China plans law to make reviving rural areas a priority in modernisation push
- Lawmaker Chen Xiwen says committee is drafting legislation to set out status of Xi Jinping’s campaign to develop countryside
- Rural areas, where incomes and living standards are significantly lower, have been left behind in China’s urbanisation drive
Beijing is drafting a law to underpin an ambitious campaign to revitalise its rural areas – part of President Xi Jinping’s plan to make China a strong modern country by 2050.
The campaign, initiated by Xi when he started his second term in 2017, marks a shift in focus for the ruling Communist Party – prioritising the country’s rural areas over the urban development that has fuelled breakneck economic growth for decades.
Xi’s vision is for rural areas that have prosperous industries and farmers with raised living standards, but not at the expense of the environment, by the time 2050 rolls around. The ultimate aim is for the party to “build a modern, socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious” by the time the People’s Republic of China marks its 100th anniversary in 2049.
Speaking in Beijing on Saturday, Chen Xiwen, a National People’s Congress lawmaker for agriculture and rural affairs, said the new law would set out the priority status of developing China’s rural areas.
He said Xi had made rural revitalisation a top priority for the party and vowed to address the gap between agriculture and industries, and between urban and rural areas, and improve the system to advance rural development.
“All these guiding principles need to be stipulated in legislation,” said Chen, a former deputy director of the central agricultural work leading group.
For decades, rural areas, where incomes and living standards are significantly lower, have been left behind in China’s urbanisation drive. Millions of farmers have gone to the cities in search of work in factories, leaving behind their homes, land and children in the care of elderly relatives.
China’s celebrity quadruplets lifting their family out of poverty
Meanwhile, the wealth gap has continued to widen. The gap in annual disposable income between rural and urban dwellers reached 24,634 yuan (US$3,664) last year, up 45 per cent from 17,038 yuan (US$2,534) at the end of 2013, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Beijing’s campaign is set out in three phases – building an institutional and governance framework to revitalise rural areas by 2020, modernising rural areas and agriculture by 2030, and realising “all aspects” of the revival and completing the project by 2050.
Chen said the law would also aim to put a stop to the destruction of the Chinese countryside, including the loss of farmland to development and environmental damage.
“It’s common knowledge that rural areas have suffered during industrialisation and urbanisation,” he said. “We need to have policies and laws that not only promote rural revitalisation but also restrict and regulate behaviour that damages the environment, such as setting up polluting factories.”
Poverty-stricken Chinese student’s 17-hour study schedule goes viral
Zhao Xijun, a professor of finance at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said enshrining the campaign in law would help to ensure it is continued over the years, even after a change in leadership.
“There has been an uneven allocation of resources favouring industrialisation for decades and it is unrealistic to try to resolve everything in a short period of time,” Zhao said. “A long-term plan is needed, and a law is the best way to put a stable, systematic arrangement in place to ensure consistent policies and actions.”
The NPC agriculture and rural affairs committee expects to release a draft for consultation to legal experts, government agencies and local legislatures within the year and the bill would be presented to lawmakers next year.
