The Starting Point of Rural Reform: Xiaogang Village
In China the economic reform started by introducing market principles in 1978. In December of the same year, 18 of the local farmers in Xiaogang village met in the largest house there. They agreed to act against the law at the time by signing a secret agreement to divide the land into family plots. An individual family was to work on their own plot and they would turn over some of what they grew to the government and the collective while they could keep the surplus for themselves. After this secret reform, the village produced a harvest that was larger than the previous 5 years combined. Looking for ways to reform China’s economy, the government found out the innovation and took it as a model to other villages across the country. This led to the abandonment of collective way of farming across China and a large increase in agricultural production. The secret signing of the contract in the village is now widely regarded as the beginning of the period of rapid economic growth and industrialization that mainland China has experienced in the past 40 years. In this sense the economic reform in the then China began from the rural areas.
The Emergence of the Three Rural Issues
After some 30 years of economic reform and social development, China’s economy flourished tremendously so that people’s annual income increased considerably and their living standards improved noticeably. Nevertheless the discrepancy between the urban and rural areas was expanded increasingly. The so-called “three rural issues” refer to those concerned with agriculture, rural areas and farmers. The purpose of studying the issues is to solve the problems of increasing farmers’ income, agricultural development and rural stability.
The New Rural Reconstruction Movement
At the start of the 21st century, the New Rural Reconstruction (NRR), an intellectual current and social movement, was initiated to address the issues in the Chinese countryside. As of 2009, several NGOs and academic institutions, dozens of rural cooperatives and associations, and hundreds of self-conscious participants got themselves involved in the new movement. More broadly, the ideas and spirit of NRR have influenced a growing movement of rural experimentation. Nowadays the rural areas have taken on a new look. The construction of a new socialist countryside has achieved fruitful results.
