Stemming the tide

About 70% of China’s population still lives in rural
areas. With the media constantly showcasing ‘China’s
economic miracle’, many Western readers may not know that its vast hinterland is in a dangerous state of crisis.
Experts have coined the term ‘three-dimensional
rural problem’ (agriculture,
peasants, and rural areas) to summarise
the multitude of troubles, such as stagnant
income, declining public services,
overstaffed but inefficient local government,
rampant corruption, declining
social capital, degraded environment,
escalating crimes, and expanding protests
and demonstrations. In China, the
rural crisis is generally recognised as
the most urgent challenge for the government,
yet the proposed solutions
differ widely.

Mainstream economists still count
on rapid industrialisation and urbanisation
as the panacea. However, already
about 60% of the water in seven major
river systems is classified as heavily
polluted. Sixty million people face water
scarcity, and more than 300 million
do not have access to clean drinking water.
Because of this water shortage
alone, the current model of industrialisation
and urbanisation seems neither
scalable nor sustainable. Also there are
already as many as 150 million rural
migrants working in the urban areas.
The majority are working in sweatshop
conditions and have little chance
to enjoy the convenience and comforts
of urban life.

Recognising all these problems,
some rural experts have argued that the
majority of China’s rural population
should remain rural in the foreseeable
future – there is no easy escape to the
cities. They put forward plans to revive
community spirit and empower rural
people to rebuild a people-centred
and community-based local economy.
Over the years, many peasants have
also reached similar conclusions and
have started to self-organise and explore
an alternative sustainable and
dignified livelihood. Answering these
calls, some scholars and activists have
joined the grassroots peasants to form
the vibrant New Rural Reconstruction
Movement.

The roots of this movement are old.
Y. C. James Yen, a Chinese educator and
social activist, developed an integrated
programme of education, livelihood,
public health and self-governance for
rural development in China during
the 1920s. This was the start of the
rural reconstruction movement that
Yen and his colleagues later adapted to
other developing countries. From this
and other movements, like the Kerala
people’s Science Movement, the New
Rural Reconstruction Movement draws
its inspiration.

One centre of the movement is the
James Yen Institute of Rural Reconstruction,
which lies in a village about three
hours by train from Beijing. The Institute
offers training seminars on topics
such as organic agriculture, permaculture,
ecological building with local
materials, community organising, and
rural co-operative building. The seminars
are free for peasants – the only
requirements are junior high school
education and an interest in community
building. Selected trainees are given
seed money (in the form of microcredits)
to start rural co-operatives,
credit unions or other organisations
back in their own villages. The Institute
stays in contact with these trainees
and brings them back together for reentry
programmes where they share
experiences. So far, graduates from the
Institute have founded more than thirty
village co-operatives or other types of
cultural and civic group across China.
Some of these co-operatives and other
NGOs have initiated community-supported
agriculture, linking consumers
in big cities to organic farmers in the
countryside. On the policy level, several
academics and progressive officials are
pushing for China’s co-op law, hoping
to help rural co-ops to gain more legal
protection and governmental support.

Besides these projects, a vital aspect
of the movement is to bring the
agrarian perspective back into the
development narrative. During the
last quarter century, the discourse
on modernisation in China has been
predominantly about copying the
industrialisation and urbanisation
model from the West. Most educational
materials carry the implicit or
even explicit message that everything
urban is modern and desirable, and
everything rural is backwards and despicable
and should be discarded as fast
as possible to achieve modernisation.
Farmers’ traditional attachment to the
land is considered a stupid sentiment,
which should be replaced by upward
mobility at all cost. All this has fuelled
the brain drain and labour drain from
the villages, contributing to the rural
crisis as well as the growing sweatshops
in the coastal regions: migrant
rural youths will bear the most horrendous
abuses in the export-oriented
factories as they are convinced that
there is no future in their own villages.
With so many young people leaving,
this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fortunately, the rural reconstruction
movement is challenging this kind of
cultural colonisation.

Professor Wen Tiejun, who is generally
considered the spiritual leader
of the movement, is one of the few
Chinese intellectuals who are openly
questioning the Western-centred development
paradigm. In his 2004 books Deconstruction of Modernization and
What do We Really Need? he emphasises
the resource constraints of China and
describes how the vast hinterland has
served as an internal resource and labour
base to fuel the hyper-growth
of the coast. Without another hinterland
to exploit, the remaining rural
population cannot copy the Western
modernisation path. He and his colleagues
have also formed rural focus
groups in more than a hundred college
campuses across China, bringing
student volunteers in touch with the
rural reality – a powerful antidote to
the elitist and urban-biased education.

Many aspects of traditional Chinese
culture, including harmony with nature,
community values, and a sense of
sufficiency instead of endless pursuit
of wealth and consumption, are being
re-evaluated in a more positive light
by many advocates and practitioners of
the movement.

With the mad rush towards ‘modernity’
in recent years, peasants’
bonds with the land and within rural
communities have already been seriously
weakened. Chemical farming has
largely replaced traditional integrated
farming. Application of organic and
green manure has dwindled, while dependence on chemical fertilisers
and pesticides has surged.
With the family contract system
introduced in the 1980s and the
collapse of collective welfare
mechanisms, family farms have
become much more vulnerable
to natural disasters and market
fluctuations, and this has forced
many peasants to overtax their
land. The fragmentation of rural
communities has also led to
the exploitation and decline of
communal assets. For example,
between 1985 and 1989, the
area covered by windbreaks
declined by 48% nationwide.
Irrigation canals and other
waterworks have also fallen
into disarray over the years. All
this has resulted in more soil
erosion and vulnerability to
droughts and floods.

An Jinlei, a long-time organic
farmer and volunteer
instructor, is trying to restore
the love of land and community
amongst his fellow peasants.
While teaching green techniques,
he always emphasises
that organic agriculture is just
not about money-making by
eliminating chemicals or taking
advantage of a niche market.
Farming is a way of life instead
of a business for profit. A good
farmer is a humble steward: he
deeply appreciates the land and
what it offers, and takes good
care of it in return; he realises
all the animals and plants are
connected with us as precious
life forms, and thus works with
them, not against them. Moreover,
instead of competing
for market advantage, fellow
farmers work with each other
to be a healthy people on a
healthy land. Such a vision of
reconnecting with the land and
each other may sound sentimental to
hardheaded economists and industrial
agriculturists, but it is really nothing
but down-to-earth. As the driving force
for the rural reconstruction movement,
it may be our best chance to solve
China’s most urgent crisis.

For more information please see
China Copes with Globalization: a mixed review, Dale Wen, International Forum on Globalisation

A native of China, Dale Jiajun Wen specialises
in China and globalisation issues and is working
to build bridges between the emerging alternative
voices in China and the global social justice
movement.