China has been a fertile agrarian land since the establishment of its civilisation. Yet, China had witnessed long periods of famine and hunger due to the often occurring floods in the Yellow River in ancient times. This led to a unique culture of Chinese cuisines being expanded to include various animals in their dietary regime, as well as the salutation of ni chi fan le ma (have you eaten) to even before asking ni hao ma (how are you).
Fast forward to the present century, and those ancient adages have become mere cultural remnants as China has expanded leaps and bounds in its agriculture. The Chinese have witnessed unprecedented growth in their agriculture sector to the extent of becoming the largest producers of various grains and food products. Yet China has not slighted the importance of food and agriculture, as evident when Xi Jinping came to power in 2013. In one of its early addresses to the people of China, it had stated that Chinese food should be in Chinese hands. It is thus plausible that the numero uno document of China is also devoted to agriculture. Historically, China has believed that agriculture should have the base of strong reforms applied domestically, along with foreign investment in technology and innovation. The decade of the 1990s and the early 2000s witnessed a large number of labourers moving to cities and urban areas to benefit from the booming economy of China, growing at the rate of 10 percent. This created two problems for China in the rural areas. One: unattended crops, and two: unattended children. The able generations in search of happier dreams were working in urban areas, while children and the elderly stayed back in rural areas. To mitigate this issue, China launched its rural revitalisation (xiang cun zhenxing) policy in 2017, which was often viewed as a version 2.0 of the ‘back to the countryside’ program of the Cultural Revolution.
Xiang Cun Zhenxing
There are basically three actors involved in this rural revitalisation policy: the farmer, the entrepreneur and the government. The entrepreneur is expected to establish factories in the rural areas, the farmer is expected to work as an employee in these factories, and the government is expected to build infrastructure in these rural areas to facilitate both the farmer and the entrepreneur. The gains for these actors are also threefold, like the expectations. The entrepreneur pays less salary (in some cases, almost half ) to his workers, the farmer gets employment in his off-season, and the government builds a new consumer class in the fourth-tier cities. In an attempt to build market connectivity, a slew of online retailers like 58.com, JD.com have come into the picture, popularising the expansion of agribusiness beyond the physical market. Another aspect is the employee improvement of quality education and R and D in the technology sector, while at the same time focusing on the nutritious value of the local products. There has also been an agenda of utilising the government-given subsidies more for production activities rather than supporting activities that are involved in individual and personal expenses.
The Appraisal: the Pros
The rural revitalisation policy, in its eight years of establishment, has managed to deliver some results which have proven beneficial for Chinese citizens while at the same time facing some glaring issues which need to be addressed in urgency. The Chinese government has managed to lift a large section of its population from poverty in the last fifteen years. While credit has been given to its continuous double-digit growth and a stagnant to declining population, it is also true that policies such as rural revitalisation have assisted the government in disseminating those effects to the lowest strata of society. The ‘one village one product and one township one industry’ has contributed to the upgradation of rural infrastructure along with building economies of aquaculture, fruits and vegetables, as well as handicrafts. Secondly, Xi Jinping has been tremendously vociferous on adherence to Party lines, due to which the work of grass-root organisations of the party hasa large responsibility at hand to impart Party education, resolve disputes, transform conservative thinking of the villagers and ensure social and political stability in the villages. The policy has also focused on retaining infrastructure with local characteristics so that a cultural heritage could be built up. Moreover, the policy lays impetus on sanitation drives and village greening, which is where the major lacunae exist.
The Appraisal: the Cons
While the policy seems very rosy on paper, it is not without its pitfalls. A major issue of land ownership has emerged where connivance of local officials has allowed ownership of agrarian land to these people who either do not exist or are not fit enough to till the land. This duplication is often hidden in party inspections as ground realities are merged with the party agenda and propaganda. Secondly, there is a generation of people who have lived in urban cities for quite some time and have either managed to obtain hukou (household registration system) or would prefer to obtain it in the near future. For them, life in urban areas still has more opportunities for their future than rural areas. They would, in fact, prefer to call their family members rather than wishing to go back to the rural areas. Also, the factories established in rural areas often find it difficult to scale as compared to their urban counterparts and often have an uncertain future. Similarly, the schools in rural areas are also far substandard compared to the urban schools. The other major glaring issue is climate change, which is nullifying the effects of any gains of revitalisation in rural areas. As the weather and temperatures become more erratic, so does the possibility of sustained growth in rural areas. The Chinese government launched the Rural Comprehensive Revitalisation Plan in January 2025, emphasising addressing the issue of climate change through encouraging foreign investment in climate-friendly technologies. They have also restricted mining and fishing in rivers of Southern China (especially the Yangtze Delta region) while at the same time protecting cultivable land at the ‘red line’, encouraging trade mechanisms for carbon credits, promoting local seasonal products and focusing on sanitation, sewage treatment and garbage collection to improve the living conditions of the poorest of the poor. However, the results of these efforts are yet to be substantially visible. Moreover, many policies in China have a top-down approach and the goals of various policies like poverty alleviation, climate preservation, and rural revitalisation are sometimes conflicting in nature, leading to problems in execution
The rural vitalisation policy, while it has good intentions, has yet to become a sustainable phenomenon in China due to over-reliance on government subsidies, which are generally short-term in nature and have limited capital. Moreover over overemphasis on e-commerce and Internet plus models is marred by a lack of training and sometimes understanding, given the age bracket of the learners. Hence, the efficacy of the policy is still a question that China needs to continue to mull over.
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