Challenges Facing the New Model of Rural Governance and Ways to Overcome Them

With the rapid advancement of industrialization and urbanization and the continuous deepening of rural reform, new types of rural communities have emerged in China's rural areas under "village consolidation and resettlement" and "centralized residence" of farmers, along with "hollow villages" caused by the migration of rural labor to cities and towns, "super villages" that are villages in name but towns in reality, and "urban villages" trapped in the crevices of cities. The emergence of these situations has brought many problems to rural governance, planted many hidden dangers, and even to a certain extent constrained the development process of new countryside construction and urban-rural integration, thereby hindering the sustained and effective growth of China's rural economy. To achieve new-type rural governance, from an overall perspective, one cannot follow the traditional rural governance approach and apply a "one-size-fits-all" solution; instead, measures must be adapted to local and village-specific conditions to improve the quality and level of rural governance and achieve new development in urban-rural integration.

In recent years, the rapid advancement of industrialization and urbanization and the continuous deepening of rural reform have brought new vitality to rural development while also bringing many new situations to rural governance and triggering many new problems. New-type rural governance cannot follow the traditional rural governance approach and apply a "one-size-fits-all" solution; instead, it must meet the new challenges brought by new situations such as new-type rural communities, "hollow villages," "super villages," and "urban villages," conduct comprehensive and systematic analysis, adapt measures to local and village-specific conditions, and solve new problems well, so as to improve the quality and level of rural governance and achieve new development in urban-rural integration.

I. New situations emerging in current rural governance

(i) New-type rural communities under "village consolidation and resettlement" and "centralized residence" of farmers

With the acceleration of urbanization, a large amount of rural labor has migrated to cities and towns, and a large number of residential and construction lands that are unreasonably and insufficiently used or abandoned and idle have appeared in rural areas. In order to replan and comprehensively utilize rural collective construction land (mainly homestead land), many local governments have, through demolishing and consolidating old villages and building resettlement buildings, had farming households move in a centralized manner into new resettlement communities, forming new-type rural communities. In this situation, old homestead land can be reclaimed to obtain construction quotas for urban construction, or the original homestead land can be directly used for urban project construction. With the rapid development of the economy and society, the problems of lagging rural infrastructure and scarce resources such as public services have become prominent; after farmers have solved the problem of food and clothing and basically achieved a moderately prosperous life, they have also put forward new and higher demands for housing conditions and the production and living environment, which also laid the groundwork for the construction of new-type rural communities. Since the new countryside construction began in 2006, many rural areas, especially those in economically developed regions, have accelerated the pace of community construction, and new-type rural communities have become an important part of new countryside construction. Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Hebei, Chongqing and other provinces (municipalities) have all carried out community construction with the main content of concentrating farmers in cities, towns, or clustered communities. As of now, nearly half of the communities in Jiangsu, Shandong and other provinces have become new-type rural communities through "village-to-residential community conversion."

New-type rural communities are different from both traditional administrative villages and urban communities. They are either formed by merging several administrative villages together with unified planning, unified layout, and unified construction, or built from a relatively large administrative village. After completion, most new-type communities are located at the seats of townships or subdistricts or in conveniently located core areas of townships. In essence, the construction of new-type rural communities is not simply village renovation or reconstruction, nor is it simply the gathering of more people; rather, it is about creating a new form of social life in the community, allowing farmers to enjoy the same public services as urban residents and live a life similar to that of urban residents, ultimately achieving the goal of narrowing the urban-rural gap and achieving in-situ urbanization. However, in actual practice, due to the inertia of "land finance" thinking on the part of some local governments, the construction of new-type rural communities has been alienated into the "most convenient way" to exchange for urban construction land. In this process, if the relationships among relevant interest groups cannot be handled well, various problems are likely to arise. Moreover, even in new-type rural communities that have already been built, community governance faces many challenges.

(ii) "Hollow villages" caused by the migration of rural labor to cities and towns

For a long time, villages have been important places for people to live and dwell, but with the development of China's industrialization and urbanization, the pace of rural population de-agriculturalization has greatly accelerated, and more and more villages have become "hollow villages." In September 2014, the Baotou Survey Team of the National Bureau of Statistics conducted a survey of 32 administrative villages involved in the household income and expenditure survey. The results showed that the 32 administrative villages had a total of 29,124 households, 2,851 households that had moved out with the whole family, and 2,690 idle houses (vacant for more than 2 years).

"Hollow villages" in the new period mainly include two types: first, in the demographic sense. Urban infrastructure and public services such as education and medical care are inherently superior to those in rural areas, and along with the rapid advancement of industrialization and urbanization, the urban-rural gap has shown a trend of further widening. Against this background, a large number of young and middle-aged farmers with relatively high educational levels go to cities to work, leaving behind groups such as the elderly, the weak, the sick, the disabled, women, and children in the villages, resulting in a large number of "people gone, houses empty" phenomena in rural areas. This is the "hollow village" formed by labor migration. Second, in the geographical sense. After a large number of migrant workers earn money working in cities and towns, they return to their hometowns and, influenced by factors such as marriage, family division, improvement of living conditions, and location, need to build new houses. Due to the lack of village construction planning, imperfect land use management systems, lack of effective supervision over farmers' illegal house construction, and inadequate village infrastructure, most newly built houses are concentrated on the outskirts of villages, especially along main roads. Old houses within the villages are often left idle or become "warehouses" and "decorations," which leads to a large number of idle homesteads and unused land in the villages, forming an architectural style of "hollow inside and expanding outside," resulting in "hollow villages." These two levels of "hollow villages" are interconnected, but the "hollowness" in the demographic sense has a more far-reaching impact. In this sense, this article mainly discusses the "hollow village" phenomenon caused by the migration of rural labor to cities and towns under the rapid advancement of industrialization and urbanization.

Generally speaking, "hollow villages" have the following notable characteristics: in terms of location, they are generally far from large cities, economically relatively backward, and slow in development; in terms of village appearance, there are large numbers of idle houses and abandoned farmland in the villages; in terms of population structure, there are few young and middle-aged laborers in the villages, and the left-behind elderly, women, and children account for a considerable proportion. According to surveys, the population structure of "hollow villages" is currently severely imbalanced, with left-behind elderly people over 50 years old accounting for the vast majority of the left-behind population. The number of "hollow villages" is increasing day by day, a large number of young and middle-aged laborers in the villages have been lost, the number of left-behind elderly, women, and children is huge, and there are many idle houses and abandoned farmlands, all of which will affect rural governance in the new period.

(iii) "Super villages" that are villages in name but towns in reality

In the early 1990s, in the developed areas along the southeast coast, "super villages" represented by Huaxi Village and Yonglian Village appeared one after another. With the advancement of China's modernization drive and the rapid development of rural industrialization and urbanization, a large number of "super villages" with strong economic strength and a relatively high degree of modernization have risen rapidly and are in a state of sustained development, seemingly having become "a beautiful scenic line" in China's grassroots rural development.

As a new form of village, "super villages" belong neither to traditional towns and villages nor to modern cities, but exhibit many intermediate characteristics. Most of these super villages exist in the form of enterprises or enterprise groups, yet retain some features of traditional villages; they retain the village committee as a grassroots mass self-governance organization, yet perform various functions of a "quasi-government," and also play an intermediary role in the relationship between the state and villagers; they have entered industrialized communities, yet retain certain living order and principles of rural society, exhibiting the characteristics of being both urban and rural. Compared with ordinary villages, "super villages" are greatly different in economic structure, collective income, population composition, infrastructure, and public services. First, most "super villages" have their own collective enterprises, with enormous output values (most output values reach hundreds of millions or even tens of billions), forming a non-agricultural economic structure with township enterprises as the main body, and industrial output value or non-agricultural output value already accounts for the vast majority of the village's total output value. For these villages, agriculture is no longer the leading industry. Second, stable "village government" income that can be used for village administration and public and public welfare undertakings has already been formed. Third, the village population has multiplied, gathering a large number of migrant laborers, sometimes several times or even more than ten times the total number of villagers. Although the migrant population is mostly "migrant workers" without village household registration and with strict identity differences from villagers, and is highly mobile, as a whole it has already formed a relatively stable scale and become "quasi-villagers" of the village. Fourth, village infrastructure and public and public welfare undertakings have developed rapidly, villagers' lifestyles and cultural values have changed, and new lifestyles and values are taking shape.①

In the process of development and expansion, most "super villages" have gone through the process of merging surrounding villages, becoming "communities" where original villagers and newly added villagers live together. Moreover, these "super villages" have already achieved urbanization, and most have surpassed the development level of surrounding townships, becoming de facto local centers of economic, cultural, and social services. The large-scale emergence of "super villages" and the new characteristics they exhibit have brought many new challenges to rural governance.

(iv) "Urban villages" in the crevices of cities

In the process of promoting urbanization, due to the phased nature of development, central areas often develop into cities first, while relatively remote suburban areas evolve into "urban villages." "Urban villages" mostly refer to villages that, in the process of rapid economic development and continuous urbanization, were located on the edges of cities and were incorporated into urban areas. Although they have become part of the city in terms of region, they still retain the rural model in terms of land ownership, household registration, and administrative management systems. They are also called "villages in the city." According to distance from the city center and agricultural land ownership, "urban villages" can be divided into three categories: first, villages in bustling urban areas that have no agricultural land at all; second, villages on the periphery of urban areas that have a small amount of agricultural land; third, villages in remote suburbs that have relatively more agricultural land.

"Urban villages" trapped in the crevices of cities, although they have already become part of the city geographically, are still very backward compared with real cities in terms of infrastructure, public services, environmental sanitation, and so on. The existence of "urban villages" not only affects urban management and constrains urban development, but also changes the original characteristics of the villages, bringing many new problems to village governance.

II. New challenges facing rural governance

In traditional rural society, the old rural governance model achieved certain results in promoting rural progress, agricultural development, and farmers' prosperity. However, with the rapid development of the economy and society and the rapid advancement of urbanization, new situations such as new-type rural communities, "hollow villages," "super villages," and "urban villages" have appeared in large numbers, bringing many new problems and challenges to rural governance. The traditional "one-size-fits-all" rural governance model is already far from being able to adapt to the development requirements of the new era. The 2013 "Communique of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China" pointed out that it is necessary to "form a new type of worker-peasant and urban-rural relationship featuring industry promoting agriculture, cities supporting rural areas, mutual benefit between workers and peasants, and urban-rural integration, so that the broad masses of farmers can participate equally in the modernization process and share in the fruits of modernization." However, the old rural governance model has seriously hindered the development of urban-rural integration.

(i) New challenges facing "new-type rural community" governance

First, it causes some villagers to become "impoverished by moving upstairs." The construction of new-type rural communities is often accompanied by farmers "moving upstairs." In this process, there is a widespread problem of insufficient compensation by local governments for farmers' housing and homestead land, while farmers often still need to pay extra to buy apartments. Coupled with the increase in farmers' living costs after "moving upstairs," this can lead to the adverse consequence of "impoverishment by moving upstairs." Moreover, after farmers "move upstairs," they basically leave the land and lose an important source of income——farming income. In this situation, if the problem of non-agricultural employment for farmers after moving upstairs cannot be solved well, the issue of farmers' income becomes a long-standing difficult problem.

Second, unique community phenomena such as "raising pigs on rooftops and growing vegetables in green belts" appear. At present, in the vast majority of rural areas in China, agriculture is still the main production activity of farmers, courtyard economy and household livestock raising are still important sources of income, land is still the main means of security, and rural residential settlements mainly in the form of villages are still relatively suitable for rural villagers to live in and engage in various production activities. Faced with the sudden "moving upstairs," many villagers, especially the elderly, find it difficult to adapt in a short time. Coupled with their hard-to-part-with feelings toward land and livestock, some villagers choose to open up "their own territory" on rooftops or in green belts and other public spaces to raise pigs or grow vegetables.

Third, rural social ties have weakened, village cohesion has declined, and relations among villagers have gradually become estranged. In the construction of new-type rural communities, with farmers' centralized residence as an important feature, an important link is the merger of villages and the addition of outsiders. Along with the merger of villages, the relatively closed traditional village living pattern originally based on blood ties and geographical bonds has been broken, and villagers originally belonging to different villages have become common community residents, which weakens the villages' original rural social ties. Although new-type communities have improved farmers' housing conditions and living environment, the high-rise residences and anti-theft systems in the communities are no longer convenient for villagers to visit one another and chat, or to help each other. In particular, "public spaces in the communities are becoming fewer and fewer, and the functions of some surviving public spaces have also weakened." Coupled with the addition of outside "strange" people, the warm relations among relatives and acquaintances in old rural areas have gradually given way to organized and institutionalized occupational ties. The cohesion of the original village community has been weakened, and relations among villagers have gradually become estranged and indifferent. How different villagers can "live well" has become an urgent problem to be solved.