(East-West Question) Pan Jiaen: What role does China's century-old rural construction play in the "global village"?
China News Service, Chongqing, June 17th: What role does China's century-old rural construction play in the "global village"?
——Interview with Pan Jiaen, Deputy Dean of the Rural Revitalization Strategy Research Institute of Southwest University
Author Liang Qinqing
What kind of village to build and how to build a village are historical issues faced by the Chinese nation since modern times.
China's rural construction and the diversified rural construction practices in the "global village" echo each other, and they are conducting colorful and innovative explorations in their respective conditions and real spaces.
What is the history of China's rural construction?
What are the explorations of rural construction practices in developing countries around the world?
China News Agency "East and West Questions" recently interviewed Professor Pan Jiaen, deputy dean of the Rural Revitalization Strategy Research Institute of Southwest University (China Rural Construction Institute), to interpret this.
The following is a summary of the interview transcript:
China News Service reporter: Looking back on history, countless sages have carried out various forms of innovation at the grassroots level in China's rural areas. So, how did China's century-old rural construction begin?
Pan Jiaen: Generally
speaking, China's century-old rural construction includes three waves of rural construction that echo before and after.
There are not only the "off-site practice" of foreign intellectuals taking "relief of the countryside" as the starting point, but also the "on-site action" that takes into account the goals of "rural self-rescue" and "social construction" spontaneously in rural society and led by local good gentry. So far rich and diverse practice forms.
As a representative practice of early rural construction, Zhang Jian, an industrialist in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, began a series of local construction practices in Nantong, Jiangsu in 1894, which were summarized by scholars as "real and unknown" rural construction.
The local construction he promoted was not only stimulated by the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War, but at the same time, like the subsequent "Zhaicheng Village Governance", it was a historical product after the release of practice space by the New Deal in the late Qing Dynasty.
In 1904, Mi Chunming, a squire in Ding County, Hebei Province, and others took Zhaicheng Village as an example, established new-style education, formulated village rules and regulations, established self-governing organizations, and actively implemented a series of measures to transform the locality.
The spontaneous "Zhaicheng Village Governance" of the local people directly gave birth to the "Dingxian Experiment" hosted by Yan Yangchu and the China Civilian Education Promotion Association, which has attracted widespread attention at home and abroad.
More than 20 years later, Yan Yangchu, who returned from studying abroad, led a group of overseas returnees and domestic university professors to Ding County, Hebei Province to promote civilian education, inspire people's wisdom, and promote the construction of the entire village.
This wave of rural construction flourished in the 1920s and 1930s from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, involving various practices of representative figures such as Liang Shuming, Yan Yangchu, Lu Zuofu, Tao Xingzhi, and Huang Yanpei.
The experimental farm of the China Civilian Education Promotion Association in Zhaicheng Village, Ding County (1930s).
This was followed by the second wave of rural construction driven by the Chinese Communist Party, which was in full power.
In the 1950s, the land reform mobilized the grass-roots society in an all-round way, and through the forms of literacy, water conservancy construction, and communal and brigade enterprises, the concept and work of rural construction were fully covered and replaced by new forms in the context of national construction.
Entering the 1980s, the process of industrial capital expansion and globalization accelerated, and the implementation of "big contract" alone could not fundamentally solve the problems of "three rural" (agriculture, rural and peasant) development and grassroots governance.
Therefore, in the process of pursuing industrialization and modernization, there was a rural reform pilot area promoted by government departments from top to bottom from 1987 to 1997.
The third wave of rural construction has continued since 2000.
From the proposal of the "Three Rural Issues" at the beginning of the new century, to the establishment of the major historical task of "building a new socialist countryside", to the overall layout of the current rural revitalization strategy, rural construction has become an important starting point for the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.
In particular, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly proposed for the first time the "implementation of rural construction actions", which is not only a realistic response to the economic and social development of China's rural areas in the new era, but also an inheritance of the historical experience of rural construction in the past century.
China News Service reporter: Looking back on China's century-old rural construction practice, what is the mutual learning between China and the West?
Pan Jiaen:
Liang Shuming believes that the drastic changes in modern China stem from the great collision between Chinese and Western civilizations over the past century. Of course, this "collision" is not voluntary and fair.
It can be said that China's rural construction is the product of the collision between Chinese and Western civilizations.
In this process, China's rural construction not only contains traditional Confucian and peasant ideas, but also has been influenced by foreign rural improvement ideas to varying degrees.
For example, in the early 20th century, Midi Gang, who founded a cooperative in Zhaicheng Village, Ding County, Hebei Province, was a top student who returned from Japan.
He saw the changes in the Japanese countryside and found a huge difference compared to his hometown. After receiving this strong stimulus, he started the process of rural construction.
The purpose of going abroad is to reflect on yourself. The experience of living overseas has taught these early rural builders a lot of foreign ideas.
At that time, the Japanese "New Village" thought was widely spread in China.
Wang Gongbi, an early member of the Tongmenghui, built a "Youth Village" in Xiaowuying, Xihua County, Henan Province after returning from studying in Japan. Fu Bocui, who also returned home from Japan, returned to Liancheng, Fujian to explore the "New Village" experiment, all of which were of that era. , Japan's "New Village" and other ideas have different degrees of influence.
Of course, while absorbing overseas experience, China's localization exploration is self-contained, and it is also contributing wisdom to the outside world.
For example, after 1950, Yan Yangchu traveled around the world to carry out rural transformation experiments in developing countries.
In 1952, he helped to found the Philippine Rural Development Movement (PRRM), advocated the establishment of village associations, assisted villagers in establishing village offices, and led the government to exert its pro-people strength to jointly improve rural society.
To this day, PRRM is still one of the most important civil organizations in the Philippines.
In 1967, Yan Yangchu founded the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) in the Philippines, with activities covering Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Yan Yangchu attended the annual meeting of the Philippine Rural Construction Movement (PRRM) (1959).
Reporter from China News Service: What kind of predicaments are faced by the rural construction movement in developing countries around the world, and how will rural construction be carried out in the future?
Pan Jiaen: At
present, financial capitalism is sweeping the world, and the rural construction movement in Asia and Latin America is facing two major difficulties: the plundering of land by international capital and the decreasing number of farmers.
One is the plunder of land.
In order to compete for food, biofuels, raw materials, etc., the phenomenon of land grabbing occurs around the world.
A study by the World Bank in 2010 showed that the world has a huge demand for land, especially since 2008, the phenomenon of global "land disputes" has appeared.
Second, the urbanization rate is high, and farmers migrate to their own cities to work and even to overseas cities to work.
According to the 2010 census, the urban population of Brazil is as high as 84.35%, and the rural population is only 15.65%; the Philippines has even made the export of overseas labor services a national policy, and Indonesia has followed closely, resulting in a large loss of rural young adults.
Take the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil and other representative developing countries in Asia and Latin America as examples. These countries have a long colonial history, inherited the original economic system of large estates, and monopolized land and property for a long time, which is the cause of social poverty. A major source of wealth disparity.
Land reform is the most basic and core property relationship reconstruction for countries and regions separated from Western colonialism to form an independent national economy.
However, under the circumstance that the relationship between land and property cannot be changed, "the cultivator has his own land" is still an important topic of social movements in many developing countries.
For example, the Brazilian Movement for Landless Peasants (MST), founded in 1984, used the method of occupying land first and then applying public opinion pressure to bring in the forces of the government, churches, trade unions and even political parties to jointly coordinate land and property relations; another example is the Indonesian Peasants Union (SPI). ), working to promote sustainable agriculture and establish learning and training centres against oppressive, biodiversity-destroying modern agriculture.
Relatively speaking, China's experience is "special", because China is the only developing country that has completed the agrarian revolution and industrialization, has the largest number of aborigines, and is a country with a large population.
The basic experience of 4 foreign debts and 8 crises experienced since the founding of the People's Republic of China shows that as long as the "three rural" crisis can be successfully carried (resolved), a "soft landing" can be achieved, otherwise, a "hard landing" will be achieved in cities.
Taking China's experience as a reference, it can be seen that rural society is the basic carrier for the country to deal with external risks.
In the information society, the world has become a "global village". From the perspective of rural construction, China and foreign countries should learn from each other's innovative ideas and practices, and find suitable paths based on their own national conditions.
In the 1970s, there was an internationally influential book "Small is Beautiful" (small is beautiful). Later, an Italian put forward an innovative concept "SLOC" on this basis, S stands for slow (slow), L On behalf of local (localization), O on behalf of open (open), C on behalf of connect (connection).
I think these four aspects are not only helpful for understanding the future direction of China's rural construction, but also suitable for other developing countries in the world.
With the gradual development of urbanization and the faster pace of life, we will find that "small" and "slow" are also a value.
As a way of life to slow down and improve quality, “slow” is also a new way of thinking and new possibilities to deal with the current globalization crisis and urbanization. Many places at home and abroad have made rich and diverse explorations towards this goal.
In addition, while facing globalization, rural construction must also do a good job of "localization" development, actively explore the diverse values of the countryside, let local culture take root in the vast countryside, and "cast the soul" for rural construction in the new era.
The area around Sanjiangkou Village, Heyuan Town, Jiangxi Province has beautiful scenery and picturesque scenery.
Photo by Deng Xingdong issued by China News Agency
At the same time, rural construction must be "open", especially the new economic format.
Now that the Internet economy is very developed, it is necessary to make rural land, labor, assets, natural scenery and other elements "live", turn rural resources into assets, funds into shares, and villagers into shareholders, and make clear waters and lush mountains invaluable.
The last is "connection". Citizens in cities and farmers in rural areas should form a community of interests, take the road of urban-rural integration, plan the development of towns and villages as a whole, and strive to achieve common prosperity and sustainable development based on the integration of urban and rural areas at the county level.
I have communicated with some international friends, and everyone believes that under the influence of the epidemic, the world crisis is so severe, and many people are in the dilemma of "the city that cannot be left" and the "village that cannot be returned", how to "re-embed" In the countryside, it is necessary to fully reflect the awareness of national conditions, local awareness and cultural self-confidence. "SLOC" provides ideas for reference.
(Finish)
Interviewee Profile:
Pan Jiaen: Vice President and Professor of the Rural Revitalization Strategy Research Institute of Southwest University (China Rural Construction Institute).
He is also the executive director of the Pingnan Rural Revitalization Research Institute, a researcher of the CITIC Reform and Development Research Institute, the vice president of the Chongqing Liang Shuming Research Association, and the deputy editor-in-chief of Lu Zuofu Research.
Since 2001, he has participated in the practice of rural construction in contemporary China for more than 20 years. He has published more than 60 Chinese and English articles in Cultural Studies, "Taiwan Social Research Quarterly", "Open Times", "People's Daily", etc. Five" key book planning project "Centennial Catalogue of China's Rural Construction", author of "Embedding the Countryside - China's Rural Construction in the Process of Modernization".