Has China's rural economy really declined? An analysis of the current situation

In recent years, whenever the Spring Festival comes around, the wave of people returning to their hometowns is often accompanied by voices lamenting rural decline and deteriorating morals, and these voices appear overwhelmingly and endlessly, year after year. At first glance, one might really think that China's countryside has reached a hopeless state of ruin. A closer look at these articles, whether first-person personal accounts or third-person retellings, shows that the vast majority share the same tone, and their reasons for "talking down the countryside" can roughly be divided into four types:

First, from an intuitive perspective, the countryside presents a scene of decay, with roads unrepaired and village appearances dilapidated.

Second, farmers going to cities for work leaves behind the elderly, the weak, women, and children, and rural people settling in cities leads to villages and even farmland being abandoned.

Third, the formerly simple and beautiful folk customs have disappeared, public morals have worsened, and people's hearts are no longer what they once were.

Fourth, knowledge is no longer respected, and so on.

It should be pointed out that these voices usually appear on the internet and in non-mainstream media, while at the same time, official media often present the countryside as thriving and changing with each passing day. Given the broad reach of the internet and non-mainstream media, the theory of rural decline has spread widely and gained great traction. Although weak voices of opposition have also appeared, Chinese people's basic perception of the countryside is undoubtedly that it is in decline.

The author grew up in a rural area of Henan at the junction of Shandong, Henan, and Anhui provinces, and only left home at the age of twenty to study elsewhere. It has now been ten years, and like a migratory bird, the author has traveled back and forth between home and the city of study every year. Having seen with my own eyes how rural eastern Henan has gotten better and better over these more than twenty years, I truly cannot agree with the currently prevalent "theory of rural decline."

In the past, asphalt roads mainly ran along important transportation lines between villages. Inside villages, and even in slightly remote villages, there were rarely any asphalt roads, and they were basically dirt roads. Moreover, even those asphalt roads became dilapidated after only a few years of use, and whenever it rained or snowed, the ground turned muddy. Every trip out was a struggle because of poor roads. In recent years, with the construction of cement roads, road conditions have improved greatly, and they now basically cover most villages. There are convenient cement roads between villages and within villages. This was unimaginable in the past. In the past two years, with the development of the new rural construction, the installation of running water and the laying of networks are also gradually proceeding, and the convenience can well be imagined.

The biggest change has come from the appearance of the villages. Twenty years ago, most houses were single-story brick-and-tile homes, and a few were even thatched cottages. In recent years, as incomes have increased, village buildings have sprung up like bamboo shoots after rain. The new houses under construction are basically two- or three-story small buildings. Of course, this is indeed wasteful, but it absolutely cannot be called a dilapidated village appearance. In the past, private cars were something rural people would never dare imagine, but in recent years cars in the countryside are no longer a "rare sight," and a few people have already acquired them. In addition, the daily living standards of rural people have also improved enormously, so there is no need to say more.

As for the so-called "hollowing out" of the countryside, that is, young and middle-aged adults going out to work while the elderly, the weak, women, and children remain at home, this is an undeniable fact, but it cannot be used as a basis to talk down the countryside. In the past, social mobility was extremely poor, and the entire national economy was underdeveloped. Rural people had very few opportunities to go out to work and could only stay in their villages living in poverty. But we must ask: was it really rural prosperity for rural people to stay at home suffering poverty? Therefore, I believe that the hollowing out caused by rural people going out is a bitter fruit of the urban-rural dual policy, and what rural people earn by working and then bring back to consume and build is still the countryside. We cannot use this to accuse the countryside of decline, and even less should we stand on a hypocritical moral high ground and point fingers.

With economic development, rural populations have shifted to towns and cities, causing some village farmland to be abandoned. Such descriptions are common in the decline narrative. In rural eastern Henan, this phenomenon is still rare at present, but in some areas nationwide it may be more obvious. But I think this is only one side of the matter. It is true that abandoned villages and fields have appeared, but at the same time, new towns and cities have also appeared. The rural population has not simply vanished; it has moved to towns and cities.

In the process of social development, the phenomenon of one thing declining while another rises will undoubtedly appear. As the saying goes, if there is no blockage, there is no flow; if there is no stopping, there is no action. If the countryside is not abandoned, where do new towns and cities come from? From the perspective of an onlooker, of course the countryside has been abandoned, but if one considers the feelings of rural people themselves, they are undoubtedly willing to enter the cities and willing to give up the backward rural life and settle in cities. Is it really good to prevent rural people from entering cities based on an onlooker's wishful love for and imagination of the countryside?

In everyone's impression, rural folk customs have also deteriorated, but this is only a surface phenomenon. In fact, with economic development and rising incomes, rural customs are now actually better. In the poor years of the past, everyone kept their eyes on petty gains, so relations between neighbors were tense, and fights and brawls often occurred, even armed clashes between villages. Nowadays, these have basically disappeared. "When the granaries are full, people know propriety; when clothing and food are sufficient, people know honor and shame." Because living conditions have improved, relations among rural people are far friendlier than in the past. Moreover, the feudal superstitions that once prevailed in the countryside have also basically disappeared in recent years. These are all selectively ignored by people.

With the spread of the internet, the speed of information dissemination has greatly increased, and the rise in divorce rates in rural areas, wedding and funeral ceremonies, and occasional pornographic performances in ordinary times have all attracted widespread attention. But the rise in divorce rates is happening throughout society, and rural people cannot be harshly blamed for it. Moreover, according to the author's observations in rural eastern Henan, people usually divorce only when they truly can no longer live together, which is very different from the irresponsible attitude that treats divorce as a joke. Therefore, it should instead be seen as a positive phenomenon.

As for the occasional appearance of pornographic performances, this was originally nothing rare. Such performances are not fixed in one place and mostly involve traveling "offenders." Twenty years ago, when the author was still young, I already heard that such things existed locally, so it should not be regarded as a phenomenon that has only appeared in recent years. Strictly speaking, pornography, no matter when or where, will always exist as long as human character has not improved by leaps and bounds. We should not, merely based on our own pure imagination of the countryside, make a fuss about the occasional appearance of pornographic performances there.

In 2015, a sociology doctoral student from a certain university returned to his hometown in Hubei, and out of what he saw and heard, mourned the decline of the countryside and raised a new phenomenon, namely so-called disrespect for knowledge. This article was very popular around the Spring Festival last year and won approval from many people. But I think there is a misunderstanding in this view. In fact, rural people have never truly respected knowledge; what they respected was the power represented by knowledge.

In the past, social mobility was low and the system was rigid. For farming families to rise, almost the only path was to study and become an official. In other words, in the past knowledge was power. With knowledge and a high degree, one could win the glory of returning home in fine clothes and the admiration of crowds in the village. A doctoral student returning to the village was a remarkable thing. In essence, rural people respected scholars because they thought these people might later rise to great prominence and become high officials.

But today the situation has changed. Rural people have more ways to change their fate, not just studying. Knowledge has therefore lost its former unique magic. Rural people can make a fortune, change their social status, and win respect by doing business at home or elsewhere, so naturally they no longer revere knowledge as they once did. Thus some intellectuals returning home feel deeply disappointed because they do not receive the respect and admiration they imagined. However, I think we should be happy about this and applaud it. After all, it shows that the countryside has truly begun to develop, and that there are ways to develop. This society has also become more dynamic.

In short, the currently prevalent decline narrative does not reflect the real situation of the countryside. The countryside is in fact developing and progressing. Although the "decline theory" cannot be said to be entirely fabricated, it in fact looks at the countryside through colored glasses, obscures the real picture of the countryside, and fails to see the upward side of rural development.

Why have these obvious facts not been accepted by Chinese people? Why is the decline theory so prevalent? On the one hand, this is related to a trend of thought popular in recent years, namely lamenting the noisy and dirty city while imagining the countryside as a pastoral idyllic life, using it to entrust one's ideals or feelings. Once the reality of the countryside is found to be less than imagined, it is considered to have worsened now, whereas previously it was still a pastoral idyllic life. Therefore, intentionally or not, people hope the countryside will remain in a quaint and primitive ecology, completely disregarding the lives and feelings of the 800 million rural people. This view is especially obvious in the imagination of frontier life, full of an "untamed charm" very different from the ordinary, presenting "strange," quaint, and primitive local customs.

At present, most cultural scenic areas also use the label of original ecology, trying to satisfy the public's appetite for novelty. In fact, the local people and government clearly understand the urgency of development and will not preserve a backward appearance just to satisfy imagination; it is merely artificial fabrication. In fact, what the public regards as quaint and primitive is simply another name for poverty and backwardness, and this also applies to the imagination of the countryside. This imagination of the frontier completely ignores the feelings of local people and their desire to integrate into modern society, while the stereotyped imagination of the countryside ignores rural people's desire and pursuit of a higher standard of living.

In addition, this is also related to the identity and background of such authors. Most authors of this kind of article circulating online are university students who left the countryside through the college entrance examination. They have certain educational qualifications and struggle hard in the city, but cannot settle down and establish themselves, so they harbor an overly beautiful longing for their hometown as an emotional anchor at the bottom of their hearts.

This beautification is inextricably linked to modern media and literary and artistic works, including popular songs, TV dramas, movies, novels, and so on. Over the past ten or twenty years, there has been excessive beautification and dramatization of "hometown" and "home." These university students struggling in the city have been too deeply influenced by this, and have instead become quite unfamiliar with the countryside, treating the past as a golden age. This is somewhat similar to Confucianism treating the three dynasties as an ideal age; both are constructions and shapings, intentional or not.

Setting aside the debate, if one asks rural people how they feel about rural changes, they will certainly feel things have gotten better, and almost no one holds the view of decline. Now not only is life prosperous, but the means to change one's fate are far greater than in the past. Whether going out to work or doing business at home, there are many opportunities. Such obvious facts are ignored by the public.

Thinking carefully, this is also a very helpless matter. Rural people have no voice and are in a state of aphasia, which instead causes the truth to be buried. There are many more such situations in history. In the subaltern studies conducted by historians, especially research on rural areas in the Ming and Qing dynasties and modern times, those who spoke and recorded were all gentry, with their own unique moral positions. To what extent this reflects the truth of history is highly questionable.

Whether society is progressing, an important indicator is whether the system is free and flexible and opens greater room for upward mobility for ordinary people. In China today, society is far more open than thirty years ago, and people have far more means to change their fate than in the past. The same is true for rural people.