Advancing urbanization cannot mean only taking land and ignoring people

From the white mountains and black waters to the mountains and rivers within, although still in cautious adjustment, Wang Rulin's work style of having the right to speak only after investigation and his work method of focusing on the big province while starting with small villages have already left a deep impression on the outside world.

On October 13, Shanxi's local party newspaper published Wang Rulin's speech during an investigation in Taiyuan. This was his second investigation after taking up the post of Secretary of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee, 45 days after Wang Rulin assumed the post of Secretary of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee.

During the investigation in Taiyuan, Wang Rulin chose two urban villages for random visits. Wang Rulin stayed for a long time in the two "urban villages," gaining an in-depth understanding of the situation, and was also very "meticulous," carefully checking the discrepancies between the cadres' reports and the actual situation.

During the visits, he learned that in one urban village of 500 households, the books showed that the village cadres plus support staff totaled 278 people receiving salaries, and last year's expenditures on the books were 3.073 million yuan; in another village, the number of cleaning staff was 135, and last year's wages plus garbage removal fees reached as high as 1.6002 million yuan. With so many cleaners and so much money spent, in reality no one was clearing the garbage.

The problems existing in the two urban villages, such as being dirty, messy and poor, chaotic revenue and expenditure accounts, and undisclosed finances, which aroused public dissatisfaction, attracted his attention. For this reason, in his speech during the Taiyuan investigation, he required relevant departments to establish an "urban village investigation team," "trace back, and there must be no making an exception just this once; leadership responsibility must be pursued."

In the village investigations, Wang Rulin also discovered bright spots in village governance. In Xiazaolin Village, Xiazaolin Township, Zhongyang County, through conversation, he learned that Party branch secretary Gao Sanyuan had originally operated a coal mine and in 2012 began establishing Zhongyang County Houtong Technology Breeding Co., Ltd., which was building a project with an annual output of 300,000 pigs. The pig breeding, feed, and processing, from equipment to technology, were all at world-class level. Very importantly, all pig manure could be treated and utilized, and it adopted advanced Danish technology - collecting pig manure and using the heat from its fermentation to provide the temperature needed in winter for the pig barns, saving the cost of burning coal and generating electricity, and protecting the environment. After fermentation, the pig manure became solid and liquid fertilizer, specially used for developing fertilizer for walnuts, vegetables, and so on. This project adopted the method of company plus base plus farmers, which could drive farmers to become wealthy; village Party branch secretary Gao Sanyuan also took out his own money to selflessly help villagers escape poverty and become wealthy.

Wang Rulin highly affirmed Gao Sanyuan's work and said that both his methods and his awareness were worth learning.

In his speech during the Taiyuan investigation, Wang Rulin pointed out that "urban villages" are a special dualistic regional space in the process of China's urbanization, and villagers have become "land-lost farmers" surrounded by urban districts. We cannot advance urbanization by "only taking land and ignoring people." At the level of governance in the three Jin region, Wang Rulin proposed six development paths, ideas for rebuilding Shanxi's new image and realizing the goal of enriching the people and strengthening the province.

Whether it was understanding provincial conditions by looking at small villages, or the order of expression of enriching the people and strengthening the province, both conveyed such a signal: the future new normal of governance in the three Jin region will be people-centered scientific development under the enhanced awareness of the Party's purpose.