Liu Shouying
He is a researcher at the National Institute of Development and Strategy, Renmin University of Chinese
Dean and Professor of the School of Economics
Modernization requires people to seek a change model of expansion, and if the stickiness between people and the countryside has remained the same, it is a traditional society. After the reform and opening up, the "peasant generation" could choose to leave the village, work in the city, earn money, and see the outside world. They can change their way of life, and they also have more ways and opportunities to change themselves and their families, that is, the "possibility boundary" has expanded.
We should fully understand the contribution of the "peasant generation" as a whole to China's modernization as a whole. If he has worked in the city for most of his life, and his family continues in the city, we should give them a chance to stay in the city and make their own choices, rather than make them feel that they have only the destiny to go back.
Compared with the "peasant generation", many of the "second generation of farmers" are post-80s, some of whom came to the city to work in their teens, and have a deeper connection with the city, and their expectation is also to settle down in the city decently. After more than 20 years of working in the city, they will also be almost 50 years old, and soon they will have to face the same problem as the previous generation: Should I go back to the countryside for my life? This affects their plans for themselves, their families and their children. In fact, these are all major issues of modernization, and urbanization and industrialization are still the destination of national modernization, so that society can continue to make progress and not allow a large number of people to stay in the countryside. At present, we cannot say in general terms that we want to make the peasants citizens, and the most crucial issue is whether we can give them the choice to stay in the cities, and whether the problems of institutional household registration, housing, and children's education can be properly resolved.
In the process of social modernization, it is a law that the number of people in rural areas has decreased and the proportion of agriculture in the economy has decreased. It is a social problem that a society maintains a high proportion of the rural population. After the rural areas who have migrated to the cities to work in the cities have stayed in the cities with dignity, the countryside and agriculture can be gathered, and agriculture can also be scaled up. As for the pension of the "peasant generation" who have returned to the countryside, there should be safeguards. But we should pull the "second generation of farmers" into the cities, and not let them be passively pushed back to the countryside again.
The county, which is between urban and rural, seems to serve as a "middle ground" for rural migrant workers. I am hesitant to emphasize its role as a "middleman" between urban and rural areas. The county seat is indeed an important hub for the transformation of urban and rural areas for farmers: farmers can settle down in the county seat before entering the city, and they can also choose the county seat when they reach the age of retirement and do not want to return to their hometown. However, if the county seat is designed as the only way for peasants to go to the city and return to their hometowns, I am not sure whether this conforms to the law of modernization.
In my opinion, it is still possible to retain the "urban-rural passage" of the county seat, that is, farmers can choose a county with low cost of living, a lifestyle close to the countryside, and convenient transportation on the way to the city and back to the hometown. But only as a choice, not as a way to go.
In reality, there is likely to be such a situation: a farmer who has worked in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou for 40 years, and he himself is willing to stay in the first-tier cities for retirement, but the policy and reality do not allow it, and he does not want to return to the countryside to live, so he chooses the county seat. But if he had the opportunity to stay in the big city, he wouldn't necessarily make that choice. In addition, the county cannot support too many industries and economic activities, and it is uneconomical to invest heavily in the county. Big cities are different, and industrial agglomeration can promote innovation. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that the public infrastructure of the county is done well, so that it can be a decent place to live well. But it is difficult to replace the big cities.
The transformation of rural areas in other East Asian countries is an important inspiration for China, which is the need to preserve the village as an institution, as a space, which is important. Japan's countryside is relatively well preserved, and even if there are not many people in their villages, most of them are elderly, but there are basic public facilities. For example, you don't need to invest heavily in building a new factory in the village, but you can drive a slow train to reach the remote villages, so that people who go out of the village can easily go back when they need to.
If the village has good infrastructure, convenient transportation, and at the same time retains good public space, culture and people, this "root" will continue. For example, on holidays, they can use their village as a place of rest for "poetry and distance".
However, we really don't have the energy to put all the villages in order like this. It can gather the surrounding villages into a unique and living area, so that returnees can have a sense of "returning to their hometown", which may be more important than "returning to the old house". This kind of gathering is also conducive to alleviating the problem of the lack of popularity of the now scattered villages.
Source: Beijing Daily
WeChat editor: Zhang Jingjing
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