Promote the reform of the rural land system, and promote Chinese-style modernization by comprehensively deepening reform

Promote the reform of the rural land system, and promote Chinese-style modernization by comprehensively deepening reform

Center for Globalization (CCG)

The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will be held in Beijing from July 15 to 18, 2024. Looking back at history, since the beginning of reform and opening up, China's economy has achieved leapfrog development, from rural areas to cities, from coastal to inland, from economic structural reform to comprehensive deepening of reform, and a series of major reform measures have injected strong impetus into the mainland's economic and social development. In particular, after joining the WTO, benefiting from the global division of labor, the Chinese population dividend, market potential, and resource advantages have been fully demonstrated, gradually integrated into the international economic and trade system, and played an increasingly important role on the world economic stage. Reform is the key to emancipating and developing the social productive forces and is the fundamental driving force for promoting national development. With regard to the new problems and challenges that are constantly emerging in the course of development, it is also necessary to use the method of reform to solve them in the course of continuous development.

At present, the mainland economy is facing the prominent problem of insufficient aggregate demand, and in the face of a more complex and severe domestic and foreign environment, it is necessary to introduce new major favorable policies to promote the transformation and upgrading of the mainland economy and high-quality development, greatly liberate and develop the productive forces with new force points, and inject new endogenous impetus into the mainland's economic development. On February 19, 2024, the fourth meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform deliberated and adopted the "Opinions on Reforming the Land Management System and Enhancing the Ability to Guarantee High-quality Development in Advantageous Areas", raising the reform of land elements to a new height. In this regard, the reform of the land system may be one of the starting points, and the reform of the homestead system will be regarded as the fourth breakthrough reform measure since the reform and opening up of the mainland, and efforts will be made to break the dual structure of urban and rural areas, so as to inject new impetus into the sustained and healthy development of the mainland's economy in the next few decades.

1. Three major reforms in the history of reform and opening up

Since the beginning of reform and opening up, the mainland has introduced a major measure every 10 years or so to push reform and opening up to a higher level and release huge dividends for the mainland's economic development. From 1982, when the household responsibility system liberated rural productive forces, to 1994, when the reform of the urban housing system led to the boom in the real estate market that lasted for many years, and then to the rapid growth of the mainland into the world's second largest economy after joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, the mainland has continued to move forward on the "only way" of reform and opening up, and has solved one development problem after another in exploration and innovation.

(1) In 1982, the household contract responsibility system was established and promoted

China's reform and opening up began in the countryside, and the first step in rural reform was to adjust the relationship between peasants and land. After the Third Plenary Session of the 11 th CPC Central Committee, inspired by the spirit of emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts, the Chinese peasants created a production responsibility system in which household contracting was the main form. In May 1980, Comrade Deng Xiaoping gave a clear affirmation to the delivery of production to households, and vigorously promoted the rural reform with the household responsibility system as the main content.

In the expectation of 800 million peasants, the No. 1 Central Document of 1982 officially affirmed the legitimacy of the household contract responsibility system. With the continuous support of the CPC Central Committee, the household responsibility system for joint production has been rapidly popularized, which has fully mobilized the peasants' enthusiasm for production and promoted the rapid development of agricultural production. In many places, results were achieved in a year, and grain production increased markedly, but in a few years, the situation has changed. By 1987, 98 percent of the peasant households in the country had implemented the household responsibility system for joint production, and the enthusiasm of hundreds of millions of peasants for production had been greatly enhanced, and agricultural production had shaken off the predicament of stagnation. Practice has proven that the popularization of the household responsibility system has enabled the vast number of peasants in China to gain full operational autonomy, greatly aroused the enthusiasm of the peasants, liberated the rural productive forces, and opened the way for China to change from a shortage economy to a rich economy, which is an important turning point in the mainland's rural land system. As a result, China has created a miracle that has attracted the world's attention: using 7% of the world's land to feed 22% of the world's population.

(2) Reform of the urban housing system in 1994

The development and success of rural reform have directly promoted the progress of urban reform. During the period of the planned economy, the urban housing system implemented a welfare supply system. In 1980, Comrade Deng Xiaoping, the chief architect of reform and opening up, clearly put forward the overall idea of reforming the system of investment, construction, and distribution of urban housing, and the goal of reform was to gradually realize commercialization and socialization. Between 1980 and 1993, the reform of the housing system went through three broad phases. They are: the pilot sales stage (1979-1985), the rent subsidy stage (1986-1990) and the sale with rent stage (1991-1993).

In 1994, the State Council promulgated the Decision on Deepening the Reform of the Urban Housing System, which clearly stated that a new urban housing system compatible with the socialist market economic system should be established and housing commercialized and socialized. On the basis of more than three years of reform practice, in 1998, then Premier Zhu Rongji presided over the formulation of the "Circular of the State Council on Further Deepening the Reform of the Urban Housing System and Accelerating Housing Construction," deciding to stop the distribution of housing in kind and gradually implement the monetization of housing distribution. At the same time, a housing subsidy and housing provident fund system for employees has been established, creating conditions for promoting the commercialization of housing.

As a result, the mainland's welfare housing system officially ended, the commercial housing market was officially opened, and the real estate industry entered the fast lane of development and quickly became an important pillar of the national economy. Moreover, the real estate industry has a large volume and a long industrial chain, and through investment and consumption, it not only directly drives the manufacturing sectors such as building materials, furniture, and wholesale related to housing, but also significantly drives the tertiary industries such as finance and business services, and affects more than 50 upstream and downstream industries. According to statistics, China's real estate and related construction industries account for 26% of GDP, the highest in the world, and have a systemic impact on the national economy. Ni Hong, Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, summarized the significant impact of the real estate industry on the economy as "456": that is, real estate-related loans account for 40% of bank credit, real estate-related income accounts for 50% of local comprehensive financial resources, and residents' wealth is 60% in housing.

3. Accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of the three most extensive international economic organizations in the world, along with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. China was one of the 23 founding signatories of the GATT, but for a time it lost this status due to historical reasons. On 10 July 1986, China formally submitted its application for restoration of its status as a party to the GATT. In 1995, the WTO replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and China's GATT resumption talks were also turned into WTO accession talks. On December 11, 2001, after years of negotiations, the mainland formally joined the World Trade Organization.

Prior to China's accession to the WTO, the mainland's foreign trade was monopolized by the state, and the only companies engaged in foreign trade were a dozen or so specialized foreign trade corporations and their port branches under the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. Three years after China's accession to the WTO, the mainland has fully liberalized its foreign trade management rights. According to the newly revised Foreign Trade Law of the People's Republic of China in 2004, since July 2004, the Chinese government's foreign trade operation rights for enterprises have been changed from an examination and approval system to a filing and registration system, and all foreign trade operators can engage in foreign trade in accordance with the law. As a result, the abolition of the examination and approval of foreign trade operation rights has promoted the formation of a diversified foreign trade operation pattern of state-owned enterprises, foreign-invested enterprises, and private enterprises. Subsequently, the dividends continuously released by WTO accession enabled China's economy to take off and grow step by step into a "world factory", "world market" and "manufacturing power". In just over 20 years, China's GDP has grown from less than US$10 trillion in 2001 to more than US$126 trillion in 2023, becoming the world's largest trading country and the second largest economy, with an average annual contribution rate of more than 30% to global economic growth for many years.

Second, in the new era, the mainland needs to launch the fourth breakthrough reform measures

By 2021, the mainland will build a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, lift 800 million people out of poverty, and achieve common prosperity will become another important strategic goal in the new development stage of the mainland. Common prosperity is the essential requirement of socialism and an important feature of Chinese modernization. From the medium- to long-term perspective of economic benefits and social equity, after building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, we must not only continue to work hard to promote economic development and prevent a return to poverty, but also focus on and increase the proportion of low-income farmers and migrant workers among the middle-income group, promote the transformation of migrant workers into new citizens, and gradually break the shackles of the dual structure of urban and rural areas on the mainland's economic and social development. Previously, Premier Li Qiang also pointed out at the World Economic Forum's 2024 annual meeting that the number of middle-income groups in the mainland will double from the current more than 400 million to 800 million in the next ten years. Obviously, the nearly 300 million migrant workers are the main component of the mainland's middle-income group that has increased from more than 400 million to 800 million, and the breakthrough reform measures in the new development stage should also focus on improving their income and living standards, so as to continuously release the potential of domestic demand for economic growth.

(1) The demand for real estate in the economic downturn is insufficient, and the reform of the homestead system is a breakthrough

At present, the mainland's economy is in a period of transition, and the real estate industry, as a pillar industry of the mainland's economy, has weakened significantly, which is a major risk factor affecting the mainland's economic operation. Under the combined effect of the impact of the epidemic, major changes in demographic structure and strict regulatory policies, the mainland real estate market is facing unprecedented challenges. In recent years, the downward pressure on the mainland economy has increased, the real estate market has experienced the most violent adjustment since the housing reform in 1998, a number of leading private real estate companies have exploded, and the expectations of buyers on housing prices "only rising but not falling" have disappeared, real estate demand has fallen sharply, and the supply of unfinished buildings in various places continues to ferment. It is estimated that by the end of 2022, the number of houses in mainland China may have reached 3.5 million. In 2022, new real estate policies have been launched in mainland China, and the Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of 2022 emphasized that "it is necessary to ensure the steady development of the real estate market" and "promote the smooth transition of the real estate industry to a new development model". In July 2023, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a meeting and clearly pointed out that "it is necessary to increase the construction and supply of affordable housing", "revitalize and transform all kinds of idle real estate", and "effectively prevent and resolve local debt risks". But at the same time, China's property market is still falling rapidly, peaking in 2022 and falling by 26%, by another 8% in 2023, and by 23% in the first five months of 2024. The sales area of commercial housing has also fallen from 1.8 billion square meters in 2021 to less than 900 million square meters this year, a decline of 50% in three years. According to the share of real estate and related industries in China's GDP of 26%, a 10% drop in real estate will reduce GDP growth by 2.6%, and a 20% drop in the real estate market this year will mean a 5% reduction in GDP.

The Central Economic Work Conference held in December 2023 pointed out that some difficulties and challenges need to be overcome to further promote the economic recovery, mainly due to insufficient effective demand, overcapacity in some industries, weak social expectations, and still many hidden risks. On December 23, 2023, Lou Jiwei, Chairman of the Global Wealth Management Forum and former Minister of Finance, said at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the China Wealth Management 50 Forum that when the population no longer distinguishes between urban and rural household registration, they can be converted to each other, and the urban and rural transfer population can obtain the same public services and the right to enter the market, and they will be at ease to buy houses in cities and towns, so it is estimated that consumer demand can increase by nearly 30%. At the same time, a large number of homesteads and self-built houses in rural areas can be freely transferred, land and real estate will be effectively utilized, and farmers who move to the cities will obtain assets to settle down initially, and the amount of farmland that can be reclaimed will increase, which will also be conducive to food security.

During the two sessions in March this year, Meng Xiaosu, the former head of the national housing reform research group and the former chairman of China Real Estate Group, also said in an exclusive interview with media reporters that the dual structure of urban and rural areas should be broken, and the household registration system of agricultural and non-agricultural household registration should be abolished, including changing the land system of urban and rural separation, which is the inevitable trend of rural reform and the key link of rural revitalization. Meng Xiaosu believes that there is an urgent need to implement the "same access to the market, the same price and the same rights" for rural construction land and state-owned land in accordance with the requirements of the resolution of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, so that rural homesteads and urban land have the same market value. Rather than just allowing transfers between peasant households, the latter would not give rural land the same value as urban state-owned land.

At the same time, Cai Jiming, a deputy to the National People's Congress, a professor at the School of Social Sciences of Tsinghua University, and director of the Political Economy Research Center, who has long been concerned about and studied the reform of the rural land system, has also made suggestions and suggestions on promoting the reform of the rural homestead system. In an interview during the two sessions this year, Cai Jiming said that through the free leasing and transfer of rural homesteads, the property income of farmers can be increased, and the legal circulation of homestead use rights in the open market can increase the property income of farmers, and at the same time realize the intensive and economical use of rural construction land, and encourage farmers to use homesteads to obtain funds to enter the city by liberalizing the circulation of rural homesteads between urban and rural areas, so as to narrow the income gap between urban and rural residents.

As early as 2016, Wang Huiyao, chairman of the Center for Globalization (CCG), also published an article in the Global Times calling for further relaxation of restrictions on the circulation of rural homesteads. The article points out that according to the current "Land Management Law" in mainland China, the acquisition of homestead land is free use and allocation, similar to the form of urban housing provided by units and the state before the 90s of the last century. Rural homesteads have no market price, and homesteads should be given commodity attributes, so that rural people can obtain the right to use and dispose of homesteads on the same basis as urban people, and obtain the property value of land circulation appreciation. The rural population moving to the city to buy second-hand houses has also led to the improvement of urban residents' housing and promoted the destocking of real estate as soon as possible. Land is a commodity with limited supply, and it is impossible to allocate homesteads to rural people on a sustainable basis, and this solution also allows the population with homesteads to bear the cost of land use rights, which reasonably reflects the scarcity value of land.

(2) The dual structure of urban and rural areas restricts rural development, and the economic value of homesteads can be revitalized through reform

To promote common prosperity, the most arduous and arduous task is still in the rural areas. In recent decades, with the reform of the housing system and the prosperity and development of the real estate market in the mainland, real estate prices in the mainland have generally risen sharply. To a certain extent, this has exacerbated the imbalance in the allocation of resources and widened the wealth gap between urban households and rural households and urban homeless. At present, the proportion of housing assets in mainland urban households to total assets is about 70%, and real estate has become the main asset of mainland households. However, in contrast, many urban households have enjoyed the dividends of the era of welfare housing and rising housing prices, while most rural households have not received asset income from land such as homesteads or farm houses. As a product of the mainland's historical development, the urban-rural dual system has made an indelible contribution to the mainland's economic and social development, but it is also a fundamental factor for the large income gap between urban and rural residents on the mainland. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the absolute value of the urban-rural income gap in the mainland will reach 30,130 yuan in 2023, and the difference in 2012 will only be 15,738 yuan.

At present, the per capita net property income ratio of urban and rural residents in mainland China is as high as 10.29 times, far higher than the per capita disposable income ratio of urban and rural residents of 2.39. Some researchers have pointed out that the current circulation mode of homestead use rights, which is characterized by non-transactionality, restricts the realization of the economic value of homesteads, and the excessive circulation restrictions and the lack of exit mechanism block the road to prosperity for farmers, make it difficult for farmers to realize their property income, and hinder the transfer of rural surplus labor, which has become an important obstacle to breaking the dual social structure of urban and rural areas and promoting the process of urbanization. Moreover, with the acceleration of urbanization, more and more "new citizens" intend to transfer their homestead use rights based on factors such as exchange for starting capital based on the city, and the demand for homestead use rights is becoming stronger and stronger, and the scale of the homesteads to be transferred is also increasing. According to incomplete statistics from the Ministry of Natural Resources, at least 70 million farmhouses and 30 million acres of homesteads are idle across the country.

Rural homesteads and farmhouses are the basic means of subsistence and important property of farmers, but according to the current system, rural homestead transactions are limited to members of village collective organizations, and homestead transactions lack effective market and institutional support, so they can neither be listed nor used for financial mortgages, and farmers cannot obtain property income from them. In this regard, if under the urban housing reform in the 90s of the 20th century, the houses divided by the workers' units can be bought and sold, and can be turned into property rights and privatized, can the homesteads of migrant workers in the rural areas be transformed into buying and selling, and the property rights certificates of the peasants' homesteads and farmhouses can be issued, so that they can trade the right to use the homesteads and farmhouses, so that they can have the first pot of gold to gain a foothold in the city?

(3) There is still a lot of room for improvement in the urbanization rate of the mainland, and it is necessary to accelerate the urbanization of the agricultural transfer population

Urbanization is the only way to modernize, and it is also an important starting point for expanding domestic demand and promoting industrial upgrading. Since 2013, when the central government convened the first urbanization work conference since the reform and opening up, and made the strategic deployment of a people-centered new urbanization, the mainland has taken multiple measures to promote the construction of new urbanization in a coordinated manner, and the urbanization rate has been significantly accelerated. As of 2022, 140 million rural migrants have settled in cities and towns, and the urbanization rate of permanent residents has increased from 17.92% in 1978 to 66.16% by the end of 2023.

However, at the same time, by the end of 2023, the total number of migrant workers in the mainland will still be close to 300 million, and the urbanization rate of the registered population will only be 48.3%, which is still far behind the urbanization rate of the permanent population. Taking Guangdong, a major province with population inflow, as an example, in 2022, Guangdong's permanent population will be 126.568 million, and the registered population will be 100.497 million. According to the data of the seventh population census in 2020, Guangdong ranks first in the country in terms of the total floating population, and the total size of Guangdong's migrant population is as high as 29.622 million, accounting for 23.5% of the total population, ranking first in the country. It can be seen that more than 20 million of Guangdong's nearly 30 million migrants do not have local household registration, including a large number of migrant workers and their descendants. From the perspective of international experience, the urbanization rate of European and American countries is basically stable at about 80 percent, and it is estimated that the urbanization rate of the mainland will reach at least 75 percent before it can be basically stabilized. In the future, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the urbanization rate of the mainland, which contains huge domestic demand potential and strong development momentum, which is an important support for the development of the mainland's real estate market and China's economic transformation and upgrading.

At present, the mainland's urbanization construction is in the middle and late stages of rapid development, and is shifting to a new stage of comprehensively improving quality. Among them, promoting the orderly urbanization of the permanent population who have the ability to work and live in cities and towns in a stable manner is still the primary task of the mainland's new urbanization. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out: "Promote a new type of urbanization with people as the core, and accelerate the urbanization of the agricultural transfer population." Relying on urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas, we will build a coordinated development pattern of large, medium and small cities, and promote urbanization construction with county towns as important carriers. The No. 1 Central Document of 2024 also mentions that a new round of urbanization of the agricultural transfer population will be implemented, and counties (cities, districts) with conditions will be encouraged to include all urban permanent residents in the scope of the housing security policy. Integrating more rural migrants into cities is an inevitable requirement for the mainland to promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas, promote common prosperity for all people, and realize Chinese-style modernization. This is a huge and systematic project, which requires both overall planning and steady progress, as well as the timely introduction of breakthrough policies.

3. Promote the reform of the homestead system and release the endogenous driving force of economic development

The land system is a basic, fundamental and overall system of a country. The mainland has long practiced a dual land system between urban and rural areas, and rural land can only be transferred and traded in the market after it has been expropriated. As a result, after the reform and opening up, when a large amount of industrial land is needed for economic development, the actual scale of residential land entering the market is relatively small, and the low supply in some large cities may lead to an increase in housing prices, and at the same time, it is difficult to realize the value of rural land.

(1) The reform of the rural land system in mainland China is being carried out on a pilot basis

At present, the problems of rural collective construction land entering the market and the circulation, mortgage, voluntary and paid withdrawal of farmers' homestead land and paid use are all being explored and resolved. In 2015, the central government launched three pilot reforms of the rural land system, including the pilot reform of the homestead system, to explore ways and means to improve farmers' homestead rights and interests and improve the homestead management system. On the basis of summarizing the pilot practice, the No. 1 document of the Central Committee in 2018 innovatively put forward the reform idea of "exploring the 'separation of three rights' of homestead ownership, qualification rights and use rights", and in June 2020, the 14th meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform deliberated and approved the "Pilot Plan for Deepening the Reform of the Rural Homestead System". Judging from the pilot practice in many places, the rural homestead reform is a breakthrough in integrating urban and rural elements under the new urbanization construction, and it is also a key step in the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.

Previously, in November 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform" clearly stated that the establishment of a unified urban and rural construction land market, under the premise of conforming to planning and use management, allows rural collective management of construction land to be transferred, leased, and shared, and implemented the same market with state-owned land, the same rights and the same price. According to the relevant research report of the Ministry of Natural Resources, the unified construction land market will become an important starting point for rural revitalization and urban-rural integration. In 2022, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a National Unified Market", requiring the improvement of the unified land market in urban and rural areas. These documents have made important top-level designs for deepening the reform of the land system and building a unified land property rights market in urban and rural areas.

On April 25, 2023, the Ministry of Natural Resources announced that the mainland has fully realized the unified registration of real estate. This means that after 10 years of efforts, a unified real estate registration system covering all land spaces and all real estate rights has been fully established, from decentralization to unification, from urban houses to rural homesteads, from real estate to natural resources. This will not only help protect the major property rights of the people, ensure the safety of transactions, and reduce the cost of government governance, but also lay the foundation for the mainland to realize the sale and circulation of homestead land in the market and the introduction of real estate tax in a timely manner. In July 2023, the Ministry of Natural Resources issued the Notice on Continuing to Promote the Registration and Issuance of Certificates for Rural Housing and Land Integrated Homesteads, which clearly accelerated the cadastral survey of housing and land integrated homesteads, and promoted the registration and issuance of certificates for the confirmation of housing and land homesteads in a standardized and orderly manner.

In 2024, the No. 1 document of the central government once again emphasized that the reform of the rural homestead system should be steadily and prudently promoted. This is the 11th consecutive year since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the No. 1 document of the Central Committee emphasizes the need to reform and improve the rural homestead system, which shows that the central government attaches great importance to this reform. On February 19, 2024, the fourth meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform deliberated and adopted the Opinions on Reforming the Land Management System and Enhancing the Ability to Guarantee High-quality Development in Advantageous Areas. When presiding over the meeting, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that it is necessary to establish and improve the land management system that is more efficiently connected with macro policies and regional development, improve the accuracy and utilization efficiency of land element allocation, promote the formation of a spatial development pattern with effective main functional constraints and coordinated and orderly land development, and enhance the ability of land elements to guarantee the high-quality development of advantageous areas. This is a major reform policy launched by the central government at the beginning of 2024, which means that the fourth land system reform since the founding of the People's Republic of China may be carried out in an all-round way.

(2) Promote the pace of reform of the homestead system and deepen the reform of key areas

Reform, development, and stability are the three important fulcrums of the mainland's socialist modernization. At present, there is a considerable social consensus on the necessity and urgency of promoting the reform of the homestead system and establishing a unified urban and rural construction land market with a theoretical basis and pilot accumulation. After years of reform practice and experimental preparations, the reform of the land system in the new stage may be able to move faster and with greater intensity.

The practice of Chongqing's land ticket system shows that the implementation of the land ticket system and the balance of occupation and compensation have played a positive role in maintaining the red line of cultivated land protection, opening up the channels for the market-oriented allocation of urban and rural construction land, promoting the integration of agricultural transfer population into the city, and optimizing the pattern of land space development. Nowadays, the conditions for accelerating the reform of the land system nationwide are more mature, and we can refer to the practice of Chongqing's land ticket system and the reform of the "separation of powers" in various places to complete the registration and issuance of certificates for the confirmation and issuance of certificates for rural housing and land integrated homesteads nationwide, and issue property rights certificates to farmers and migrant workers in rural homesteads nationwide. Just as the abolition of the agricultural tax in 2006 brought tangible benefits to hundreds of millions of farmers, the issuance of homestead title certificates can also benefit farmers more, so that farmers can allocate homesteads at lower prices.

In addition, rural homesteads can be granted the same usufructuary rights, complete income rights, and complete security rights as urban residents, allowing rural households to legally rent, transfer, and mortgage their homestead use rights outside the collective economic organizations, allowing urban residents to buy and rent houses in rural areas and renting homesteads to build houses, and formally recognizing the right to use construction land spontaneously established by rural collective land owners on their own land and being recognized through legal amendments. Combined with the pilot situation, the reform of the homestead system can be accelerated in stages, regions and conditions, and the objects and scope of the circulation of homestead use rights can be gradually and conditionally expanded, and the transition from restricted circulation to free circulation can be finally realized. At the same time, the leasing market, mortgage and transfer market for homestead land use rights should be gradually opened up, and the commercial circulation market for homestead land use rights should be completely liberalized after the rural social security system is improved.

The mainland's reform has entered a period of tackling tough problems and deep waters, and we must lose no time in deepening reforms in key areas with greater political courage and wisdom. Keeping housing prices basically stable, avoiding a real estate market crash, and giving rise to a new round of real estate market boom will help the mainland introduce a real estate tax at an early date, alleviate the fiscal pressure on local governments under the sharp decline in land revenue, and provide local governments with a new considerable and stable source of tax revenue, providing long-term support for the mainland's economic growth. In the era of "stock housing", real estate tax may replace land finance as the main source of tax revenue for local governments. The comprehensive realization of the unified registration of real estate in the mainland provides a basis for a comprehensive and full grasp of real estate information and scientific decision-making, and also provides conditions for the collection of stock real estate tax. In addition, allowing people with more houses and expensive prices to pay more taxes can also play a role in adjusting income distribution, helping to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor and achieve common prosperity.

(3) Promote the coordinated and integrated development of urban and rural areas, and promote social fairness and justice

Accelerating the construction of a new development pattern is a strategic task put forward by the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. To build a new development pattern with the domestic cycle as the mainstay and the domestic and international cycles reinforcing each other, we need to comprehensively promote the coordinated development of urban and rural areas and regions, and improve the coverage of the domestic cycle. On the one hand, it can provide policy guarantees for urban residents to go to the countryside for retirement, leisure tourism, and the development of rural economy, and provide policy convenience for leading enterprises in agricultural industrialization to become bigger and stronger and develop modern agriculture, so as to inject capital flow, talent flow, information flow, technology flow, and material flow into rural revitalization, promote urban-rural integration and promote rural revitalization with urban-rural integration, promote the construction of new countryside, and stimulate new growth space and development potential; On the other hand, it can empower the second, third or older generations of farmers who tend to live in the city, so that they can obtain asset income through idle rural homesteads and farmhouses, enhance their confidence and confidence in integrating into the city, inject new impetus into the urban real estate market, and help the real estate market to develop steadily and healthily. Therefore, without touching the red line of 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land, the reform of the homestead system can be taken as an important breakthrough in the fourth reform in the new round of urbanization, and the potential of domestic demand in the mainland can be released to a great extent by promoting the coordinated and integrated development of urban and rural areas, and new impetus will be injected into the sustained and healthy development of the mainland economy in the next 20 years at least.

At the same time, at the social level, opening up the circulation of homestead land will also help to fundamentally solve the problem of left-behind children in rural areas. According to statistics, there are still 9.02 million left-behind children in mainland China in 2022. Although all sectors of society have made great efforts to solve the problem of left-behind children, it is difficult to fundamentally solve the problem that left-behind children cannot live with their parents. Liberalizing the circulation of homesteads, promoting the settlement of rural populations in cities and towns, and allowing more left-behind children to move into cities and towns with their parents and enjoy the same public services as urban children, such as compulsory education and basic medical care, is conducive to expanding the supply of public services, stimulating urban living consumption and domestic demand, and helping to fundamentally solve the problem of left-behind children.

Looking to the future, whether it is for the needs of the mainland's economic transformation and upgrading, or from the perspective of realizing social fairness and justice and promoting common prosperity, it is necessary to make great efforts to solve the long-standing problem of unbalanced and insufficient urban and rural development, and promote the change of the unfair dual structure of urban and rural areas.

IV. Conclusion

Reform and opening up is a great historical change in the history of New China and a key move in determining the fate of contemporary China. From the "three to one supplement" at the beginning of reform and opening up to becoming the "world's factory" after joining the WTO, China's economy has increasingly integrated with the development of the world economy. Especially after the outbreak of the international financial crisis in 2008, the fast-growing Chinese economy has become the main stabilizer and driving force of world economic growth, contributing more than 30% to world economic growth year after year. After the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed in 2013, China entered a new era of all-round opening up, forming a new pattern of opening up with land and sea linkage at home and abroad and east-west mutual assistance. According to data released by the World Bank, China's average contribution to world economic growth from 2013 to 2021 reached 38.6%, more than the combined contribution rate of the G7 countries. In 2023, against the backdrop of downward pressure on the world economy, China's GDP growth will reach 5.2%, contributing more than 30% to world economic growth.

Reform is the driving force for development, and development is the key to realizing the happiness of the people. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out many times that "reform and opening up is only in progress and not completed". At present, although the mainland's economy has maintained a good momentum of development, it is still facing complex and severe domestic and international situations, and the downward pressure on the economy is still great. From an international point of view, the world is chaotic and intertwined, the evolution of changes in a century is accelerating, international political disputes and military conflicts have broken out at many points, trade protectionism and geopolitical tensions are threatening the process of globalization, and the global industrial and supply chain pattern continues to reconstruct. From a domestic point of view, the mainland economy is facing the arduous challenges of structural transformation and institutional reform, and there are serious problems such as insufficient effective demand, overcapacity in some industries, weak social expectations, and many hidden risks. In this regard, how to further deepen reform and opening up in an all-round way and inject sustained impetus into the stable economic and social development of the mainland has a bearing on the smooth progress of the development of Chinese-style modernization and the healthy development of economic globalization.

China's economy has long been deeply integrated into the global division of labor system, and China's development cannot be separated from the world, and the world's development also needs China. The high-quality development of China's economy will help lead global prosperity and development, and build a new type of economic globalization that is more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient. In the new stage of development, it is necessary to continuously inject new momentum into China's economic and social development by comprehensively deepening reform and opening up, and provide solid support for China to promote and lead a new round of economic globalization. Among them, deepening the reform of the land system, including the reform of the homestead system, is a historic breakthrough, which will once again greatly liberate the rural productive forces, further release the endogenous potential of China's economy, and provide a lasting and strong impetus for the sustained and healthy development of China's economy.