abstract
Building a new socialist countryside is an important historical task in the process of China's modernization. It is the concretization of coordinating urban and rural development, promoting agriculture through industry, and bringing rural areas with cities. It is the fundamental way to curb the widening gap between urban and rural areas and expand rural market demand. It is also a major strategic measure to solve the "three rural issues" and build a well-off society in an all-round way. The new rural construction is a huge systematic project, covering economic construction, political construction, cultural construction and social construction. To build a new countryside, we must adhere to the fundamental policy of coordinating urban and rural development and make steady progress on the basis of satisfying farmers' wishes, bringing benefits to farmers and winning their support. At present, efforts should be made to solve the most urgent practical problems in farmers' production and life and really bring benefits to farmers.
Building a new socialist countryside is a major strategic deployment made by the CPC Central Committee from the overall situation of implementing Scientific Outlook on Development and building a harmonious socialist society. It is a major historical task in the process of China's modernization and a major strategic move to solve the "three rural issues". In order to promote the construction of new socialist countryside, some theoretical issues need to be deepened and some policy issues need to be carefully grasped.
Where is the new rural construction?
Building a new socialist countryside is not a new concept. Since 1950s, it has been used many times in Party documents. Although it is the same formulation, the construction of a new socialist countryside put forward by the Fifth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee has richer connotations and more comprehensive requirements.
New background. The construction of new countryside is a subject put forward after China entered a new development stage of promoting agriculture with industry and bringing countryside with cities. At present, the leading industry of China's national economy has changed from agriculture to non-agricultural industries, and the driving force of economic growth mainly comes from non-agricultural industries. According to international experience, China has now reached the stage where industry feeds back agriculture. The focus of the policy of industry feeding back agriculture is not to directly subsidize farmers' income or agricultural product prices, but to shift from supporting industry with agricultural accumulation to strengthening support and protection for agriculture, increasing public financial support for agriculture, making public services go deeper into rural areas, [finding articles to benefit farmers] and making public finances cover rural areas more. The formulation of building a new socialist countryside is consistent with the guiding ideology of solving the contradiction between urban and rural dual structure and coordinating urban and rural development formally put forward by the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China for the first time, and with the statement that solving the "three rural issues" is the top priority of the whole party's work. It is the embodiment of coordinating urban and rural development, promoting agriculture through industry, and bringing rural areas through cities. It is the fundamental way to curb the widening gap between urban and rural areas, expand rural market demand, solve the "three rural issues" and build a well-off society in an all-round way. Promoting the construction of new socialist countryside not only puts forward more clear requirements for solving the problems concerning agriculture, countryside and farmers, but also provides a rare opportunity for doing well the work concerning agriculture, countryside and farmers after the economic development enters a new stage.
More comprehensive goals. The new rural construction is a huge systematic project, covering economic construction, political construction, cultural construction and social construction. The Proposal of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan describes a beautiful blueprint for the new countryside in 20 words: "production development, affluent life, civilized rural customs, clean village appearance and democratic management". The overall goal of promoting new rural construction should be: in the next 15 years or so, the overall appearance of rural areas will be greatly improved, and the gap between urban and rural areas will be significantly narrowed. The specific objectives should be: developing rural productive forces and promoting the sustained growth of farmers' income; Vigorously strengthen rural infrastructure construction and significantly improve farmers' production and living conditions; Accelerate the development of rural education, medical care, culture and other social undertakings, and form a good social atmosphere of family harmony, simple folk customs, mutual assistance and cooperation, stability and harmony; Strengthen the improvement of rural environmental sanitation and obviously change the appearance of villages; Promote the construction of democratic politics in rural areas and constantly improve farmers' awareness of democracy and legal system.
A more complete idea. In guiding ideology, a basic understanding is made clear, that is, the central task of new rural construction is to develop rural productive forces, and new rural construction cannot be simply understood as new village construction; It is emphasized that we must adhere to the fundamental policy of coordinating urban and rural development and make steady progress on the basis of meeting farmers' wishes, bringing benefits to farmers and obtaining farmers' support. In terms of specific work ideas, we should not only pay attention to improving farmers' production and living conditions and living environment, but also change the appearance of villages and promote the all-round development of rural economy and society; It not only attaches importance to safeguarding farmers' material interests economically, but also attaches importance to respecting farmers' democratic rights politically, and emphasizes continuing to promote rural grassroots democracy construction; It not only emphasizes promoting the reform and development of agriculture and rural areas themselves, but also attaches importance to industry feeding back agriculture and cities driving rural areas; It not only emphasizes the support and guidance of the government, but also arouses the enthusiasm of farmers and advocates the participation of social forces; Based on solving the current outstanding problems and focusing on long-term planning, this paper puts forward a policy framework to ensure the sustainable construction of new countryside.
Where is the focus of new rural construction during the 11th Five-Year Plan period?
The Eleventh Five-Year Plan period is a crucial period to lay a solid foundation for building a new socialist countryside. To make a good start in the construction of new countryside, we should focus on solving the most urgent practical problems in farmers' production and life and really bring benefits to farmers.
Focusing on increasing farmers' income, we will accelerate the process of modern agricultural construction and rural economic restructuring. Stabilize the party's basic policies in rural areas and earnestly safeguard farmers' rights and interests. Optimize the regional distribution of agriculture, optimize the varieties of agricultural products, give full play to the comparative advantages of various places, and improve the comprehensive benefits and competitiveness of agriculture. Intensify the processing and transformation of primary agricultural products, actively develop modern circulation methods of agricultural products, and increase the added value of agricultural products. Combine the production, processing and sales of agricultural products organically to promote the industrialized operation of agriculture. Respond to the impact of imported agricultural products and expand the export of superior agricultural products in China. Create a policy and legal environment conducive to the development of farmers' cooperative economic organizations and improve the degree of organization of farmers entering the market. Effectively strengthen rural labor force training, vigorously develop rural vocational education, improve farmers' labor skills, and cultivate new farmers.
Shift the focus of national infrastructure construction to rural areas. In 2005, the national fiscal revenue reached 3 trillion yuan, and the central government spent about 29.3 billion yuan on the "six small projects" closely related to farmers' production and life, which was less than 1% of the fiscal revenue. In contrast, in 2005, the investment in fixed assets of the whole society exceeded 8 trillion yuan, of which the scale of urban infrastructure construction reached more than 2 trillion yuan. We should make up our minds to adjust the distribution pattern of national income, especially the investment and structure of national construction funds, and shift from focusing on urban construction to supporting small and medium-sized infrastructure construction in rural areas to ensure that farmers can enjoy the fruits of economic and social development.
Promote the balanced development of compulsory education in urban and rural areas. While gradually implementing free and compulsory education in rural areas, we will constantly improve the conditions for running schools in rural areas and improve the quality of rural education. We will increase the input of the central and provincial governments into compulsory education, fully incorporate rural compulsory education into the scope of public financial security, and build a new mechanism for ensuring rural compulsory education funds.
Gradually improve the level of farmers' medical security. Difficulties in seeing a doctor, high medical expenses and low medical security are the most urgent problems to be solved in rural areas. The new rural cooperative medical system can reduce the medical burden of seriously ill households to a certain extent, but the level of protection is still low, which can not fundamentally solve the problem of rural residents getting poor and returning to poverty due to illness. Further improve the relevant policies of the new rural cooperative medical system and gradually improve the rural medical and health service system.
Gradually establish a social assistance and security system suitable for rural reality. We will improve the support and assistance system for rural five-guarantee households and severely disabled people, gradually raise the standards of support and assistance, and improve the ways of assistance. Conditional areas, the establishment of rural minimum living security system. In terms of old-age security, conditional areas can combine family pension, land security and social pension insurance to explore the establishment of rural social pension insurance system.
Where does the new rural construction fund come from?
A core problem to be solved in promoting the construction of new countryside is where the money comes from. Since the Tenth Five-Year Plan, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have paid more attention to the work concerning agriculture, countryside and farmers, adhered to the policy of "giving more, taking less and letting loose", and the absolute amount of financial investment in supporting agriculture has increased substantially. However, compared with the needs of agriculture and rural development, the total amount of agricultural capital investment is still at a low level, the asymmetric allocation of financial resources between urban and rural areas has not been completely changed, the agricultural investment channels are not wide, the investment structure is not reasonable enough, the agricultural fund management system is not perfect, the responsibilities of central and local governments for agricultural investment are unclear, and the use effect of agricultural funds is not ideal. To promote the construction of new countryside, it is urgent to continue to increase the total amount of government financial investment in supporting agriculture and form a stable investment channel for supporting agriculture; Adjust the use direction of financial funds for supporting agriculture and make overall arrangements for the use of funds for supporting agriculture; Improve the government's agricultural investment management system and improve the efficiency of the use of government funds to support agriculture; Give play to the guiding role of government investment, and gradually establish a stable growth mechanism of diversified agricultural investment led by the government.
Continue to increase the input of the central government. Further increase the proportion of agricultural investment in the budget to fiscal expenditure, and increase the proportion of agricultural capital construction investment in the central budget. Formulate more binding laws to ensure that government policies and measures to support and protect agriculture are implemented at the legal level. Adjust the use direction of financial funds for supporting agriculture, and highlight the investment focus of government funds for supporting agriculture. Financial funds for supporting agriculture should be mainly used to solve the problems that cannot be solved by the market in the process of rural development, that is, to mainly provide public products needed for agricultural development, and to focus on projects that have a significant impact and role on rural development; For those investment projects that the market can solve, the government does not have to do all the work. According to the objectives and key points of financial support for agriculture, we will gradually change the situation that there are many channels and unreasonable classification of financial support for agriculture in the past. In accordance with the requirements of establishing the socialist market economic system and the framework of public finance system, the funds for supporting agriculture should be appropriately merged to highlight the publicity of financial support for agriculture.
Greatly increase the investment of local governments, especially those in economically developed areas, in the construction of new countryside. In recent years, the financial investment in supporting agriculture is highly dependent on the central government, while the proportion of agricultural expenditure in local finance is declining year by year. The construction of new countryside needs the joint responsibility of governments at all levels. On the basis of perfecting the financial system, the investment responsibilities of governments at all levels are clarified. At the same time, it is clear in policy that local governments should extract a larger proportion of land transfer fees for new rural construction.
Give full play to the role of rural community collective organizations and farmers. To promote the construction of new countryside, the government cannot do everything, nor can it do everything instead. Especially at the village level, the government's investment only plays a guiding role, and we should give full play to the due role of rural community collective organizations and farmers in the investment. The survey shows that if farmers can benefit directly, most farmers are willing to contribute to collective small public projects. Of course, the organization and mobilization of farmers to participate in public * * * project construction should be based on farmers' willingness, fully consider farmers' actual bearing capacity, and never go against farmers' wishes, let alone ask farmers for money and things in disguise in the name of new rural construction. To give full play to the role of community collective organizations in the construction of new countryside, we must speed up the reform of land acquisition system, narrow the scope of land acquisition, and allow to explore effective ways of collective land transfer. On the basis of conforming to the national land use planning and strictly controlling the total amount of non-agricultural construction land, more non-agricultural construction land should be directly left to rural community collective organizations for development. This is the most important source to increase the income of community collective organizations and can directly provide a large amount of funds for the construction of new countryside.
Mobilize social capital to participate in the construction of new countryside. In addition to increasing government investment, it is important to mobilize all social forces to participate in the construction of new countryside. It is necessary to formulate a set of powerful support measures in encouraging social capital and industrial capital to enter rural areas to develop industries, encouraging social forces to enter rural areas to develop social undertakings, and encouraging farmers to organize and use local resources to accelerate development. The state should formulate specific financial support policies such as "replacing compensation with awards" to encourage, reward and compensate some infrastructure investments and public welfare expenditures led by social capital. Reform and innovate the financial system, give credit support to agricultural enterprises, and establish a medium-and long-term financing and policy support mechanism to support the construction of new countryside.
Strengthen the input of credit funds. In recent years, in the process of solving the "three rural issues", finance has come to the front, while financial institutions' support for agriculture and rural economic development is far from enough, and rural funds have flowed out in large quantities. According to the requirements of increasing loans to farmers and enterprises and improving rural financial services, we should speed up the overall reform of rural financial system, strengthen the investment of credit funds in new rural construction, cultivate competitive rural financial markets, and form a reasonable rural financial institution system.
How industry and cities promote rural development
Promoting the construction of new countryside is not to separate industry from agriculture and urban and rural areas, let alone to oppose the construction of new countryside and the promotion of urbanization, but to link industry with agriculture and urban and rural areas more closely, and to link industrialization with urbanization and the solution of the "three rural issues" more closely. To promote the construction of new countryside, we must conscientiously implement the policy of industry feeding back agriculture and cities supporting rural areas, and give full play to the leading role of industry and cities in rural areas.
Create more opportunities for farmers to work in cities. The key to solving the employment problem in China is to solve the employment problem in rural areas. In order to promote the construction of new countryside according to the requirements of coordinating urban and rural development, we must put rural employment in a more prominent position and give more attention and support. Continue to promote the rational and orderly flow of farmers to cities and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of migrant workers in accordance with the law. At present, migrant workers have become the largest social group in the economic and social transition period in China, which is different from farmers and citizens. The social contradictions caused by the violation of the legitimate rights and interests of migrant workers are increasingly prominent, which directly affects social stability. Protecting the legitimate rights and interests of migrant workers is the embodiment of social justice and the basic duty of the government. We should standardize labor relations from the legal level and improve the coordination mechanism of labor disputes; Strengthen the functions of trade unions at all levels, improve the degree of organization of migrant workers, and guide and promote the formation of stable and harmonious labor relations. At the same time, accelerate the establishment and improvement of a public service system covering migrant workers.
Give the county government more economic management authority and expand the county economy. County population accounts for more than 70% of the national population, and county social output value accounts for more than 50% of the national social output value. China's rural population that needs to be transferred to cities and towns is huge, and it is impossible for all of them to enter large and medium-sized cities. A considerable number of them have to live and work in towns at or below the county level. Therefore, while encouraging farmers to move across regions and enter cities for employment, we must vigorously develop township enterprises, continuously expand the county economy, and promote the transfer of rural surplus labor to the nearest place. Among the governments at all levels, the county-level government bears the most direct responsibility for promoting the construction of new countryside, and should explore giving the county-level government more economic and administrative authority.
Actively introduce urban high-quality human resources into rural areas. In addition to tilting towards rural areas in capital investment, we should also introduce urban talents and science and technology into rural areas through mechanism innovation and support rural development with high-quality human resources. Education, health, science and technology departments should formulate policies to support rural human resources.
Improve the coordination mechanism of rural work and form a joint force to promote the construction of new countryside. Building a new socialist countryside is the responsibility of governments at all levels and functional departments. To promote the construction of new countryside, it is necessary to establish a strong work coordination mechanism. Governments at all levels and functional departments should enhance their awareness of coordinating urban and rural development, actively change their functions and extend their work functions to rural areas. In order to avoid the absence and overlap of work, effectively promote the integration of policies and funds, and create a new situation in the work of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, governments at all levels should determine a comprehensive department to grasp the work of agriculture, rural areas and farmers and improve the coordination mechanism of the work of agriculture, rural areas and farmers.
Establish a long-term mechanism to promote agriculture through industry and bring rural areas through cities, and change the dual management system of urban-rural division. At present, the dual management system of urban-rural division still exists, which is far from the requirements of coordinating urban-rural development, building a harmonious socialist society and building a new socialist countryside. The fundamental reason for the excessive gap between urban and rural areas is the dual management system of urban-rural division. Therefore, the key measures to build a new socialist countryside are to improve the economic and social management system, establish a long-term mechanism to promote agriculture through industry and bring rural areas through cities as soon as possible, and break the dual structure between urban and rural areas.