China Rural Magazine:
The fifth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee proposed to implement rural development actions; put rural development in an important position in socialist modernization; optimize work, living, and ecological space; continue to improve village conditions and living environment; and build beautiful and livable countryside. Please let us know what are the new layouts and new requirements for rural development in the No. 1 central document this year? Thank you.
Liu Huanxin:
The implementation of rural development actions is a major deployment made by the fifth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, and an important carrier and key point for comprehensively promoting rural revitalization. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that rural development must be done quickly, steadily, and persistently. The rural development action plan will be released soon. This year's No. 1 central document, on the basis of summarizing the practices of various regions, put forward clearer requirements for the implementation mechanism of rural development, focusing on the "three adherences."
The first is to adhere to the focus on the improvement of people's livelihoods that is inclusive, basic, and fundamental. A basic goal of rural development is to improve rural production and living conditions, and strive to allow farmers to gradually live a modern and civilized life in their lands. It says we don't need to set the bar too high on goals and standards, while levels, standards, and grades can be adapted to actual conditions of different places, high or low. The focus is to ensure basic functions and to solve outstanding problems. It asks to strengthen infrastructure construction in key areas such as rural roads, water supply, electricity, network, and housing security, continue to improve the rural living environment. In particular, those facilities that are beneficial to both production and life, such as rural roads, storage cold chain, and logistics facilities, should be prioritized and their construction accelerated.
The second is to adhere to the understanding that we develop rural areas for farmers. To promote rural development, we must fully respect the wishes of farmers. If farmers expect something, we have to do it quickly. If farmers are willing to do something, we should lead them to do it. If they don't want to do something, we should put it off and slow down. We should fully understand the long-term and complex nature of rural development, grasp the timeliness, scale, and effects of the work, adhere to the principle of quality over quantity, and actual effects over progress – we want good quality rather than quick pace. When doing construction based on the village, we must pay attention to the protection of traditional villages; retain the original appearance, style, shape, and texture of the village; retain the green mountains and lucid waters; and retain the nostalgia. We must not blindly demolish old villages and build new ones, or not go beyond the development stage to engage in large-scale financing, large-scale development, and large-scale construction. We should strictly regulate the village-dismiss and village-merger.
The third is to adhere to bottom-up, villager autonomy, and farmers' participation. Farmers are the main part of production and life in rural areas. In rural development, targets and tasks cannot be set from the top down. The key is to mobilize and organize farmers and give full play to the main role of farmers. What farmers should do should be left to be done by farmers themselves as much as possible, especially the things that farmers do inside their households as well as in front of and behind their houses, such as rural toilet renovation, courtyard sanitation, and greening and beautification – these are mainly farmers' own things, and we can delegate and mobilize the farmer masses to do them. The government should focus on doing things that farmers can't do or can't do well, such as creating water supply security and sewage treatment for rural toilet improvement, or the collection, transfer, and centralized treatment of domestic garbage and the improvement of the public environment of the village – the government must do these things well. Thank you.
Tang Renjian:
Mr. Liu Huanxin just gave a wonderful answer to the above question. Now I would like to conclude by making two points that I think are most important and worth our attention after more than one year of practice and implementation of the rural revitalization strategy across the board.
First, in terms of working philosophy, we should uphold the principle that rural revitalization and rural development are for rural people. Second, in terms of methodology, in accordance with the instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping, we should adopt an approach in which quantity gives way to quality, the speed of progress gives way to solid outcomes, and pursuit of quick results gives way to good results. These are the two most important points.
