There are policies in Chapter 009

Seeing that the plan of the leader of Suyu City, Nòng, was almost equivalent to his own copy of Dingqing District, Xiao Chen was surprised for a while, and felt that it was understandable.

There is also a realm for patting sycophants, and people who can't pat sycophants can't survive in Chinese officialdom, even if he has Xiao Chen's background, doesn't he have to pat sycophants, let alone others? However, the sycophants of Suyu City are both horizontal and measured. So much so that Xiao Chenming knew that the other party had a lot of sycophants, but he still felt very comfortable, and a smile unconsciously appeared on his face.

There are many things that Xiao Chen is proud of, but if you ask Xiao Chen what he is most proud of, it is definitely not that he was born in the Xiao family, but that he has made solid achievements in politics over the years. The industrialization of agriculture in Dingqing District is the first of these achievements. Now Su Yu tactfully slapped a clever fart on this, which naturally scratched the itch in Xiao Chen's heart, no matter how serious he was, no matter how self-controlled, he couldn't be unhappy.

Thirty years ago, China's economic reform originated in the countryside, and it was a spontaneous reform from the bottom up. Thirty years later, as a large country with a huge agricultural population, the development and future of China's economic reform are still tied to the construction of new countryside and the ongoing urbanization process. What reform wisdom has the rural reform of the past 30 years provided? Where is the solution to the problems of the rural areas and peasants in China?

Two days earlier, that is, the first day Xiao Chen returned to Jiangdong, "Xinhua Daily" interviewed Xiao Chen, deputy secretary of the Jiangdong Provincial Party Committee and secretary of the Commission for Discipline Inspection. "Xinhua Daily" was the first large-scale organ newspaper in China during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the early stage of the War of Liberation (January 11, 1938-February 28, 1947), which was founded by Zhou Enlai and other proletarian revolutionaries of the older generation, and was the first newspaper in China to be publicly distributed in the country and lasted until February 28, 1947. "Xinhua Daily" was republished in Jinning in April 1949, and in 1952 it became the newspaper of the Jiangdong Provincial Party Committee of China, and is now sponsored by Xinhua Daily Newspaper Group.

Xinhua Daily: When it comes to reform and opening up, the first thing that comes to mind is the rural system of contracting responsibility for joint production. However, few people carefully distinguish the difference between subcontracting to households and lump sum to households. Can you elaborate on the differences between these two concepts?

Xiao Chen: In the eyes of ordinary people, as long as the land reaches the household, there is no in-depth exploration of the difference between these two "packages". (This) has to be looked at from another point of view, that is, why the people's communes could be abolished. The People's Commune has two characteristics: one is "one big and two public", and the other is "three-level ownership, team-based". What is this foundation? As we look at it now, it's a unit of economic accounting. The fact that the People's Commune can be abolished is that this unit of accounting can no longer exist. At the stage of package production to households, this accounting unit cannot be abolished. Because (the peasants) have contracted the land, the yield of the land has to be given to the production team. In accordance with the contract, each household completes the output and hands it over to the production team, and the rest is sold, and then everyone is given a share of the work, and then everyone is given rations. The initial package production to the household, with the production team as a basic accounting unit, still exists. Therefore, the People's Commune could not be canceled. In other words, if the production is still contracted to households, the system of people's communes will still exist.

However, it is not the same when it comes to the home. It is not the output of the contracted land, but the public grain task undertaken on the contracted land, such as 200 catties of public grain per mu of land, and the grain is directly handed over to the grain depot, and the task is completed. If you want to reproduce, you have to pay a certain amount of management fees, and the rest of the output belongs to yourself, not to the production team. From this point of view, under the system of lump sum to household, the peasant households themselves have become a business accounting unit and a business entity. To a greater extent, the production team assumes responsibility for social management. So, the people's commune can be canceled.

Why was it possible to abolish the people's communes after 1984 and establish a township people's government? Basically, village committees were formed from the brigades of the past. This is mainly due to the fact that the lump sum is provided to the households, which has turned the peasants into the main body of operation, that is, the main body of micro-management under the market economy that we are talking about now. Only then could the people's communes be abolished, and only then could there be a series of market-related reforms.

Xinhua Daily: From the package to the household to the package to the household, is this change top-down or bottom-up?

Xiao Chen: It's bottom-up. Farmers are no strangers to the delivery of production to households. Before 1978, there was a history of three ups and downs. In 1956 and 1957, before the People's Commune, the high-level agricultural production cooperatives had just begun, and some localities began to carry out contract production to households. During the three-year difficult period, Anhui engaged in "responsibility fields", but in fact, it was also a package production to households. It was probably in 1964 or 1965, and there were some places where it was done, but it didn't work out. This actually shows that the people have been dissatisfied with the distribution method of big pot rice for a long time.

In the case of lump sum to households, although the collective ownership of land has not changed, the peasants are completely independent in their operations. The peasants summed up the lump sum to the households: those who have paid enough to the state and the collectives are retained, and the rest is their own.

In fact, the People's Commune could not be canceled without a lump sum to every household. In this sense, the 18 peasant households in Xiaogang Village, Fengyang, Anhui Province, have made a historical contribution -- when others began to carry out the package production to the households, they did it in one step. Later, when the theoretical and academic circles were discussing the nature of the package production to the households, the surnames of the society, the surname of the capital, and the allowability or not, the peasants had already begun to carry out the package work to the households.

Many people really don't pay much attention to this difference (package production to household and package to household). A very important reason is that, to a certain extent, the delivery of production to households is a reform of the operation and management system under the original system. To a considerable extent, it is a reform of the entire rural economic system and even the property system in the rural areas.

Xinhua Daily: Is it a more profound reform?

Xiao Chen: More profound reforms. In fact, it has laid a very important foundation for the development of a market economy.

Xinhua Daily: Township enterprises sprung up in the 80s of the last century, does this also have a profound relationship with the lump sum to the household?

Xiao Chen: Of course it is. In 1984, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued a document on speeding up the reform and development of social enterprises. There are commune-run enterprises, some are run by brigades, and some are run by production teams. The community is the people's commune, and the team is the production brigade or production team. At the beginning of 1984, it was called a social team enterprise, but why was it called a township enterprise later? That is, there are many enterprises that are not run by the social team, and the social team has not existed since then, and many of them are run by the farmers themselves or joint households. How can farmers and joint households do it? A very important reason is that the implementation of lump sum to the household, after consumption, there is a surplus, which becomes accumulation, which can be invested in land or other aspects. Some of them have become township enterprises.

Therefore, it should be said that the large-scale development of township and town enterprises is directly related to the fact that peasant households can accumulate capital on their own after they have been contracted to the households. Without the accumulation of peasant households' property, township and town enterprises would not have developed on such a large scale and at such a rapid pace. The "self-employed" that emerged at the beginning of the reform process in China were actually from lump sum to household.

Xinhua Daily: How do you look at the success of township enterprises and their subsequent decline?

Xiao Chen: First of all, we have to answer a question, why should enterprises disperse to rural areas? One of the most important factors is because of the dual economic structure. The peasants could not become city people on their own, and they invested in the city, but people could not go, so how could they invest there? If he is in his hometown, some companies will start with his house, such as buying two machines for weaving máo clothes and two machines for knitting socks. The ground rent is very cheap, and there is no need to pay much cost, and the factory is built. In the city, the cost is very high. Because of the dual economic structure of urban and rural areas, farmers cannot follow the flow of capital, so they choose to set up enterprises at their doorsteps. Of course, this is also related to the fact that the peasants initially accumulated little money and did not have much investment capacity.

At present, it cannot be said that the township enterprises are all in decline. In the southeast coastal areas, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, etc., many towns and villages have slowly turned into cities. Coupled with the construction of industrial parks since the 90s of the last century, the areas where township enterprises were more developed have entered the park again. The area of Liangxi in Wucheng, all the way to the east, is basically connected. The township enterprises in this area are developing very well. There is also the Pearl River Delta around Suixian.

Xinhua Daily: But people don't call them township enterprises anymore?

Xiao Chen: According to the original law, township enterprises must be invested by rural collective economic organizations and peasants, and they must be enterprises in rural areas. Another is that it should undertake the task of subsidizing agriculture with local work. In this sense, there are not many township enterprises that meet this regulation. However, on the whole, the township enterprises pay the taxes, and the government uses the tax revenues to turn them into finance to support agriculture. If we talk about enterprises running in rural areas, they can be called township enterprises, and in this sense, township enterprises still exist. It is very important that it plays an important role in the employment of local farmers and the acceptance of industrial civilization by local farmers. In the view of some economists, township enterprises are small and medium-sized enterprises in rural areas. The role played by small and medium-sized enterprises in rural areas, in addition to producing products, is to disseminate industrial civilization and increase the local employment of peasants. That's not something that big business in the city can do.

Of course, on the other hand, in the past, the so-called "every household works, and every village smokes" is not a solution, because the pollution is serious, and the energy cost is very high. Therefore, in this sense, it is a good thing that some localities do not set up township enterprises anymore, or that township enterprises are concentrated in places that are more conducive to their own development. It is also its own law that township enterprises are gradually concentrating in industrial parks and in the southeastern coastal areas.

On the whole, the proportion of township and town enterprises in terms of total scale, number of employees, and output value is still very high.

Xinhua Daily: Do we still have any statistics on township enterprises?

Xiao Chen: Yes, the Ministry of Agriculture has a township enterprise bureau. On the whole, the proportion of the production value created by township and town enterprises, especially in industry, in the whole industry is not low.

Xinhua Daily: How much?

Xiao Chen: It's about 40%. The number of employed people is about 140 million, and the proportion is still very high.

Of course, there is a difference between the concept of township enterprises today and those of the past. It does not necessarily involve direct investment by the collective economy, collective organizations, and peasants, but it may be that foreign enterprises and foreign investors may use the original factory buildings and factories of township enterprises, and even foreign capital may also be used. It has become a part of the whole Chinese industry.

Xinhua Daily: In any industrialized country or region, there will basically be a dual economic structure. Why has it become a big constraint in China? Is there any reason other than the fact that there is no mechanism for the free movement of peasants?

Xiao Chen: In the process of development, any country may go through a period of dual urban-rural structure for a long or short time. In an economic sense, the dual structure of urban and rural economies refers to the existence of both technologically and economically advanced cities and technologically and economically backward rural areas within the country.

Our problem is that we have chosen the planned economic system at a time when the dual economic structure of urban and rural areas is still relatively obvious. However, after the planned economic system was established on the basis of the dual economic structure of urban and rural areas, a situation of relying on or relying on the dual economic structure of urban and rural areas to strengthen the planned system arose. Under the planned economy, it is necessary to extract accumulation from the rural areas and provide accumulated funds for the industrial development of the cities. That is to say, we must control the market, control the flow of population, and control the flow of factors. In this sense, the planned economy further strengthens the dual economic structure.

After the reform, there began to be some loosening, such as the movement of peasants. But are peasants unable to enter the cities because of the restrictions imposed by the household registration system? I don't think so. The basic conditions for moving to the city are employment, housing, and social security. The first two items are now market-oriented. No one is blocking you from buying a house, and no one is blocking you from working, it depends on whether you have money and whether you can find a job.

The change of the dual economic structure requires the economic strength of the whole country to increase, and it is a relatively long process. The planned economic system was broken and a socialist market economic system was established, and the peasants could begin to move. 130 million farmers are now displaced from their villages. But whether he can live and whether he can really become a citizen is the responsibility of the government, such as social security. However, whether there can be stable employment and whether or not you can find housing in the city is determined by the market. It depends on how quickly the farmer himself accumulates wealth. Therefore, the dualistic economic structure is an objective process, and the system above the dualistic economic structure is set by the government, and these two issues should be distinguished.

Xinhua Daily: You have always emphasized the family management of agriculture, and you think this is an inevitable law. In the eyes of some people, there is a contradiction between scale management and family management, what do you think?

Xiao Chen: These are two questions. The first question is, why should farming be family-run? The most agriculturally developed countries, such as Japan and the United States, are family-run. As it stands, even in modern countries, agriculture is still family-run. So, there is no contradiction between family business and size in itself. For example, family businesses are small in Japan, but farming families in the United States are large. This is determined by national conditions.

Scale is determined by two factors: the first factor is the country's rich and poor resources. The second factor is the degree of industrialization and urbanization. The higher the degree of urbanization, the greater the scale. Judging from the situation in China, there are only more than 1.8 billion acres of land. The wealth of resources dictates that the scale of agriculture cannot be so large. Second, in 2004, China's urbanization level was 42.9 percent, which does not seem to be low, but this is a large part of the peasants who have moved into the city. When we set the urbanization index, we calculate it according to the place of residence. A peasant who has been in the capital for more than six years will become a city person when he counts. As soon as the global economic crisis came, external demand decreased, and the opportunity to work in the city was gone, so there were two choices: one was to go back and have a house and land in the countryside; The second is to "consume" in the city.

Therefore, when the scale of land is really counted, there is no obvious change now, and a very important reason is that the peasants who have moved into the cities have not really become citizens, and they have to leave a way for them to retreat. In fact, the number of farming households has not decreased, and it is difficult to expand the size of the land. So my view is, first, agriculture should be family-run. Second, family business does not affect modernization, nor does it affect economies of scale. However, there are objective conditions, and only when the level of industrialization and urbanization increases, and the urban peasants truly become citizens, can the scale be expanded. Therefore, the expansion of the scale of agriculture is related to the fact that the city absorbs peasants into the city, and makes him really become a citizen.

Nowadays, when economists discuss land, most of them focus on concepts such as circulation and centralized scale management. However, we should not turn circulation and centralized scale operation into "merger". If the peasants leave the land, they will have better employment opportunities and better living conditions, and they will leave voluntarily, and this kind of land concentration is what we now call large-scale operation. If the peasants were forced to leave the land, if they lost it after they had gone bankrupt, it was an annexation. In terms of policy, in the actual process of advancement, we must strictly distinguish between these two boundaries.

Xinhua Daily: You have done a lot of field research and have a good understanding of the situation at the grassroots level. What is the current situation of rural land transfer?

Xiao Chen: There are very big differences in different places. Overall, the last few years have indeed progressed a little faster than in the past. However, as far as I know, the total scale of land circulation in the country is probably not more than one-tenth, but it is not excluded that some places have reached 20%~30%.

Xinhua Daily: You gave a speech at BGI where people may have a little misunderstanding of the spirit and policies related to the Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee. At that time, you mentioned that the right to operate the land will remain unchanged for a long time, and that is the most important part. Can you expand on that on a point?

Xiao Chen: The Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee proposed for the first time that the land contract relationship between peasants should remain unchanged for a long time. With regard to the contract period, the central authorities have mentioned it several times, proposing in 1984 that it should remain unchanged for 15 years, and in 1993 it was proposed that it should be extended for 30 years after the expiration of 15 years. Some people understand that this is not to tie the peasants to small plots of land for a long time, but I think this is a misunderstanding. The right is his, and as for planting it for himself or for others, he has his own choice.

Therefore, there is "circulation". What is the premise of circulation? What is circulating is a kind of property right, and the right to contract and manage land is a kind of property right. There is a premise here, that is, the longer and more stable the contractor's management rights, the better the circulation market will grow. So far, the market for the circulation of peasants' land contract management rights in the true sense has not developed, and to a large extent, the reason for this is that the contract management rights are not stable enough.

Therefore, giving farmers a fuller and more secure right to contract and manage land is a meaning; The second level means that a fuller and more secure right to contract and manage land actually provides a good opportunity for the development of the market for the circulation of rural land contract.

Xinhua Daily: Many localities have already had a lot of pilot projects in terms of land circulation. You also mentioned that in terms of pilot projects, it is necessary to follow procedures and have a plan, and to carry out them steadily within a controllable range. The so-called pilot means that there is a great possibility that it will be fully rolled out in the future, what will be the next situation?

Xiao Chen: What is the relationship between land transfer and piloting? The Rural Land Contract Law specifically deals with land circulation. So, the circulation according to the law is enough, why do you need to pilot it? If you want to break through the existing laws, you need to pilot. People feel that this law may hinder economic development, so they want to revise it. In what way and how? This requires a certain amount of piloting. To break the law, of course, to get approval, there needs to be a process.

Whether it can be fully rolled out depends on the results of the test. If it does not have comprehensive promotion value, then the law cannot be changed.

Xinhua Daily: What challenges and bottlenecks will be faced in the future reform of rural China, including the entire urbanization process?

Xiao Chen: For China, the population issue is very important, and this will always be an unavoidable major issue in our future reform and development. Some experts believe that China's agricultural problems and peasant problems should be solved by urbanization, and this is right, and we are doing the same now. But the problem is that the number of farmers in China is too large, and if they all go to the city, it is estimated that the production capacity will not be able to absorb it. From a realistic point of view, urbanization should be promoted and peasants should be gradually reduced, and this process will not be too fast in China. And in the foreseeable future, let's say 20, 30 or even 50 years, I think the number of rural people in China will be quite large.

Therefore, we cannot say that the "three rural" problems can only be solved by urbanization and industrialization. Urbanization and industrialization will definitely alleviate the "three rural" problems. But why mention the construction of a new countryside? It's because hundreds of millions of people live and produce there. Therefore, Huaxia still needs to walk in two ways, while promoting urbanization and industrialization, and creating better conditions for farmers to enter the city. On the other hand, it is also necessary to strengthen the construction of new rural areas and develop new agriculture.

Xinhua Daily: What should be done in the construction of a new countryside? For example, does the reform of the circulation system still need to be promoted, and the financial investment is far from enough?

Xiao Chen: Yes. In the reform of the circulation system, judging from the current situation, it should be said that there is not much political and administrative interference. For example, in the field of grain, the role of the government is mainly to maintain reasonable prices.

Xinhua Daily: Are there still a lot of strict regulations on food prices?

Xiao Chen: I can't say that. For example, after October last year, it was announced that exports would be stopped, and some time ago the National Development and Reform Commission made new adjustments. At that time, many countries announced the cessation of exports, and that was for safety reasons, not price. Some people also say that the price of food is high internationally, and you don't let us export. For a while it was like this. Food prices are now much lower on the international market than at home.

In this sense, what the government has done in recent years is to set a minimum purchase price. What we do is that the purchase price set by the government has always followed the market price. As soon as it falls, the bottom is the lowest purchase price of the government, and the acquisition begins. When a considerable part of the grain entered the treasury of the government, the supply decreased, and the market price went up, and then the market collected it. This is actually the market setting the price, not the government. This is to some extent an equilibrium price.

Xinhua Daily: There will be times when the market fails, such as last year's inflation, some economists believe that the market's spontaneous allocation will allocate most of the resources in high-return areas, such as real estate, and too little allocation in agriculture and other fields, and insufficient supply, which will eventually lead to inflation. So, the market alone won't solve the problem?

Xiao Chen: Yes, I think it makes sense. The lack of investment in agriculture as a whole is a very prominent problem at present, such as the infrastructure of agriculture and the socialized service system of agriculture. However, I think that the price of agricultural products, especially last year, was not so simple. I still agree that last year's price increase was structural.

Last year, the CPI rose so much, and it can be seen that several of them are rising. These factors are now gone as well. Therefore, last year's price increase and the irrational investment structure are related. Judging from the rise in these products last year, there is a very prominent problem: in the long run, it is difficult to maintain our living standards and quality of life with the current level of agricultural resources and agricultural production. With 1.8 billion mu of land and a sown area of 2 to 300 million mu a year, it cannot consume so many agricultural products. As a result, some products have to rely on imports. The price increase is caused by the sharp increase in prices in the international market.

Xinhua Daily: Is it imported inflation?

Xiao Chen: That's right. In this sense, the input in agriculture is not enough, the level of agricultural production is low, and it is not possible to produce so many things, so it has to be imported. As soon as it is imported, imported inflation comes in.

Xinhua Daily: How do you evaluate the process of promoting the marketization of the grain circulation system?

Xiao Chen: I think it's not that the government doesn't care, but that the government doesn't buy the big head and it's market-oriented. From a global point of view, there are only a few major grain merchants, and as far as China is concerned, I don't know how many business entities buy grain. Therefore, it needs to have a process, slowly integrate, and slowly form a more standardized market system. The government is playing a leading role in avoiding sharp rises and falls, that is, it is to do a good job in the hoarding and vomiting adjustment mechanism and the minimum purchase price mechanism, and gradually cede more power over grain control to the market. The government mainly does three things: first, in the production process, direct subsidies are given to producers; Second, it is necessary to set a minimum purchase price to avoid excessive grain prices. Falling below this, the government began to acquire; Third, the government should establish a considerable reserve, and it should have the reserves of the central government and the local government, so that it will collect a little more in good years and put a little more in bad years. In addition, the international market is well used for adjustment. There must also be a process for the development of the main body of the market.