Research on China's Industrialization and the "Three Rural Issues" Problem

Author: Zhang Caili
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: This book introduces and analyzes the implications of industrialization for agricultural countries, and discusses industrialization as a historical process from a systems theory perspective. The relative decline of agriculture is an inevitable trend, but in China, this agricultural giant, the adjustment of the relative positions and structures between agriculture and industry is a long-term process. Any bias toward either side will affect the evolution of their interdependent relationship and harm the orderly progress of the entire industrialization process. The key argument of this research is that the major characteristic of China's "Three Rural" policies is not subsidies but "taking more than giving." It is precisely this policy feature that has led to the current severe urban-rural imbalance. To ensure the implementation of the important thought of the "Three Represents" and the goals of building a well-off society in an all-round way as determined by the 16th National Congress, and to build China into a solidly industrialized society, we believe that the most urgent issues to research and address are:
1. Creating equal policy standards and operational frameworks to make the pricing mechanism for agricultural and industrial products more scientific.
2. Gradually abolishing the "dual" household registration system.
3. Strengthening the agricultural research and technology extension system to truly shift agriculture and the rural economy onto a track of relying on scientific and technological progress.
4. Improving the land system.
5. Opening up rural agricultural and financial markets.
6. Establishing farmers' cooperative economic organizations—the Farmers' Association.
7. Reforming township government institutions and gradually implementing township autonomy.
8. Strengthening the rural education system and continuing to promote nine-year compulsory education.
9. Increasing the proportion of agricultural investment in fiscal expenditures.