Return to Agriculture: A Realistic Choice for China's Economy to Surpass the Industrialization Development Model (Part 1, 2, 3)

Author: Le Yuqiao / Zhou Shujing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: This book is a compilation of research findings on practical issues concerning China's agriculture and national economic development. It collects the main achievements of our joint research on agricultural and China's economic development issues over the past three years. The fundamental insights or conclusions of these achievements are: the modern economic development model, originating in Britain and subsequently adopted by all Western developed countries and vigorously promoted by mainstream economics, characterized by industrialization and high urbanization, is not without flaws. China is a late-developing major world country, currently in a critical period of economic development. While China can and should learn from the successful experiences of foreign economic development, it cannot blindly copy them. China's national conditions are different, and the external environmental conditions it faces in economic development are also distinct from those of the early-developed developed countries. China's economic development needs to forge its own path, finding a balance between current economic growth and future sustainable development in line with the requirements of green modernization. This requires effective fundamental transformation and reconstruction of the existing industrialization and high urbanization economic development model and its industrial structure. This necessitates that China must attach great importance to agricultural development, placing agriculture at the core of overall economic development and industrial allocation, and starting now to appropriately curb the strong trend of declining agricultural share. Following a new approach to prioritizing agriculture, with a focus on agriculture and rural areas while benefiting industry and cities, a new interactive economic and industrial structure system should be established, where industrial and non-agricultural sectors, as well as urban and rural economies, mutually support and promote each other.