Research on Measures to Promote Rural Community Construction Pilot Work

Liu Youtian＊

Research on Measures to Promote Rural Community Construction Pilot Work

Liu Youtian＊

Rural community construction is an important part in the construction of a socialist countryside with Chinese characteristics, and a significant measure to consolidate the foundation of the Party’s governance in the rural areas. To further promote the rural community construction pilot work we must develop rural economies to lay a solid industrial foundation for rural community construction, increase farmers’ income, enhance the effective cohesive force, foster new types of farmers, cultivate reliable contributors, develop rural cultures, create a good cultural environment, improve the environment, build good ecological conditions, innovate organization and management, provide powerful organizational guarantees, and improve the service system to support good social conditions.

rural community; industrial foundation; new types of farmers; ecological civilization; rural governance

The Guiding Opinion on Deeply Advancing the Rural Community Construction Pilot Work by the General Offices of the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council (2015) states that, “Rural community construction is an important part in the construction of a socialist countryside. The associated program to push ahead the new type urbanization is an important measure to consolidatethe governance foundation of the Party and governments at the grassroots level.” It also requires that “all regions and all relevant departments should…enhance the sense of responsibility and urgency in properly doing the rural community construction work, and further push ahead the pilot work.” To further push ahead the rural community construction pilot work and ensure that the rural community construction will advance along a correct road, we must work well on seven aspects concurrently: Develop rural economies, increase farmers’income, foster new types of farmers, develop rural culture, improve the living environment, innovate organization and management, and improve the service systems.

1. Develop rural economies to lay a solid industrial foundation for rural community construction

Rural economies—Agriculture is the primary function of rural communities, and also the fundamental feature of rural communities different from that of urban communities. Historically, China was a country based on agriculture. Grain production was the fundamental economic activity of the state. Agriculture was the lifeline of the state, and taking agriculture as the base was the basic state policy of all regimes over several thousand years, as it was linked to the rise and fall of the state. Since the reform and opening-up, especially after economic globalization, agriculture becomes gradually open to the world and enters the global unified market; however, due to the strategic importance of agriculture and its natural disadvantageous position, almost all countries provide special economic support to agriculture. China, as a big country with a population of over 1.3 billion, always puts agriculture, especially grain production, at the basic industrial position of top importance, and supports it with various measures. In the viewpoint of rural communities, the rural economic activities are mainly centered on land, with community and comprehensive features. From the viewpoint of farmers, as their fields and living space are linked with each other, the land is their basic means of production and living dependence. The rural community, as a social community, carries more economic significance. In the construction and governance of rural communities, the development of rural economies is quite important as a primary task from the different views of either the grain security, the sustainable development of the whole national economy, the career development for farmers to settle down and get on with their pursuit, or the favorable development of communities. The historical background of rural community governance in China in the present period shows that the primary task in developing rural economies should be embodied in increasing the overall production capacity of agriculture, safeguarding the grain security, resources and ecological security, food safety and public health security of the nation, and in effectively increasing the agricultural production areas and providing more channels to increase farmers’ income .

To further advance rural community construction, we must focus on developing rural economies as the center, and give priority to industrial support at the primary position. Because various areas in the country are at different economic development levels, with different development conditions and resources, industrial planning should be based on the historical resources and realistic conditions and in conjunction with the existing industrial foundation, select the best industrial development items suitable to the local conditions by giving play to the comparative advantages among agriculture, industry, commerce, culture and tourism, develop a primary sector andstrengthen that sector to facilitate employment to promote rapid development of the economies in the various communities.

For the economic construction in rural communities, the most fundamental and general productive force is the land. In different phases of development, to adapt to the different demands in productive force development and relationship between farmers and land, there are different means and approaches in the use of land resources by farmers. In further advancing the rural community construction, to promote the development of rural productive force, it is necessary to reform and adjust the rural land system adhering to farmers and their interests as the main contributors. The land in the rural areas of China, in addition to their nature as productive elements and property, also has the functions of welfare guarantee, stabilizing the people, political right guarantee for community members, the geographic link for the finance of community organizations and autonomous organizations, the salaries for workers and rural infrastructure maintenance personnel, the mutual benefit between communities, and award, employment and punishing functions. Especially, in the special condition of large population with small amount of land in China, land is not only the lifeline of farmers, but also the fundamental element for farmers to cooperate and maintain the collective economy, therefore in the rural community governance and development of rural economy, we must never privatize the rural land. Instead, we should integrate and enhance the basic functions and roles of rural land in farmers’cooperation and the rural collective economy in the forms of joint stock cooperative systems and community based farmers’ cooperatives, to fundamentally dissolve the relevant rural social contradictions, and ensure the socialist nature of new type rural communities and its sustainable and healthy development (Xu, 2016).

2. Increase farmer’s income, to enhance the effective cohesive force for rural community construction

The most important purpose of rural community construction is to raise the living standard of farmers. The key point in this mission is to increase the farmers’ income and an important way to increasing their income is to develop agriculture and other industrial sectors according to local conditions. Practice of rural work in various places in recent years has proved that the main ways to develop the rural areas and increase farmers’ income are reforming the traditional production patterns of small-scale farming economies, readjusting the industrial structure of agriculture and energetically developing a diversified economy. We should vigorously develop the secondary industry with refined and in-depth processing of agricultural products and speed up the development of the rural service sector in the industry gathering areas around rural communities by changing the ways of economic development according to the actual conditions of communities. Where conditions permit, the leisure-enjoying agriculture and sightseeing agriculture should be energetically developed to foster new growth for employment opportunities and increased income for farmers. We should actively guide the development of non-public enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises, keep expanding the employment capacity and provide more jobs. Also, there is no good return with a small scale. The key in readjusting the industrial structure in rural areas lies in large scale and intensive operations. We should readjust the industrial structure and develop scaled operations to increase farmers’ income and provide improved living standards for residents in rural communities.

Employment is the root of people’s livelihood.Those with stable careers can afford permanent properties, and those with permanent properties have constant minds. People can get stable income only with stable jobs, and build a constant mind only with stable income, and then they will have a strong sense of belonging to their community, and enhance the powerful cohesive force in community construction. In the course of rural community construction, employment is the first fundamental issue faced by residents in new communities, and it is a key link in rural community construction. One of the core requirements in further pushing ahead rural community construction is to realize local and nearby employment of farmers according to the concept of production and town combination and industry support, which means urbanization without leaving the land and native place (Li, 2012). After all, community construction is not merely building new houses, or building cities. Instead, we must have an overall plan for industrial development, create conditions for employment for farmers, so that they can live in communities with stable jobs and increasing income, realize “departing farming without leaving the native land, getting jobs close to home and entering factories without entering cities,” the residents in the communities can enjoy their due social security, and they can really have permanent property, stable jobs and constant minds. By transferring farmers into residents and reducing agricultural employees, the per capita resources can be increased, and scaled agricultural operations can be promoted to raise the agricultural productivity, land utilization rates and resources yield and speed up the new type of agricultural modernization. We must actively and steadily carry out rural community construction following the principles of planning first, employment as being fundamental, acting according to the abilities and volunteering of the local residents to promote the intensive utilization of land, scaled operation of agriculture, improvement of rural environments, nearby employment for residents and increase of farmers’ income.

The excessively big urban-rural income gap is one of the major problems in Chinese society today. To build a new urban and rural relationship and socialist harmonious society and realize the Chinese Dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, we must substantially increase farmers’income and narrow the urban-rural income gap. In addition to conventional measures like more agricultural allowances and increasing purchasing prices of agricultural products, it is also necessary to markedly increase the property income of farmers through the reform of the agricultural land and housing site property system and issuing liquid housing property ownership certificates. This should be made as a basic target and urgent task in the construction of new types of rural communities to gradually increase farmers’ income and approach or reach the level of urban residents.

Increasing farmers’ income is not a simple job, there are many factors affecting the farmers’income, so it must be started from the most critical restricting factor to solve this problem. No doubt, the direct allowance policy for agriculture and cancellation of the agricultural tax are important means for the state in the overall planning for urban and rural development and adjusting the urban and rural social distribution. These play their role in alleviating the expansion of the urban and rural income gap, but cannot fundamentally solve the question of how to increase farmers’ income. China is in a great pinch of per capita cultivated land resources at only 1/3 of the world average level, and the per capita permanent cultivated land for farmers is only 0.13 hectares. It is undoubtedly not realistic to increase the income of all farmers in the whole country on such limited cultivated land. The resource endowment of large populations and little land in rural areas is the biggest restrictingcondition to the increase of farmers’ income. It not only restricts the application and spreading of agricultural technologies, but more directly hinders increases of agricultural labor productivity. If this resource allocation pattern remains unchanged, it is not possible for farmers to get rich, the huge rural market cannot be activated and the development for industries and commerce will be restricted. Therefore, to fundamentally increase the farmers’income, we must make more efforts to reform the household registration system, establish the social security system in line with that of urban residents for migrant rural workers and build the mechanism to realize farmers’ right on land, to eliminate the influence of the system that separates the urban and rural areas, speed up the city registrations of migrant rural workers, shift the surplus rural labor from rural areas and the primary industry to change the present condition of the small per capita resource endowment for farmers. Basically, to enrich farmers we need to reduce the number of farmers.

3. Foster new type of farmers and cultivate reliable contributors for rural community construction

Fostering new types of farmers is an inevitable and essential demand, and also the core content in rural community construction. Fostering new types of farmers—the new type of rural laborers with moral integrity and culture, mastery of technology, capable of operating a business, with modern awareness and innovation minds—is an important foundation for rural community construction and governance. The rural community construction undertaking is a new expectation of masses of farmers for a beautiful life, and is linked to their interests. To further push ahead the construction of new types of rural communities and ensure the healthy progress and development of this construction, it is critical to definitely activate the initiatives and creativity of the masses of farmers, and guide the farmers to build beautiful homes with their own hands. If the masses of farmers do not become the main contributors in rural community construction, the rural community construction will be impossible, like building castle in the air. Therefore, the first link and fundamental measure in the rural community construction is to foster new types of farmers, raise the quality of farmers and really change the human resources in rural areas into human capital.

To foster new types of farmers, we must conscientiously summarize experience from the past, learn lessons from the past, avoid problems such as separation of theory from reality, and really raise the farmers’ practical techniques in agricultural production, practical knowledge in social life and professional skills to work in cities, to ensure that they become a motive force directly for the urban and rural economic development and social harmony and progress. Therefore, while speeding up the development of rural education undertaking and ensuring there will be no new illiteracy and semiilliteracy, we also need to energetically carry out training in practical skills and education in sciences and culture for farmers for the realistic demand in promoting agricultural development, increasing grain output and farmers’ income and realizing progress in rural areas, so that villagers staying in rural communities can master practical and advanced agricultural technologies, and cultivate modern and civilized ways of life, really becoming the masters of rural community construction. We also need to energetically carry out professional skill training for farmers for the objective demands in overall development of urban and rural areas, promoting the new type urbanization and speeding up the transfer of rural surplus labor, so that farmers having left rural communities can adapt to therequirements and living in modern cities and finally become urban citizens (Zeng, 2006).

To foster new types of farmers, it is necessary to raise the “three abilities” of farmers. The first is the ability of farmers to apply scientific technologies to increase their own income. The development of modern agriculture requires quicker conversion and application of agricultural science and technology results to increase the ability of farmers to apply new agricultural science and technology. Models should be set up as guides by establishing some ecological agriculture demonstration zones with high efficiency and large scale. Local professionals should be fostered. Scientific and technological demonstration households should be established in the spreading of new varieties and new technologies. A training network for agricultural science and technology extending from counties and cities to townships and further to villages should be established to offer lectures on practical technologies for villagers, to guide them in field on scientific plantation and breeding, and really raise their ability to get more income by applying science and technology. The second is to raise the market operation ability of farmers. Today, many farmers are still lacking in awareness of market competition, engaged in blind production and passive operation. We should guide farmers to conscientiously study and understand the market based on their own features and by using the local advantageous conditions, identify target markets to develop products meeting market demands, gain distinctive features and scale, build up pillar sectors and increase their market share. Attention should be paid to markets driving industrial development, and farmers should be trained on modern operation patterns to really raise their market operation ability. The third is to raise the production specialization ability of farmers. We should give full play to the advantages of ecological and other resources in various rural areas and actively support featured advantageous industries. We should energetically support the development of high efficiency ecological agriculture, give vigorous aid to dominating and featured industries, and make efforts to enhance the competing power of featured dominating products on the markets. We should guide farmers to break the concept and patterns of self-enclosure and operation and production with small scale and capital, and speed up the readjustment of agriculture, rural economies and industrial structures at three levels of strategic dominating industries, regional advantageous industries and local featured industries. We should constantly guide farmers to take a broad view of the market, break the regional boundary and realize scaled development, to raise the specialized production capacity in industrial operation (Zhang, 2007).

New types of farmers keep themselves informed of international and domestic situations via various media, can actively publicize and conscientiously implement various guiding principles and policies of the Party in rural areas, have high ideological and moral standards, can accommodate various problems and contradictions with broad minds and also have the capability to solve problems and contradictions. They have legal knowledge, they are bold and good at fighting against various illegal and criminal acts. They also have overall consciousness and can put the interests of the state and the collectives above all in conflict of state and collective interests with individual interests, and they have scientific accomplishments, and cultural quality, with civilized, healthy and scientific ways and habits of life. New types of farmers of such high quality are the elites and contributors in rural community construction. Influenced and led by these people, the rural areas will surely foster a civilized prevailing custom of advocating for science, faithfulness and friendliness, unity andmutual assistance, forming a good atmosphere of harmonious families and neighborhood, simple, honest and unspoiled countryside and folk customs, and stable and harmonious society.

4. Develop rural culture to create a good cultural environment for rural community construction

Fostering new farmers and advocating new customs cannot be done without the rural culture construction. Culture is the soul of a nation and the spiritual home of the people. Culture is the soul of rural community construction and development, an important carrier and path in rebuilding the rural value space, re-integrating the endogenous resources in the countryside and regathering farmers, with the function to coalesce, integrate, assimilate and formalize the behavior and psychology of social groups. The rural community construction and governance can be the foundation, lasting momentum and vigor only when culture has been well developed. The comprehensive quality of farmers can be gradually improved, the interpersonal relationship can get gradually closer, new collectives can form step by step, rural customs can become gradually civilized, and the goal of social stability and harmony can be finally realized. Therefore, to further push ahead rural community construction, it is extremely important to establish a cultural concept suitable to the rural community construction and governance in the new period. Therefore, the following four aspects must be realized.

First, we should actively carry out training for all community members and scientifically guide them in self-education. The people themselves is always decisive; and the rural community residents are always the main contributors to rural community construction. “To eliminate poverty, foolish must be first cured, and to cure foolish, stress must be laid on education.” The cultural development in rural communities should first be stressed on the overall education of cadres and masses in communities, to transform social traditions and refresh the ideologies of residents in new communities, for this purpose, we must conduct various training to raise the cultural cultivation of people, and actively create conditions for self-education by residents. On the basis of eliminating drop-outs of secondary and primary school students and popularizing the nineyear compulsory education, we should eliminate illiteracy, especially young adult illiteracy by running cultural tutoring classes. We should raise the scientific and technological culture cultivation by running culture extension and science and technology popularization classes. Village libraries and community reading rooms should be established and excellent books and materials collected for community residents to read to enrich the mental life of the people, raise the artistic appreciation of residents and form a supportive atmosphere for self-education in rural communities. Furthermore, necessary education and training should be carried out for rural people working and doing business in cities so that they know the state principles and relevant policies, are clear about their rights and interests in all aspects, particularly in rural communities, and build up legal concepts, especially the awareness to safeguard their rights and to steadfastly push ahead cultural construction in rural communities.

Second, we should give play to the role of rural folk public benefit organizations, to enhance the cohesive force of rural communities. Over a long time, along with the deepening of rural reform and advancement of marketization, the cohesive force in the rural society of China has weakened. As an important program in the homeland construction for rural residents in the new period and in consolidatingthe governance foundation of the Party in rural areas, we must enhance the collectivist and socialist spirit of community residents. Therefore, it is especially important to enhance the cohesive force of rural communities. To enhance the cohesive force in rural communities, the role of various rural folk public benefit organizations (such as women’s federations, and associations of senior citizens) can be brought into play to provide public benefit and autonomous activities, arouse the collective consciousness of community residents, and foster the community idea and attachments between community residents. The women’s federations can organize women in communities to study laws and regulations on safeguarding their own rights and interests, learn elementary culture, food, health and women and children healthcare knowledge, assist the community CPC branch committee and residents’ committee in the family planning work, and can also carry out recreational activities, to allow masses of women to step out of the home and have more contacts with outside, widen their view and participate in rural community construction undertakings. The elderly associations can organize old people to have gettogethers and talks periodically, learn healthcare and rights and interests safeguarding knowledge for the elderly, participate in community public affairs within their capacity and carry out cultural and recreational activities suitable to the elderly. They can also make contributions to caring for the elderly and the “l(fā)eft-behind” children in rural areas through mutual aid actions.

Third, carry out rural literature and art activities, to enrich the spiritual life of residents in rural communities. Literature and art, as indispensable and important components of culture, have an extremely important position in cultural development in rural communities. Diversified literature and art activities can help to improve the spirit of rural community residents, enrich their daily life, and meet their spiritual needs. Furthermore, rural community residents can also publicize the principles and policies of the Party and carry on the traditional virtue of the Chinese nation in the form of literature and art to improve the general mood of society and promote transformation of social traditions. In the meantime, the rural communities can also organize their own singing and dancing performance teams and farmer household troupes by enrolling community people good at artistic performance, to carry out conventional literacy and artistic activities and activate the cultural life in rural communities.

Fourth, we should foster socialist core values to ensure taking the rural culture front with rectangular theories. Scientific theories are guidelines for correct actions; and science and technology is the first productive force. Socialist core values are a concise and simple expression of the socialist core value system, and fostering and practicing socialist core values is an important task in the cultural construction work, in a considerably long historical period at present and future. At present, we should energetically popularize the socialist core values in diversified forms of slogans, paintings, songs and broadcasting via publicity columns, feature walls and broadcasting and television to guide rural community residents to form scientific and civilized ways of life and consciously fight against various ignorance and feudalistic superstitions. We should energetically popularize scientific knowledge and spread scientific thinking, let rural community residents build up awareness of science, keep themselves away from feudal superstitions, boycott evil sayings, remove bad habits, and especially for rural community life and family life, we should build up correct views of life, values, leisure and consumption to make sure that scientific theories and the scientific spirit hold the cultural front in rural areas.

5. Improve the living environment and build up good ecological conditions for rural community construction

Rural communities are farmers inhabiting for living places, as well as the collecting and distributing centers for developing production. Creating clean, comfortable and civilized living environments is the urgent demand and strong desire of the majority of farmers and also an urgent and realistic task in rural community construction. We must take into full account the rural, regional and ethnic features of communities in view of the long-term trend of industrialization and urbanization and the longrange changes in rural township layouts, work out scientific and rational community construction planning aimed at facilitating the production and life of the residents, make overall arrangements and well construct the venues and facilities for plantation, breeding, processing industry and public benefit and welfare undertaking of rural community residents, promote continuous growth of rural community economies in synchronization with social undertakings, and create good environment for the development of rural community economies. We must energetically strengthen the living environment governance for rural communities, actively explore the rural community governance mechanism with governments offering support and guidance and farmers participating on a voluntary basis to really change the conditions of irrational house designs in rural communities, low construction taste and quality, disordered layouts of houses and the serious waste of land resources. We must keep on beautifying the village and improving the living environment in communities with “clean and beautiful environment, good ideology and morality, complete public service facilities and harmonious people with nature,” “allowing residents to see the hills and waters and remember their native places,” “removing trees carefully, filling up no lake, demolishing fewer houses and improving the living conditions of residents as far as possible based on the original village form” as the basic requirements.①Adapted from “Central Government Meeting: Remove Trees Carefully, Demolish Fewer Houses and Let Residents Remember their Native Places”. Beijing Daily, December 15, 2013.

Further advancing the rural community construction by harnessing the villages and properly made community planning and construction is conducive to saving land resources. Land is an important materials foundation for the mankind to survive and develop. China has a large population with relatively insufficient cultivated land resources, the contradictions between people and land are quite outstanding and the bearing capacity of our land has approached the warning line. At present, in vast rural areas, houses are constructed in disorder without planning by taking cultivated land arbitrarily leading to the general phenomenon of“hollow village.” Therefore, we should properly plan and construct rural communities in the principles of “scientific planning, rational layout, saving land and protecting cultivated land,” integrate land resources for rural communities, impose strict review and approval for land use, never allow the building of houses arbitrarily on cultivated land, and strictly forbid waste of cultivated land resources. In the meantime we should, with guidance by the government and public opinion, gradually have rural residents living in a scattered manner to live together, keep on improving the public service facilities in rural communities, strengthen the construction of infrastructure such as water supply and drainage, road, communications, power supply and methane in rural communities (Ren & Mao, 2015), change the backward conditions of dirty andpoor village appearance, old and worn-out houses, inconvenient traffic and difficult potable water supply, realize road pavement, “green” the villages, clean courtyards and beautify the environment to continually raise the welcoming effect of rural communities.

It is an important task in rural community construction to maintain the idyllic scenery and good ecological environment. Rural communities should maintain their rural features, “urbanization cannot substitute the construction of new rural areas, and the functional difference between urban and rural areas in the economic and social lives cannot and should not be eliminated. We should not simply follow the practice of urban construction in rural construction, and copy the urban resident living quarters to rural areas to force farmers to live in multistoried buildings” (Wen, 2012). Rural communities should not be constructed at the cost of compromising the natural scene of the countryside and damaging the traditional cultural resources. In this principle, the protection of idyllic scenery in rural areas mainly includes two aspects, the natural ecology and the cultural ecology. There are some wrong views in the present rural community construction thinking, that the countryside scenery of “houses with courtyards in front and behind, planting vegetables and mulberry, raising silkworms and dog barks and cock crows heard everywhere” is a phenomenon of backwardness, and only high-rise building of reinforced concrete and neatly arranged streets and marble squares are signs of modernization, so in the practical work, building new houses and demolishing old oneswas often taken as the main means to realize rural modernization. This has not only misunderstood the “modernization” concept, but also artificially damaged the original harmonious ecological environments between man and nature. Therefore, in the rural community construction and development, we should make the governments, society and rural community residents better understand the protection of idyllic scenery, fully respect the laws of nature and cultural development in practice and conduct scientific protection and rational utilization, to realize organic combinations of tradition and modern. In the meantime, while constructing rural communities and developing rural economies, we must do our best to avoid construction of projects with environmental pollution in rural areas, firmly prevent damage to the natural ecological environments in rural areas, and well protect the idyllic scenery in rural areas to realize the sustainable development of rural economies and societies.

It is an important task in rural community construction to maintain the idyllic scenery and good ecological environment.

6. Innovate organization and management to provide powerful organizational guarantees for rural community construction

The further advancement of rural community construction will surely promote the transition from villager autonomy to community residents’autonomy, which is conducive to the social governance and innovation in rural areas and can help building up a new type of rural community governance system with the concepts and patterns of urban social management. The construction of a new type of rural community with one community covering many villages is another major social transition with characteristics of the times following land reforms and the reduced responsibility on a household basis, not only as a mark that the Chinese rural area has stepped into a new period of development but also a complete change of the appearance of rural society. The original natural,scattered and familiar village communities mainly for rural life will rapidly disappear and be replaced by a new type of rural communities for living together, unfamiliar and dominated by non-rural life. This change not only means the reorganization of the rural life space and transition of social and economic activities, more importantly, it involves readjustment of the traditional social relationships and organizational structures providing new prospects for the lives of rural residents.

After the Third plenary session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, the autonomy of the rural society in China kept on growing, with the ability of continually improving. With this background, the villager self-governance, a mass autonomy system in the rural primary level with rich characteristics of China, was born. However, in the actual operation in most areas, villager self-governance is basically performed under the dominance of the township CPC committees, and the organizational setup, staffing and operation patterns of villagers’ committees still have very strong administrative features. Although some valuable exploration has been done by the theoretical circle and many local primary level organizations, progress in villager self-governance has been slow, no significant change has taken place in the scattered status of farmers, it is difficult for the original rural governance pattern to adapt to the development and changes of society, and some new problems and contradictions have arisen. There are difficulties in providing public services in rural areas, with some unbalance and out-of-order phenomena in the democratic election, administration, decision-making and supervision. The rural community construction has found a way to solve the problem of laggingsocial development in rural areas (Li, 2010). With the forming of new types of rural community life, the previous village society with clan relatives culture as the bond and the rural life as the root will gradually disappear, and a new type of living environment in rural communities conducive to democracy and equality, complete with legal systems and progressing will be formed (Yu & Liu, 2013). The advancement of rural community construction has provided an opportunity and platform to solve the contradictions between the continually growing subjectivity of masses of farmers and the inadaptability of the existing“villagers’ committee” self-governance patterns in actual operation in most areas (Li, 2010).

The essence and fundamental purpose of further pushing ahead the rural community construction is to allow the farmers to share the results of modern civilization, continually improve the quality of farm life. It is an initiative intervention and active reformation of the traditional natural evolution in rural areas, and an innovation of the traditional rural governance method. One of the important aspects in further pushing ahead rural community construction is to rebuild new community governance systems and operational mechanisms with higher operational efficiency and lower administration costs on the basis of supporting the development of all types of community organizations, so that rural communities will really become important platforms to carry on the public services of the government. The government, community residents and community service organizations and other social features have their own tasks, and none can be dispensed with. The government will make strategic planning in the macroscopic angle for the overall development of new rural communities, and provide necessary policy guidance, technical guidance, funds and other support. Social groups will play their roles in stimulating the enthusiasm of community residents to actively participate and enhance the bonding forces of rural communities. But in any case, both are at the secondary and auxiliary position in the administration and management of the whole rural community, and the key is the voluntary participation and self-governance spirit of the community residents (Li, 2010). To further push ahead rural community construction, it is necessary to further develop direct democracy, to promote community resident self-governance with the power of the people and democracy. However, from a realistic point of view, it is an arduous job to lead the rural community construction, and it involves all aspects of economic construction, political construction, cultural development, ecological civilization, social organization, social security, planning and design, public mobilization, integration and coordination. Unfortunately, all this cannot be well accomplished only by cadres in farmer identity with relatively low education levels, comparatively weak coordination capacity and small social influencing power. Therefore, for self-governance by rural community residents, a creative conversion must be made for villager self-governance. In the initial period of rural community construction, the secretary of the community, and in some special areas, even the community director should be civil servants with both political integrity and professional competence— of course this should also go through the set democratic procedure and they should really be supported by rural community residents. In general, the directors of rural communities and members of the “two committees” in all rural communities should be elected from the excellent people among their rural community residents according to the Organic Law of the Villagers Committees. In the meantime, for issues concerning the public affairs and public benefit undertakings of the community, the democratic administration, democratic decisionmaking and democratic supervision in line with theactual conditions of new rural communities should be adhered (Hubei Academy of Social Sciences, 2014).

7. Improve the service system to provide good social conditions for rural community construction

The construction of service systems in rural communities is “an important foundation to ensure the effective operation of the village level organization, agglomerate the public feeling and mode in the communities and improve the community consciousness” (Lv, 2009). Improving the service systems and properly developing services in rural communities are of important significance to the participation by rural residents, service of agricultural production, facilitating the life of farmers and building a harmonious society.

To improve services in rural communities, we should start from the actual conditions of rural communities, evolve around the realistic demand of rural community residents, continually push ahead the socialization of service input, marketization of service operations, formalization of service management and industrialization of service developments, to gradually achieve fundamental changes to the present status of relative short supply of social public products and public services in the vast rural areas (Zhao, 2012).

First, rural community service construction funds should be raised via diversified channels. Construction of rural community service facilities requires huge input, the funds supply for construction of rural community service system must be properly arranged, in addition to support from governmental finance, three channels of market, non-governmental organizations and individuals should be considered to collect funds required by rural community public services (Yu & Ma, 2009).

Second, construction of community service teams should be strengthen to improve their overall quality. The small number, low quality and irrational structure of rural community service personnel is an outstanding barrier factor restricting the further advancement of rural community construction and administration in China today. We should strengthen the construction of community service teams and the training of rural community service personnel, establish a professional training system and reserve talents for rural community service. We should carry out step by step the remote education and online education and training for rural community service personnel on relevant knowledge and skills such as professional accomplishment, skill and procedures, push ahead the establishment and construction of training bases for senior professional personnel for rural community services, and arrange extensive education and training for rural community service personnel and their backup personnel. In the meantime, we should widen the channels and issue various preferential policies, to attract excellent graduates from secondary professional and technical schools and higher schools to work in rural communities. A system of public recruitment for rural community service posts should be established and a certain number of rural community service posts should be arranged every year for public recruitment extensively from higher and secondary school graduates (Zhang, 2012).

Third, we should energetically foster and develop community civic organizations. Various public civil service organizations can play the role of offering services, reflecting demands and formalizing behaviors in the production and life of rural communities, therefore increasing importance has been paid to the construction of civil service organizations. We must actively foster and develop rural community civil organizations in diversified forms, especially community volunteer organizations (Wei, 2015), and give full play totheir great important roles in rural community construction and community service.

Fourth, service patterns suitable to specific rural communities should be selected according to their respective features. At present, the development level of rural community services in China is still low, and there is no fixed model to be followed. The service models of urban communities cannot be fully copied, therefore, we must, according to the actual conditions of rural communities, select community service models suitable to their own according to local conditions, and take various measures concurrently to facilitate and benefit the people. Rural communities in China can be classified into two main types according to their economic development level and geographic locations. The first are villages in the suburbs or surrounded by urban areas with developed economies and concentrated populations. Their economic development level is close to that of urban communities. For these rural communities the urban community models can be referenced and emphasis can be laid on construction of infrastructures to upgrade the service level, to build village level service facilities in rural communities according to the standard of four rooms (community office, police office, activity room and the home for elderly), two stations (service guarantee station and health and family planning station) and one column (for village affair publicity). The second are rural communities located relatively far away, formed by all agricultural populations and scattered. For such communities, overall planning must be made to construct central living areas for the community, form a concentrated living area for village residents, gradually improve the roads, water supplies, power supplies and information networks in the rural areas, construct supermarkets, vegetable markets and other shops for the convenience of the people according to the daily demand of community residents, and public culture facilities such as village-level culture rooms should be built in considerable quantity to replenish the cultural and entertainment life of residents. For rural communities of either type, the planning and construction should be based on the actual conditions of the villages. Investment should be made in appropriate amounts without working for appearance sake only, and we must not blindly crave for things big and foreign, to avoid waste of manpower and money.

(Translator: CCTB Translation Service;

Editor: Yan Yuting)

This paper has been translated and reprinted with the permission of Shandong Social Sciences, No.3, 2017.

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*Liu Youtian, professor, Shandong Agricultural University.

*Foundation item: this article is the phased deliverables of the third batch research project“Research on Achievements, Problems and Countermeasures in the Construction of New Rural Communities” of Modern Agriculture Development Research Institute of Shandong Agricultural University; and of the approved 2013 Humanistic and Social Sciences Research Project (Project No. 13XSKB001) themed “Research on the Construction of New Rural Communities”.