How can new urbanization win over farmers?

Although the central government has repeatedly stressed that advancing new urbanization cannot rely on administrative orders or campaign-style drives, reporters from Economic Information Daily found in interviews across multiple locations that some places break down targets level by level, compete with one another, adjust statistical criteria, and artificially inflate urbanization rate figures, affecting the sustained improvement of the level and quality of new urbanization. (August 31, Economic Information Daily)

Advancing new urbanization is aimed at putting farmers first, letting farmers share in the fruits of reform, and letting farmers gain tangible benefits. All measures to advance new urbanization should focus on this priority; anything unrelated to it can be said to deviate from the theme. Conditions vary greatly from place to place, and advancing new urbanization cannot be accomplished overnight. It must proceed from the actual conditions of each place, suit measures to local conditions, avoid a one-size-fits-all approach, and cannot be rushed or expected to be completed in a single battle; it must proceed step by step. Therefore, advancing new urbanization cannot rely on administrative orders or campaign-style drives, still less can it be considered from the angle of building showcase projects for political achievement. Yet the reality is this: in some places, advancing new urbanization relies on administrative orders and campaign-style drives, and artificially inflated urbanization rate figures exist. The result is that farmers are "passively urbanized," which goes against farmers' wishes and deviates from the farmer-centered theme, naturally drawing complaints and criticism from farmers.

On closer thought, in some places the reason farmers are unwilling to be "passively urbanized" is the inevitable result of economic interest incentives. In recent years, favorable policies attached to agricultural household registration have been introduced continuously, and the "gold content" of rural household registration has risen, greatly increasing the appeal of agricultural household registration. Clearly, to advance new urbanization, farmers must truly withdraw from the land and voluntarily settle in cities; rural land assets must be revitalized so that farmers can "decouple" from the land. At present, farmers' land contractual management rights, homestead use rights, and rights to collective income distribution - the "three rights" - lack institutional arrangements for voluntary withdrawal, which is undoubtedly the key bottleneck affecting farmers' "decoupling" from the land and requires accelerated top-level design to break through. Facts in recent years also show that if the property value of rural assets cannot be realized, a large number of agricultural migrant people would rather leave land idle and farmhouses vacant than move their household registration out of rural areas. Land is farmers' direct security, and housing is farmers' main property asset. Only by turning these into property income through proper channels can farmers possibly consider giving up rural household registration and voluntarily settling in cities and towns. Farmers are very good at calculating costs and benefits; if you do not let them obtain substantial tangible benefits, why should they give up the dividends of rural household registration and move into cities and towns?

According to the national "13th Five-Year Plan," China's urbanization rate of registered residents needs to increase by 5.1 percentage points over the next five years. At present, in many small and medium-sized cities participating in pilot programs, the conditions for settling down have already been lowered to requiring only a lawful and stable residence (including rental), making it almost zero-threshold for farmers to settle in cities, yet the registered-resident urbanization rate in many pilot small and medium-sized cities is far below the expected target. Behind the slow increase in the urbanization rate of registered residents, there is a certain "counter-urbanization" phenomenon: most rural students who get into university no longer transfer their household registration; people who buy homes, work, and live in cities and meet the conditions for settling down do not transfer their household registration; many people with urban household registration want to move their household registration back to rural areas... Reporters recently investigated in Anhui, Sichuan, Hubei, and other places and found that most pilot small and medium-sized cities have fully opened up settlement in cities for farmers, but before the zero threshold, farmers' willingness to settle down is generally not high. In one county town, only just over 200 people converted from agricultural to non-agricultural household registration in 2015. As the gold content of rural household registration gradually rises, a considerable number of farmers are willing to buy homes, work, and live in cities, but choose to leave their household registration in rural areas... This is clearly thought-provoking.