PUTTING RURAL POLICY ON THE FRONT BURNER

A "new countryside" is not a new concept. In 1956, the Chinese Government set a goal of restructuring rural areas, hut that was not specified in its work agenda. In early 2006, the Central Government released its first major document of the year, which calls the construction of a "new socialist countryside" the foremost task facing China in the 2006-10 period. Why did the government put the goal on its agenda this year?Chen Xiwen, Deputy Director of the Office of the Central Financial Work Leading Group,...

Research on European rural vitalization policies

Since the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,rural vitalization has attracted more and more attention in China.Compared with China,European countries have already experienced the by-product of rural development bottleneck brought by urbanization.Population loss,imbalance of industrial structure and destruction of rural ecological environment are the main reasons to limit the sustainable development of rural areas.This paper explores the rural vitalization policies of developed countries in Europe,summarizes the relevant rural policies of the European Union in recent years,analyzes typical rural vitalization cases in Europe,and tries to provide references and guidance for rural vitalization in China.

Deficiencies in the Focus:Rural Teacher Policy Evolution Analysis-Reflections on the Ten-Year Implementation of the Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium-and Long-Term Education Reform and Development(2010-2020)

Rural teachers are a weak part of China’s teacher team.Over ten years,China has been continuously making up deficiencies in its policy,with the focus first on rural teachers,teachers of village schools and teaching sites,then further on the rural teachers in the contiguous poverty-stricken areas,national-level poor counties,and finally on teachers of areas of extreme poverty like the“three regions”and“three prefectures.”The construction of the rural teacher policy system has been continuously strengthened by refining supplement,enhancing security,optimizing management,and improving quality,which has effectively helped with the problem of“teachers are unwilling to teach,to stay,or to teach well in rural areas,”and laid a solid foundation for improving the quality of rural teachers and narrowing the gap between urban and rural education.However,there are still deficiencies in the policies concerning rural teachers.Further investigation and monitoring are needed to consolidate the foundation for policy improvement research and reflect the rural point of view in policy making.

AN APPROACH ON SEVERAL PROBLEMS OF CHINA'S URBANIZATION DEVELOPMENT

China, having urique national conditions, is facing a basic contradiction between large numbers of less educated surplus rural labor forces and limited capacities of urban employment and infrastructure on the urbanization process.Hence, the urbanization model should prevail in comprehensive and several ways: (1)On occupational and spatial shift rural surplus labors, two fashions of 'leaving land bot not countryside' and 'leaving both land and countryside' should be integrated with joint effort of cities and countryside. (2) On urbanization motive, urban construction will be invested by not only the govermment (from the upper), but the locality, personnel and foreigners (from the lower). (3) On urban scales, metropolis,large, medium-sized and small cities and towns should play fully their roles to absorb rural surplus lanors. Thereby, the present urban development policy needs to be rectified, which this paper has discussed particularly. (4) On account of great regional disparities in China, urban development should perform different models in different regions. In addition, this paper has also focused on the problem and its primary countermeasures of 'labor force mass', a hot issue closely related to urbanization and rural labor transfer.

CPC Central Committee and State Council Release Opinions Concerning Establishing and Improving the Institution, Mechanism, and Policy System for Urban and Rural Integrated Development

On May 6,2019,the CPC Central Committee and State Council released the Opinions Concerning Establishing and Improving the Institution,Mechanism,and Policy System for Urban and Rural Integrated Development(shortened into the Opinions in the following part).The Opinions suggests that by 2022,a primary urban-rural integrated development mechanism should be established.An institutional channel for free flowing of urban and rural elements should be basically opened up,the restrictions on urban permanent household registration should be gradually eliminated,the unified urban and rural construction land use market should be set up,the capacity of finance serving for countryside revitalization should be apparently promoted.

Effects of Public Transfers on Income Inequality and Poverty in Rural China

This study examines the impacts of public transfers on income inequality and poverty reduction in rural China.It uses nationally representative rural household surveys from the China Household Income Project and classifies public transfers into threetypesuniversal,pro-poor,and reimbursable transfers-to compare the impacts of eachtype of public transfer in 2013and 2018.Estimated results show that the contributions of eachtypeof publictransfertoreducing incomeinequalityweregenerally small in both 2013 and 2018.However,the effects of reimbursable transfers were the largest of the three types.We also found that the poverty-reducing effects were the largest for reimbursabletransfers,and their impactshaveconsiderably improved inthewestern region.The impacts of pro-poor transfers were intermediate but have developed notably in the central region.These findings suggest that reimbursableand pro-poortransfers contributed mainly to reducing rural poverty but the impacts were heterogeneous among regions.

Regional diversity of peasant household response to new countryside construction based on field survey in eastern coastal China

To tackle the issues concerning agriculture,farmers,and rural areas,the central government of China initiated a new strategy called ＇new countryside construction＇ in 2005.For better understanding its actual effect,this paper analyzes the regional diversity of peasant household response to this new countryside construction strategy based on Kruskal-Wallis H test and sampling survey data from 586 households in the Bohai Rim Region （BRR）,Yangtze River Delta Region （YDR）,and Pan Pearl River Delta Region （PPR）.The result indicates that regional diversity in eastern coastal China （ECC） does exist in the form of recognized priority sequence,policy requirements,expected policy effects,and behavior response.As a result of the deviation between local policy practice and households＇ inherent demand,peasants fulfill their de facto demand via individual effort instead of government aid,and therefore the new countryside construction fails to carry out the expected target.It thus needs to shift the current policy priority,ensure the peasants＇ mainstay role,and formulate scientific ＇Rules for new countryside construction＇.