Win the battle of comprehensive reform in rural areas

The Comprehensive implementation Plan for deepening Rural Reform recently released by the Central Committee is of great significance to rural development and reform in the future. Rural reform is related to the overall situation of economic development. Only by greatly improving the level of agricultural modernization, reducing the cost of agricultural production, and relatively lowering the price of agricultural products, can China change the expectation of Chinese household expenditure, expand consumption, increase the total demand of the domestic market, and form a virtuous circle of the national economy. Relying on agricultural modernization, farmers become rich modern professional farmers, the new rural construction can be effectively supported, and the comprehensive cost of supporting agriculture can be saved. After the food cost of Chinese people falls, the employment choice behavior of workers will also better meet the needs of entrepreneurship and innovation, which is conducive to the transformation of China's economy. To raise rural reform to such a high level of understanding is by no means boasting.

The outstanding characteristics of this plan are that the orientation of market-oriented reform is clear, it dares to face the difficulties of reform, the train of thought of supporting reform is mature, and the local experience is highly concerned. The content of the document reaffirms the established policy of rural reform that has been effective for many years, summarizes the good experience gained in the reform and exploration in recent years, and also puts forward the difficult problems that are in great need of reform but how to change. Only if we have a good understanding of these three aspects of the implementation plan of this reform can we have a basic grasp of the future rural reform.

The established policy of rural reform is to play a decisive role in the allocation of basic economic resources in rural areas. The great achievements of China's agriculture are inseparable from reform and opening up, and from the basic policy of giving farmers the right to independent production and management. Giving farmers freedom, creating a sound market order and establishing a policy system to serve agriculture are the secrets of the sustainable development of China's agriculture. Summing up this experience, the third Plenary session of the 17th CPC Central Committee clearly defined the market economy orientation of deepening rural reform, and the resolution of the third Plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee further established the reform direction in which the market plays a decisive role. If we stick to this direction, there will be hope for reform. Any vagrancy in the face of reform difficulties, any conservative thinking that gives up the direction of market reform and tries to return to the traditional planned economy will become a resistance to development and make the country's prospects bleak. This rural reform implementation plan reaffirms the basic road map of market-oriented reform and is an important guarantee for the success of the reform.

This reform implementation plan puts forward a clear response to the problems in which grass-roots cadres and masses in rural areas have a strong voice and a relatively consistent understanding in recent years, reflecting the reform decision-making ability of high-level officials to comply with public opinion. For example, over the years, grass-roots cadres have complained a lot about the disadvantages of the system of supporting agriculture, in which projects are set up in detail and spending money regardless of benefits, and in some places they have boldly broken through the fetters of many kinds of government, bundled and used funds to support agriculture, and achieved good results. The difficulty in solving this problem lies not at the bottom, but at the top. The reform and implementation plan issued by the central government directly faces this "pseudo-difficult problem," and for the first time explicitly calls for vigorously cleaning up, integrating, and standardizing agriculture-related transfer payment funds, and resolutely rectifying agriculture-related special funds that are "small, scattered, and chaotic," and whose results are not obvious. In the future, it is necessary to establish a standardized and transparent management system to put an end to any form of misappropriation, interception, false claim, and effectively improve the performance of agriculture-related capital investment. For example, Nanhai District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province, tried out the reform of "separation of politics and economy", which clarified the boundary between community public affairs and competitive economic affairs, and reasonably divided the functions of grass-roots organizations; Qingyuan City adapted measures to local conditions. Setting up villagers' self-government organizations to properly sink to natural villages or villagers' groups has greatly aroused the enthusiasm of elites in rural communities who have been marginalized for many years to provide voluntary public services. These reforms are commendable and effective. Although there are some misgivings about these reforms, there is no doubt that they are going in the right direction. The reform and implementation plan issued by the Central Committee clearly recommends these reform experiments and encourages all localities to explore and learn. With its vast territory, China is always in the forefront of reformers who have the courage to explore. Affirming the useful experience of local governments and delegating power to local governments is the only way to remove the obstacles to reform.

There are real problems in the reform, and the focus is on the reform of rural property rights. If the reform of rural land property rights is not done, the transaction of property rights will not be efficient, and it is empty talk that the market plays a decisive role in the allocation of agricultural elements. The reform implementation plan issued by the Central Committee points out that it is necessary to "clearly define the collective membership rights of farmers, clarify the ownership of collective land property rights, and achieve a clear subject of collective property rights." This is not only the difficulty of operation, but also the difficulty of understanding. According to the author's understanding, in the past, we actually pursued the principles of "birth empowerment" and "immigration empowerment" in determining the rights of members of the collective economy, that is, a person was born in a village or legally transferred household registration to a village. However, market-oriented countries only pursue this principle in the community public domain, in order to determine the "right of community members". In the field of competitive economy, we must abide by the principles of "inheritance empowerment" and "transaction empowerment". If a person inherits the right of land contract or "purchase" to the right of land contract, he will naturally get the "right of membership in the collective economy". There must be a clear distinction between "collective economic membership rights" and "community membership rights". This is the cognitive premise of reform and breakthrough. The comprehensive implementation plan of this reform allows the exploration of collective construction land "entering the market" under certain conditions, the exploration of the "paid withdrawal mechanism" of rural homestead, and the "paid withdrawal of farmers' land contractual management rights". It provides an opportunity for reform breakthroughs. The author believes that this is the biggest highlight of the implementation plan of this reform, and its significance is inestimable. The success or failure of the battle for China's rural reform depends on this.