Confusion and Choices in Transition (Rural Areas and Farmers during the Social Transformation at the End of the 20th Century)

Author: Tang Xiaoteng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-07-01
Features: The author of "Confusion and Choices in Transition: Rural and Farmers in the Social Transformation of the Late 20th Century" has long worked in government policy research departments and has been engaged in research on "grassroots democratic politics and rural social development." This book is the crystallization of the author's years of research. From the perspective of a policy researcher, the author applies knowledge from economics, political science, and sociology to reveal a series of complex social issues faced by China's rural society during the late 20th-century transformation. The book focuses on five aspects: the contradictions and confusion faced by current rural reforms (general theory), the current state, difficulties, and countermeasures of agricultural production, industrialization, urbanization, and rural labor transfer, rural reform, development, and stability, as well as grassroots organizations, democratic politics, and village self-governance.
The author argues that the unscientific nature of the current township fiscal system is the economic institutional root of these problems, while the artificially created long-term urban-rural dual division is the political institutional root. These factors not only place agriculture in a difficult situation but also, under the current "pressure" system and with the inherent pattern of cadre selection remaining unchanged, exacerbate the "rootlessness tendency" of grassroots cadres. The contradiction between cadres and the masses has become the main conflict in rural society, and the reform of grassroots organizational systems has reached a critical point.
The village self-governance system implemented in rural society is, from a political perspective, a "government-led" approach where cadre issues have become the main problem. However, from an economic perspective, it merely shifts social conflicts from higher levels of government to grassroots rural areas, making it difficult to achieve the desired results. Only by reforming macro policies at the national level can the issues of rural, agriculture, and farmers be truly resolved.
"Confusion and Choices in Transition: Rural and Farmers in the Late 20th Century" is a result of "realistic" research on China's "three rural issues." Its vivid, authentic, in-depth, and accurate descriptions, analyses, and research not only provide a major revelation of the realities of rural China but also offer valuable materials on the economic, political, and social conditions of Chinese rural areas.