The National People's Congress has passed a radical restructuring of the Chinese government, with new ministries and commissions added and several eliminated. This is all part of an overall attempt to increase the efficiency and the effectiveness of these institutions in this "new era" when many new tasks have been placed upon the government in reaching the Two Centenary Goals.
This is particularly the case with regard to the rural revitalization program. The elimination of abject poverty by 2020, the first centenary goal, is No 1 on the agenda of the party and the government. And the possibility of eliminating poverty in the largest developing country in the world has caught the world’s attention. It has placed on the international agenda in a very practical way the issue of global poverty reduction, one of the UN Millenium goals.
Most of the people who have been lifted out of poverty globally over the last 30 years have done so thanks to the poverty reduction campaign in China. But coping with the 30 million people in China still living in poverty will not be an easy task. And transferring this experience to the global problem of poverty will face a number of obstacles before the Chinese experience can be copied in other parts of the world. But there are definitely important lessons to be drawn from the Chinese experience.
The creation of a new Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs to replace the Ministry of Agriculture is an attempt to broaden the new department's mandate for coping with broader rural revitalization as the country moves forward. With 700 million people already lifted out of poverty, President Xi Jinping has called for a program of "targeted poverty reduction" in order to delimit those areas still affected by acute poverty in order to more closely analyse and resolve the underlying causes. And the causes often vary in the different locations and therefore can’t be subject to a "one-size-fits-all" model. Because of this, local authorities have been given considerable leeway – and a great deal of responsibility – in dealing with their regional poverty issues. The fact that the Communist Party is focused like a laser on this issue means that all efforts will be exerted to solve the problem.
The question of rural revitalization and poverty reduction requires a multi-faceted solution. Providing the transportation and other connectivity within the rural districts has been absolutely key. The creation of the high-speed rail system and the massive effort to build and improve rural roads has created new possibilities for farmers in local areas to transport their goods more rapidly to a wider market. The improvement in the living conditions of the rural population, the extension of the electricity grid, providing sources of potable water, and rehabilitating or building new housing for the farmers has also facilitated the introduction of the internet and modern communication technology into the rural regions.
This together with the land reform that allowed farmers to shift their plots to rural cooperatives and become shareholders has allowed the creation of larger production units with more profitable output. This increased productivity has led to considerable increases in farmers' incomes. At the same time, the introduction of new and more modern technology and increasing computerization requires a significant upgrade both in the capabilities and in the skills of the farmers. This has required educating farmers in the use of these new techniques and thereby improving their skill level.
The long-term transformation of the rural population in a "high-quality development" mode places a premium on the need to educate youth in the countryside. Eliminating poverty is one thing. Making sure it does not again develop is quite another. Such a qualitative transformation of the countryside requires a general raising of the cultural and educational level of the population. And this is well under way. This, in turn, requires the creation of a modern elementary and high-school system also in the rural areas. The internet can play a role in this, but it also requires teachers to come to the rural areas to teach.
Since this new orientation will virtually transform the countryside into a new technological "platform" of development, the general prerogatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, in dealing with horticulture, animal welfare, food supply, and agricultural research and development, are still very much a part of its operation, but the scope of its activity has now expanded in order to accomplish the overall transformation required.
The new ministry will integrate the responsibilities of the Ministry of Water Resources (farmland and irrigation and drainage construction), some of the responsibilities that formerly resided in the National Development and Reform Commission, (agricultural investment), and the Ministry of Finance (agricultural comprehensive development) and will assume some of the duties of the Ministry of Land and Resources (cultivated land consolidation and rehabilitation).
This reorganization will now put under one roof the authority that had previously been divided among a number of government entities. In this way the overall development of rural China can be conducted in a coordinated fashion and with the appropriate authority to get the job done.
None of this, of course, could have been done without the efforts of the nation as a whole, brought together by the commitment of the Communist Party to this goal. The efforts made by individuals and organizations from the developed coastal and urban regions, coming to the rural districts as teachers, doctors, consultants or entrepreneurs, were critical in turning the tide. The idealism and enthusiasm generated by the new perspective of China's rejuvenation has created the climate in which the energy of the entire nation can be concentrated on this task.
This represents a critical difference from other impoverished nations, where the more affluent or developed sections of many of the developing countries are much smaller than in China, or, in some cases, completely lacking. This means that the resolution of the poverty problem worldwide will require a broader perspective in which the developed nations of the world must see these countries and these regions as their own poverty problem and their own responsibility. China has set an example in that respect in the work it has accomplished in Africa in providing much of the infrastructure by which these nations too can begin to develop. We hope the rest of the world can follow that example.
The author is the Washington Bureau Chief for Executive Intelligence Review. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.
All rights reserved. Copying or sharing of any content for other than personal use is prohibited without prior written permission.
The National People's Congress has passed a radical restructuring of the Chinese government, with new ministries and commissions added and several eliminated. This is all part of an overall attempt to increase the efficiency and the effectiveness of these institutions in this "new era" when many new tasks have been placed upon the government in reaching the Two Centenary Goals.
This is particularly the case with regard to the rural revitalization program. The elimination of abject poverty by 2020, the first centenary goal, is No 1 on the agenda of the party and the government. And the possibility of eliminating poverty in the largest developing country in the world has caught the world’s attention. It has placed on the international agenda in a very practical way the issue of global poverty reduction, one of the UN Millenium goals.
Most of the people who have been lifted out of poverty globally over the last 30 years have done so thanks to the poverty reduction campaign in China. But coping with the 30 million people in China still living in poverty will not be an easy task. And transferring this experience to the global problem of poverty will face a number of obstacles before the Chinese experience can be copied in other parts of the world. But there are definitely important lessons to be drawn from the Chinese experience.
The creation of a new Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs to replace the Ministry of Agriculture is an attempt to broaden the new department's mandate for coping with broader rural revitalization as the country moves forward. With 700 million people already lifted out of poverty, President Xi Jinping has called for a program of "targeted poverty reduction" in order to delimit those areas still affected by acute poverty in order to more closely analyse and resolve the underlying causes. And the causes often vary in the different locations and therefore can’t be subject to a "one-size-fits-all" model. Because of this, local authorities have been given considerable leeway – and a great deal of responsibility – in dealing with their regional poverty issues. The fact that the Communist Party is focused like a laser on this issue means that all efforts will be exerted to solve the problem.
The question of rural revitalization and poverty reduction requires a multi-faceted solution. Providing the transportation and other connectivity within the rural districts has been absolutely key. The creation of the high-speed rail system and the massive effort to build and improve rural roads has created new possibilities for farmers in local areas to transport their goods more rapidly to a wider market. The improvement in the living conditions of the rural population, the extension of the electricity grid, providing sources of potable water, and rehabilitating or building new housing for the farmers has also facilitated the introduction of the internet and modern communication technology into the rural regions.
This together with the land reform that allowed farmers to shift their plots to rural cooperatives and become shareholders has allowed the creation of larger production units with more profitable output. This increased productivity has led to considerable increases in farmers' incomes. At the same time, the introduction of new and more modern technology and increasing computerization requires a significant upgrade both in the capabilities and in the skills of the farmers. This has required educating farmers in the use of these new techniques and thereby improving their skill level.
