How does new-type urbanization lead the integration of urban and rural development?
The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China for the first time explicitly stated that the integration of urban and rural development is the fundamental way to solve China's issues relating to agriculture, rural areas and farmers. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China further elaborated on the issue of urban-rural development integration, pointing out that the urban-rural dual structure is the main obstacle constraining the integration of urban and rural development, and emphasizing the need to improve institutional mechanisms and form a new type of industry-agriculture and urban-rural relationship in which industry promotes agriculture, cities support the countryside, industry and agriculture benefit each other, and urban and rural areas are integrated, so that the broad masses of farmers can participate equally in the process of modernization and share in the fruits of modernization.
At present, China is in a critical period of reform, and the overall development approach and goals have become increasingly clear. The core is to advance the synchronized and coordinated development of the "four modernizations" and the integration of urban and rural development through deepening reform, internal and external coordination, and structural adjustment, so as to achieve sustained, healthy and stable development of the national economy and the modernization goal of a prosperous people and a strong nation.
Leading with new-type urbanization is the correct path choice for the integration of urban and rural development
To advance the integration of urban and rural development, it is necessary not only to eliminate the institutional obstacles affecting that integration, namely the urban-rural dual structure, but also to choose the correct path for integrating urban and rural development. That path should be to lead the integration of urban and rural development with new-type urbanization.
Leading the integration of urban and rural development with new-type urbanization is an inherent requirement of China's economic and social transformation and development and the synchronized development of the "four modernizations." Setting aside informatization, looking at the relationship among the "three modernizations" of industrialization, urbanization and agricultural modernization, China at the current stage has urbanization lagging behind industrialization, and agricultural modernization lagging behind industrialization and urbanization; overall, the "three modernizations" are not synchronized and not coordinated.
From a dynamic perspective, especially examining the period since reform and opening up, relative to the development of industrialization and urbanization, the lag in China's agricultural development has been intensifying; relative to the development of industrialization, the lag in China's urbanization has been easing. The easing of China's urbanization lag is mainly attributable to the acceleration of urbanization in recent years, but this accelerated urbanization has obvious deviations, concentrated in the fact that the change of identity of farmers who go to cities for employment lags behind their occupational change, the speed of rural labor transfer to cities lags behind the speed of urban spatial expansion, and the de-agriculturalization of farmers lags behind the de-agriculturalization of land. The essence of these deviations is that land urbanization and population urbanization are not coordinated, and the process of granting urban citizenship to rural people who have moved to cities is excessively lagging.
That China's level of agricultural modernization lags behind industrialization and urbanization, and is showing an intensifying condition, can be judged from two aspects. First, from the relationship between the static industrial structure and employment structure of the national economy. In 2011, the proportions of China's three industries were 10.1, 46.8, and 43.1, and the employment proportions of the three industries were 34.8:29.5:35.7. These two sets of data reflect a basic problem, namely that the proportion of China's agricultural labor force is far higher than the proportion of agricultural GDP, indicating that China's industrial structure and employment structure are very uncoordinated, and that the development of non-agricultural industries has not sufficiently driven agriculture, especially not sufficiently absorbed surplus agricultural labor. Second, from the relationship between the dynamic industrial structure and employment structure of the national economy. In the early period of reform and opening up (the early 1980s), agriculture accounted for about 1/3 of China's GDP, and agricultural labor accounted for about 2/3 of the total labor force. Comparing this set of data with the proportion of agricultural GDP and the proportion of agricultural labor in 2011, it can be clearly seen that although China has transferred out a large amount of agricultural labor since reform and opening up, the decline in the proportion of agricultural GDP has been much faster than the decline in the proportion of agricultural labor. The former fell from 1/3 to 1/10, while the latter fell from 2/3 to 1/3, and consequently the contribution rate of China's agricultural labor to GDP, or in other words the sectoral comparative labor productivity, has not been rising but has further declined, from 0.5 in the early 1980s (that is, 1/3 divided by 2/3) to 0.29 in 2011 (10.1/34.8). The lag in agricultural development is clearly intensifying, not easing.
The consequence of the uncoordinated "three modernizations" is inevitably uncoordinated industrial structure, uncoordinated industrial structure and employment structure, and uncoordinated urban-rural relations. To change this situation, judging from China's actual conditions, accelerating the development of new-type urbanization is undoubtedly the correct path.
First, it is needed for the further evolution of China's industrial structure. At present, the order of proportions of China's three industries is secondary, tertiary, primary, and the trend of further evolution will inevitably be tertiary, secondary, primary. The main path to accelerating the development of the tertiary industry is urbanization, because the core of the tertiary industry is services, and the development of services is closely related to population concentration, which in turn depends on the development of urbanization.
Second, it is needed for the evolution of China's employment structure. An important reason for the lag in China's agricultural development is the lack of coordination between the proportion of agricultural output and the proportion of agricultural employment. The way to make them coordinated is not to raise the proportion of agricultural output, but to lower the proportion of agricultural labor. The only way is to transfer surplus agricultural labor to the secondary and tertiary industries. Judging from the current absorption of labor by China's three industries and the evolution trend of the industrial structure, the destination of future transfers of surplus agricultural labor should mainly be the tertiary industry. Obviously, to achieve such structural transformation and coordination, the development of urbanization must be accelerated.
The conclusion that can be drawn from the above analysis is: if the rapid growth of China's economy over the past 30-plus years was mainly driven by industrialization, then at the current stage, whether viewed from the synchronized coordination of the "three modernizations" or from the evolution of the industrial structure and employment structure, China has entered a stage of accelerated urbanization development, in which urbanization leads the integration of urban and rural development and leads the development of the entire economy and society.