture, rural areas and rural people" should be put at the core in the new development stage and the comprehensive advancement of rural vitalization must be made a major task in pushing for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and that the modernization of agriculture and the rural areas must be revved up with the sustained efforts of the whole Party and society so that rural people at large would live a better life.
Core points and key policies of the No.1 Document
Considering both domestic and external situations in a coordinative way and emphasizing on both development and security, the No.1 document of the Central Government in 2021 offers details on the general planning, strategic arrangements and overall implementation scheme for the rural revitalization strategy, and points out the goals and way forward for pushing ahead rural revitalization in the new development stage. Unlike the three No. 1 documents on rural revitalization as released in 2018 through 2020, the No.1 document of this year has shifted: 1) from designing an institutional framework to working out concrete measures for implementation led by the policy; 2) from pooling together resources for securing a decisive victory in the fight against poverty to pushing ahead relevant arrangements in a normalized and comprehensive way; and 3) from highlighting key points and successful examples to pushing ahead "five revitalizations" in an all-round way. By comprehensively pushing for rural revitalization and strengthening areas of weakness in agriculture and rural areas, this document aims to help rural areas catch up with the pace of national modernization and set the stage for building a modern socialist country in an all-round way.
The core points of No.1 document can be summarized as one general requirement, two basic bottom lines, and three core efforts. The general requirement is to foster high-quality and high-efficiency agriculture, make rural areas suitable to live and work in and ensure that rural people are affluent and well-off. As for the two basic bottom lines, the first bottom line is to firmly secure the fruitful results of poverty alleviation, and the second bottom line is to firmly hold the initiative in food security. The three core efforts are respectively the effort to step up agricultural modernization, the effort to vigorously push forward rural construction, and the effort to fortify the Party's leading role in carrying out the work of "agriculture, rural areas and rural people".
In revving up agricultural modernization, we must attach good importance to the three major functions of agriculture: 1) the fundamental function of securing product supply, i.e., we must enhance our ability to secure the supply of food and major agricultural products; 2) the function of serving as ecological shields, i.e., we must give full play to the ecological service function of agriculture, so that there are lush mountains and lucid waters in rural areas, which will in turn become the "ecological shields" for the beautiful China; and 3) the function of passing down culture, i.e., we must revitalize the farming civilization and revive the folk customs. Furthermore, the No.1 document of 2021 marks the first time the Central Government has announced to promote integrated urban-rural development in counties, to take the county as an important breakthrough point for urban-rural integrated development, to coordinate the spatial layout of county-based industries, infrastructures, public services, basic farmland, ecological protection, urban development and village distribution, to fortify the comprehensive service capacity of counties, and to build towns and villages into regional centers serving rural people. All these have pointed to the new strategy of the Central Government to pursue the new way of people-centered urbanization.
(Note: Mr. CHENG Guoqiang is a distinguished professor at the School of Economics and Management, Tongji University)
