How Should We View the Phenomenon of Industrial and Commercial Capital Flowing to the Countryside

Going to the city to live "a better life" was once the real aspiration of many rural people. However, in a village in Anji, Zhejiang, the villagers invested in building a reservoir, planted trees, raised fish, and built distinctive residences; the good air and environment attracted many visitors. Not only did villagers' incomes rise, they also earned plenty of envious looks from city dwellers.

The environment has changed, the times have changed, and the value of rural resources has become more attractive. In recent years, with the advancement of urban-rural integration, various public services and social security have continuously extended to the countryside, and quite naturally, the distance between rural and urban areas has narrowed somewhat. Fresh air, natural flowing water, high mountains and dense forests, a calm and peaceful mind... are these not what people who have long lived in cities yearn for? And this is also where the business opportunities lie.

Where there are business opportunities, there will be capital in pursuit, and so more and more urban industrial and commercial capital has flowed to the countryside, or is thinking of doing so.

A poor mountain valley that no one had paid attention to for years suddenly wins the favor of outside capital, yet it also faintly gives rise to a fear of "the wolf is coming."

Farmers are at a disadvantage in the face of capital and the market: poor access to information, insensitivity to market prices, and a weak position in negotiations. Every one of these things makes people worry that the little that farmers have (especially land) will become "someone else's" or belong to a small minority, and that future changes in resource value will have nothing to do with farmers.

At the practical level, there are bosses who transferred farmers' land and then ran away without paying in full; likewise, there are farmers who fail to honor their word and demand that bosses raise the land price. In this feast of capital and land, what remains to be improved, besides awareness of contracts, is standardized operation and the design of long-term benefit distribution.

The "Opinions on the Pilot Work for Reform of Rural Land Expropriation, Market Entry of Collective Operating Construction Land, and the Homestead System" put forward three bottom lines: the nature of public ownership of land must not be changed, the red line for cultivated land must not be breached, and farmers' interests must not be harmed.

"The first step of property rights reform should be to give property rights to the people who most deserve them, not to the people who are best at using them." This view from the process of state-owned enterprise reform is still not outdated when applied to today's rural land system reform.

In rural areas today, determining rights is undoubtedly the first element. It is just that how to determine these rights, and which scope of rights to determine, does not seem so simple. Especially since rural conditions differ greatly, and even change constantly, how to ensure that this bit of rural resources is handed to the people who most deserve them is the most core issue.

Farmers have farmers' ways. In the process of land rights confirmation and certification, some villages in Jiangxi spontaneously established councils and supervisory boards to specifically handle communication among farming households and represent their wishes. Such councils are more responsible to farmers' interests, rather than to the government or developers. Farmers need people who are responsible for their interests, and they also need people who can expand and revitalize rural resources.

When industrial and commercial capital meets rural resources, accurately assessing the value of rural resources is the first step in properly handling industrial and commercial capital flowing to the countryside, but if farmers' right to know and right to negotiate cannot be guaranteed, then protecting farmers' interests will probably be difficult.

Comprehensive consideration needs to be given at the procedural level. For example, making villagers' right to know, right to supervise, and right to negotiate more operable, so that villagers do not become "the silent majority" on matters concerning their own vital interests. Another example is the setting of transaction links, the formulation of contracts, and the distribution ratio and methods between villagers and capital; there is also the construction and improvement of trading platforms, and especially today, with information technology increasingly developed, the importance of this point cannot be underestimated.

In the process of reunderstanding the value of rural resources, design fairness in systems, mechanisms, and rules, do the procedures well, do each link well, and what remains is a matter for the market and the law.

Of course, in a market economy and a society ruled by law, it is possible that there will be differing opinions on the value assessment of rural resources in some areas; on the basis of procedural fairness, farmers may also make decisions that amount to "suffering a loss"; and industrial and commercial capital flowing to the countryside may also bear greater risks because of greed and rash advance. However, rational and mature market entities must be responsible for their own decisions. Creating an exchange platform and process for the coordinated development of rural resources, farmers' interests, and industrial and commercial capital requires the joint efforts of more people.