[A-List] China to focus on rural development

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   Chinese leaders spend New Year's Eve with farmers, vowing to build
   "new countryside"

Chinese President Hu Jintao
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/zhuanti/Zhuanti_403.html> and Premier
Wen Jiabao <http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/zhuanti/Zhuanti_404.html>
both came to farmers' families to celebrate the lunar New Year. Experts
said their New Year trips to rural areas showed the top leadership's
resolution to build a new socialist countryside aimed at common prosperity.

Joining villagers in dancing popular rural folk dance "Yangge" and
making glutinous rice cake or "niangao," President Hu spent the New
Year's Eve in farmer Kang Haifa's home, in Hougoumen Village of Ansai
County in the revolutionary base of Yan'an, in northwest China's Shaanxi
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/province/shaanxi.html> Province.

Enjoying fried "niangao" with family-made rice wine, he told Kang's
family that the goal of building a new socialist countryside in China is
to ensure the farmers become rich more quickly, so that festival food
such as "niangao" will become their daily diet and their standards of
living will become better year by year.

Premier Wen on Friday and Saturday visited the people in east China's
Shandong <http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/province/shandong.html>
Province. In farmer Guo Xuchen's home, in Guozhuang Village of Heze
City, the premier gave money to Guo, whose wife has been sick for years
and who have financial difficulties in living.

On Friday afternoon, he went to a village clinic and talked with doctor
Dong Longxiang. "We should boost the new rural cooperative medical
system so that farmers can afford medical care," he said.

John McDonald, an expert on China issues living in New Zealand, said in
a Xinhua interview that the fact of Chinese leaders visiting farmers at
the country's most celebrated holiday for three straight years
demonstrated their great concern to farmers and the countryside.

"Their new year trips to rural areas also illustrated the Chinese
government's resolution to narrow the gap between the countryside and
city, farmers and urban citizens, so as to avoid social disturbance and
build a harmonious society," he said.

Wu Jiang, an expert on governmental administration and president of the
Chinese Academy of Personnel Science, said in an interview with Xinhua
that the President and Premier are taking actions to tell the general
public that the construction of "a new countryside" is by no means a
slogan, but a top issue in government's work agenda.

The 5th Plenum of the 16th Central Committee of
the Communist Party of China
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/organs/cpc.html> mapped out a
scheme to boost the construction of a new socialist countryside in
October 2005.

The objectives of the scheme include continuously development of
agriculture, affluent and civilized for rural residents, good village
environment and democratic administration of village affairs.

To reach the objectives, Premier Wen promised in an important speech on
rural issues made on Dec. 29, 2005 that the Chinese government will, in
the 2006-2010 period, input more financial resources to improve farmers'
living and production conditions, promote compulsory education in rural
areas, maintain the balance between food supply and demand, deepen
institutional reform at the township level and financial reform at
county and township levels, provide subsidized medical care and social
security for rural residents and curb illegal farmland acquisition.

"Actually, a series of policies in favor of rural areas were taken in
the year 2005," said Wu, the government administration expert.

Last December, the Standing Committee of the 10th National People's
Congress, China's top legislature, abolished the 2,600-year-old
agricultural tax. In fact, with the fast economic development in the
country, the government began to phase out the agricultural tax on a
trial basis as early as in 2000. The tax reform helped reduce farmers'
tax burden by 23.4 billion yuan (2.9 billion U.S. dollars) from 2001 to
2004 and 22 billion yuan (2.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2005.

Premier Wen announced last December that tuitions for nine-year
compulsory education in rural areas would be exempted within two years.
The central government and local governments at various levels would
allocate a total of 218.9 billion yuan (27 billion U.S. dollars) to
subsidize compulsory education in rural areas in the 2006-2010 period.

A report issued by the national legislature last October for the first
time disclosed that about 40 million farmers had lost farmland in the
country's urbanization process.

Premier Wen said in his latest speech that "we absolutely can't commit
an historic error as far as the issue of land is concerned," which
demonstrates his and the government's strong will to effectively curb
the rampant land seizures for non-agricultural purposes in rural areas.

Source: Xinhua