The key to comprehensive rural revitalization is cognitive enhancement
Text/Ge Tianren
Published in the 990th issue of China News Weekly on April 5, 2021
On March 20th, economist Liu Shouying put forward at the China Development Forum 2021, "If the urbanization model continues, there will be no solution to rural revitalization."
Professor Wen Tiejun, a well-known expert on "three rural issues", has repeatedly emphasized on different occasions that "there are villages to return" urbanization is precisely the reason why our country can resist external risks and get out of the economic crisis.
The views of the two scholars seem to be contradictory, but they point out the dilemma between rural revitalization and urbanization model decision-making.
The author believes that, in fact, the two are not contradictory, and both point to a more critical question: how to understand rural revitalization and its strategic significance?
This requires us to upgrade our awareness of the rural revitalization strategy.
Get rid of obsessions and re-understand comprehensive rural revitalization
Comprehensive rural revitalization is not an agricultural and rural development strategy under the "urbanization model" that many people imagined in the history of European and American urban-rural relations.
The report of the "19th National Congress" put forward the strategic goals for implementing the "village revitalization": industrial prosperity, ecological livability, rural customs, effective governance, and a prosperous life.
Its fundamental focus is to safeguard the interests of farmers, and requires innovation in systems and mechanisms. Through consolidation and improvement of the basic rural management system, reform of the rural collective property rights system, and construction of a modern agricultural production and management system, the coherence and management of policies must be ensured. Sustainability is ultimately to safeguard the interests of farmers, and its key connotation is "rich villages and businesses."
Why should we "rich villages and develop businesses" instead of promoting urbanization and letting farmers enter the cities to stay?
People have formed a certain inherent imagination of the rural modernization path for a long time, which may lead to incomprehension of current practical problems and policies.
This kind of imagination originates from a certain obsession with the historical experience of urbanization in Europe and the United States-that there is only the "only correct" path for modern urbanization and rural development.
In fact, this is neither comprehensive nor factual.
Without getting rid of this kind of thinking and imagination, it is difficult for us to truly understand the essence and future of China's urbanization road and urban-rural relationship-China is a large country with a population of 1.4 billion and is rapidly industrializing. The future of urban-rural relationship can only be the freedom of elements. Flowing and diversified urban-rural integration development.
The strategy of coordinated urban and rural development and rural revitalization essentially serves the entire historical process of national industrialization and is a part of the grand strategy of social structural transformation.
As long as we can "rich villages and develop businesses", we can explore and practice any kind of road, model, and policy choice.
In fact, rural revitalization is also a strategic choice in the medium and short term.
From the perspective of political economy, the Chinese economy is currently facing internal and external pressures. It is imperative to advance structural reforms and achieve transformation and upgrading. Apart from technological innovation, the core is to continuously expand the domestic consumer market, increase reform space, and continue to "promote growth". The reform idea of “quantity stabilization”.
From a sociological point of view, due to the marketization and globalization of the Chinese economy, society is counterproductive to the market economy. This requires attention to the bottom line and flexibility of changes in the social structure. Economic policies must be coordinated with the social policies of distribution and redistribution. Stable and sustainable development.
Therefore, no matter from which point of view, rural revitalization and rich village development are extremely targeted, medium and short-term strategic choices that are worthy of effort.
Whether it is a dual-cycle strategy that focuses on "inside promotion and externalization" or a new development concept that focuses on an upgraded version of industrialization of ecological civilization, the focus of the rural revitalization strategy is obviously the result of system thinking and holistic thinking, rather than pure economic analysis. Or the result of sociological analysis.
The truly effective implementation of comprehensive rural revitalization will create a large amount of demand, promote consumption upgrades, promote the free flow of urban and rural elements, and provide a new power foundation for sustainable economic growth.
Comprehensive rural revitalization is not a new round of value extraction for the countryside and farmers, but a re-understanding of the relationship between the countryside and the city from the height of ecological civilization construction. Its significance is no less than the rural reform in the early stage of reform and opening up. It is a new stage of development. Underlying the basic strategic choice.
Recognize challenges and opportunities
Since the reform, although we have made a lot of achievements in "agriculture, rural areas, and rural areas", adjustment of urban-rural relations, and poverty reduction, rural areas have developed a lot compared to the past. However, due to the constraints of various international and domestic factors, we still have to be sober To achieve comprehensive rural revitalization, there are still two major challenges.
The first is the land issue.
Specifically, it is the issue of free circulation of land elements, value-added benefits and fairness of distribution.
That is, the new round of rural land system reforms revealed that the scale of land acquisition is too large, the contracting, circulation, and use are not standardized and institutionalized, the income distribution mechanism is not sound and reasonable, and the interests of farmers and rural collectives are damaged. .
Therefore, maintaining the bottom line of safeguarding the interests of farmers and solving the long-term problem of “taken from agriculture and used in the city” of land value-added income is a key challenge for the implementation of the revitalization strategy at present or for a considerable period in the future.
The second is the problem of industry.
Specifically, how to combine the revitalization of rural industries with the construction of ecological civilization, so as to realize the rural revitalization version of the new development strategy.
This is also the most important key challenge for the realization of the rural revitalization strategy and sustainable development in the next step.
We cannot antagonize rural revitalization and ecological civilization. In this regard, the new digital economy provides the possibility for this, and also provides the economic foundation for a variety of urbanization roads that integrate urban and rural areas.
This possibility can be the digital activation of rural ecological resources proposed by Professor Wen Tiejun of Renmin University, or "Urbanization in the nearest locality" proposed by Professor Li Qiang of Tsinghua University, or "Nothing" said by Professor Liu Shouying of Renmin University. "Urbanization of Huicun" and "citizenization" of urban-rural metropolitan area, or the "free flow of urban and rural elements" called for by Professor Lu Ming of Shanghai Jiaotong University.
The crux of the problem is not to antagonize the countryside and the city, but to integrate the development of urban and rural areas in terms of system, policy, planning, and management, and treat urban and rural areas as one thing instead of two things.
The development of digital technology and digital economy provides new opportunities and development ideas for the implementation of the comprehensive rural revitalization strategy. It can help overcome the two major challenges of rural revitalization, bridge the gap between urban and rural development, and provide impetus for the transformation of new urban-rural relations.
First, the digital economy empowers traditional agriculture and promotes the upgrading and diversified development of traditional agriculture.
This is mainly manifested in the change of traditional agricultural production methods, the use of smart technology to build a rural basic resource data system, and the formation of interconnected data resources for business collaboration and cooperation between villages.
Zhejiang Yuhang has specially introduced high-tech personnel to serve as professional agricultural managers. Under the leadership of these managers specializing in agricultural production organization, equipment operations, technical support, and product processing and sales, rural economic cooperatives have developed rapidly, greatly improving traditional agriculture. Energy level and efficiency.
Second, the diversified and integrated development of the rural digital economy industry.
Professor Wen Tiejun said that agriculture is "a hundred industries."
The "Internet +" new rural digital economy industry can be of various types, such as the rural e-commerce model, the coordinated development model of multiple industries, and the "digital platform + cultural tourism" industry integration model.
Its essence lies in building an integrated development system of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industries relying on the continuously upgraded infrastructure and information tools in rural areas.
The more famous ones, such as the "Taobao Villages" in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Gansu, Guizhou and other places, and the "e-commerce enterprises + cooperatives + poor households" in poverty-stricken areas are proof of the poverty relief mechanism.
Third, rural digital financial inclusion will greatly enhance the energy level of rural revitalization.
The author agrees with William Gozman's view that finance creates civilization.
Rural revitalization requires rural inclusive finance, and digital inclusive finance can provide financial support for small and micro enterprises and low-income groups in rural areas by optimizing the allocation of financial resources, stimulating economic vitality and rural construction in the area, and helping to achieve rural revitalization. Strategic objectives.
This form has developed rapidly in many areas in the north. For example, Heilongjiang Province established the country’s first provincial-level state-owned agricultural credit guarantee company, and used inclusive finance, Internet finance and other new financial formats to solve financing difficulties for new agricultural entities. This will help improve rural areas. The standard of living is of great significance to the construction of a rural digital economy system.
In short, based on the national and agricultural conditions in the era of digital development, while implementing the rural revitalization strategy, while grasping the historic opportunity of the digital economy, a Chinese characteristic of cognitive upgrading, technological innovation and data-driven, and urban-rural integration can be developed. A new road to rural development.
We should fully realize that due to the unprecedented scale of industrialization and urbanization, China cannot simply repeat the old path of Western capitalist industrialization and urbanization, and cannot regard the urbanization roads and rural landscapes of the European continent and North America as obsessions with potential policy thinking. .
We can think about and explore the key issues of China's rural revitalization with new eyesight.
(The author is an associate professor at the School of Politics and International Relations, Tongji University, and a researcher at the Center for Global Economics and International Finance, University of Science and Technology of China)
China News Weekly, Issue 12, 2021
Statement: The publication of the "China News Weekly" manuscript is authorized in writing