|
What
did Balzac have to do with The Little Chinese Seamstress? It happened in an
unusual time during the Chinese Culture Revolution. Balzac changed the mindset
of a little seamstress in a remote mountainous village - she walked out of
the mountains to explore new possibilities of life. Still more happened to
the villagers: they got to know a violin and appreciate Mozart's sonata
(though they would call it Mozart thinking of Chairman Mao); they came to
know Ursule Mirouet and fell in love with Balzac (though they thought his
stories were about the Albanians); fascinated by the name of
Champs-Elysees, the old tailor adorned women's clothes with little French
details imitating those in The Count of Monte Cristo, and made it a fashion
among village girls. All these happened because of two young men who were
sent to the village for re-education. It's a story of youthful creativity,
joy and sorrow, and a story of inspiration. It also tells the universal
nature of humanity - human beings are curious, and keen on learning.
Four
decades have passed since then. Famers in China are much better off today
(thanks to the economic and political reforms that began in the late
1970s). However, after its initial growth, rural income entered a staging
period, and the gap between rural and urban populations in living standards
is wide, and continues to widen. As more farmers are seeking for migratory
work in cities, farmlands are cultivated carelessly with some left fallow,
and cities have an increasing burden from their growing populations and
face other development problems, the Three Issues of rural development
(Agriculture, Rural Area and Farmers) have become a huge challenge for the
Chinese government.
In
addition to reforming land tenure to encourage more efficient large-scale
farming and implementing appropriate policies to absorb some migratory
workers into the urban system, home-based development is essential for
stable and continuous rural economic development and the overall economic
growth in China. Home-based development should focus on identifying and
developing featured local industries that suit and take advantage of the
natural environment and integrating agriculture into the overall development
plan. A bottom-up approach (with top-down support) is promising: one farmer
can lead other farmers, one village can lead other villages, and one town
can lead other towns. Gradually new urban centers will grow out of the
rural areas. With a large rural population and limited farmland resources,
rural development in China is very much relying on this local urbanization
process.
But
this requires extraordinary leadership. Behind every successful story at
the village level, there is a visionary and capable leader who takes the
interests of the village to his heart, and can pull all the villagers
together. However, such leadership is lacking across rural China. During my
visits to the villages around Poyang Lake, I met numerous farmers who are
eager to learn and try new ways of livelihoods. But they can't do much
individually in a free-market economy (which requires a certain scale and
favors large scales of production), and their knowledge and education is
limiting their capabilities. In those villages that are very poor, there is
usually a desperate atmosphere as a whole. Indeed, farmer households have
done what they can: they have sent every member who can find work to work
in the city; whoever at home try to farm the small amount of farmlands to
compensate income even though the output from crop cultivation is meager. I
don't really know what else they can do. To open up the bottleneck and
further increase rural income, government intervention is necessary (especially
because the gap between rural and urban development is mostly a
result of past national policies that have focused on urban development by
scarifying the interests of rural populations). My studies of farmer
households have revealed that the social capital of a village affects the
well-being of farmer households in many important ways. It is a "lever
point" that can be leveraged by external interventions. A strong
leadership will foster and enhance this capital, and human resource is the
key to future rural development.
Perhaps
we could use some imagination here. How about a second culture revolution?
Once again, we may send bright young people to the countryside. (Anyway,
there is a growing excess of well-educated young people on the urban labor
market.) But this time, they are not to be re-educated but to educate and
lead farmers. They won't be forced but voluntarily. They need to be
qualified, and then further trained. They will be very well paid by the
government. And the government should play a key role in coordinating this
effort and providing necessary support (including reforms at deeper
levels). I feel that such an effort can resolve the three issues of rural
development, and eventually transform China into a developed country. And
it is doable. Central governance can produce significant positive impacts
when implemented right.
|