New Rural Governance: challenges and Solutions

In recent years, the rapid advancement of industrialization and urbanization and the continuous deepening of rural reform have brought new vitality to rural development, but also brought many new situations to rural governance and caused many new problems. The new rural governance cannot be carried out according to the traditional rural governance mode, but should meet the new challenges brought by the new situation such as new rural communities,"hollow villages","super villages" and "villages in cities", carry out comprehensive and systematic analysis, solve new problems according to local conditions and villages, so as to improve the quality and level of rural governance and realize the new development of urban and rural integration.

New developments in current rural governance

"Withdraw villages and live together","farmers live together" under the new rural communities. With the acceleration of urbanization, a large number of rural labor force transfer to cities and towns, a large number of unreasonable use of rural, inadequate and abandoned residential and construction land. In order to re-plan and comprehensively utilize rural collective construction land (mainly homestead), many local governments have formed new rural communities by demolishing old villages and constructing relocated buildings. In this case, the old homestead can be reclaimed to obtain construction indicators for urban construction, or the original homestead can be directly used for urban project construction. With the rapid development of economy and society, the problems of backward rural infrastructure and lack of public services have become prominent; after solving the problem of food and clothing and basically realizing a well-off society, farmers have also put forward new and higher requirements for living conditions and production and living environment, which has also laid the groundwork for the construction of new rural communities. Since the new rural construction in 2006, many rural areas, especially in economically developed areas, have accelerated the pace of community construction, and new rural communities have become an important part of the new rural construction. Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Hebei, Chongqing and other provinces (cities) have carried out community construction with farmers concentrating in towns or concentrated communities as the main content. Up to now, nearly half of the communities in Jiangsu, Shandong and other provinces have become new rural communities of "village to residence".

The new rural community is different from both traditional administrative villages and urban communities. It is either composed of several administrative villages merged together, unified planning, unified layout and unified construction, or constructed by a larger administrative village. After completion, the new community is mostly located in the township, street residence or the core area of the township with convenient transportation. In essence, the construction of a new rural community is not a simple renovation and transformation of villages, nor a simple settlement of more people, but a new social life form in the community, so that farmers can enjoy the same public services as urban people, live a life similar to urban people, and finally realize the goal of narrowing the gap between urban and rural areas and local urbanization. However, in actual operation, due to the inertia of thinking of "land finance" of some local governments, the new rural community construction has been alienated into the "most convenient way" to replace urban construction land. In this process, if the relationship between relevant interest groups cannot be handled well, it is easy to cause various problems. Moreover, even in established new rural communities, community governance faces many challenges.

The "hollow village" caused by the transfer of rural labor force to cities and towns. The countryside has always been an important place for people to live and live. However, with the development of industrialization and urbanization in China, the rural population has been greatly accelerated, and more and more villages have become "hollow villages". In September 2014, the Baotou Investigation Team of the National Bureau of Statistics conducted a survey on 32 administrative villages involved in the residents 'income and expenditure survey. The results show that there are 29124 households in 32 administrative villages, 2851 households going out, and 2690 idle houses (more than 2 years old).

The "hollow village" in the new period mainly includes two kinds: one is in the demographic sense. Originally, the infrastructure and public services such as education and medical care in cities are better than those in rural areas, and with the rapid advancement of industrialization and urbanization, the gap between urban and rural areas tends to widen further. Under this background, a large number of young and middle-aged farmers with high cultural quality enter the city to work, leaving the elderly, sick, disabled, women and children to stay in the village, resulting in a large number of "empty houses" phenomenon in rural areas, which is due to the transfer of labor force. The second is in the geographical sense. A large number of migrant workers return to their hometown after earning money from working in cities and towns. Influenced by factors such as marriage, separation, improvement of living conditions and location, they need to build new houses. Due to the lack of village construction planning, imperfect land use management system, lack of effective supervision over farmers 'illegal housing construction, and incomplete infrastructure in the village, most of the new houses are concentrated in the periphery of the village, especially along the trunk road. The old houses in the village are often idle or become "warehouses" and "decorations." This led to the emergence of a large number of idle homestead and idle land in the village, forming an architectural style of "internal space and external expansion", resulting in "hollow village". These two levels of "hollow village" are interrelated, but the demographic sense of "hollow" has a more profound impact. From this point of view, this paper mainly discusses the phenomenon of "hollow village" caused by the rapid transfer of rural labor force to cities and towns under the industrialization and urbanization.

Generally speaking,"hollow village" has the following remarkable characteristics: in terms of location, it is generally far away from big cities, its economy is relatively backward, and its development is slow; in terms of village appearance, there are a large number of idle houses and abandoned cultivated land in the village; in terms of population structure, the young and middle-aged labor force in the village is scarce, and the elderly, women and children left behind account for a considerable proportion. According to the survey, at present, the population structure of "hollow village" is seriously out of balance, and the left-behind elderly over 50 years old account for the vast majority of the left-behind population. The increasing number of "hollow villages", the loss of a large number of young and middle-aged labor force in the villages, the large number of left-behind elderly people, women and children, and the large number of idle houses and abandoned cultivated land will affect the rural governance in the new period.

The "super village" of the famous village city. In the early 1990s, in the developed areas along the southeast coast,"super villages" represented by Huaxi Village and Yonglian Village appeared one after another. With the advancement of China's modernization process, rural industrialization and urbanization have developed rapidly, and a large number of "super villages" with strong economic strength and high degree of modernization have risen rapidly and are in a state of sustained development, which has become "a beautiful landscape" in the development of rural areas at the grass-roots level in China.

As a new village form,"super village" is neither a traditional town nor a modern city, but shows many intermediate characteristics. Most of these super villages exist in the form of enterprises or enterprise groups, but they retain some characteristics of traditional villages; they not only retain the village committee as a grass-roots mass autonomous organization, but also perform various functions of "quasi-government" and play an intermediary role in the relationship between the state and villagers; they not only enter the industrialized community, but also retain some living orders and principles of the rural society, showing the characteristics of both cities and villages. Compared with ordinary villages,"super villages" are very different in economic structure, collective income, population composition, infrastructure and public services. First, most of the "super villages" have their own collective enterprises, and the output value is huge (most of the output value is hundreds of millions or even tens of billions), forming a non-agricultural economic structure with township enterprises as the main body, and the industrial output value or non-agricultural output value has accounted for the vast majority of the total output value of the village. For these villages, agriculture is no longer the dominant industry. Second, stable "village government" income has been formed that can be used for village government and public welfare undertakings. Third, the population of the village has doubled and multiplied, gathering a large number of migrant labor forces, some of which have even exceeded the total population of the villagers by several times or even more than ten times. Although most of the migrant population is "migrant workers", there is no household registration in the village, there is a strict difference in identity with the villagers, and the mobility is very large, but as a whole, it has a relatively stable scale and has become the "quasi-villagers" of the village. Fourth, the village infrastructure and public welfare undertakings have developed rapidly, the villagers 'lifestyle and cultural values have changed, and new lifestyles and values are taking shape ①.

In the process of development and expansion, most of the "super villages" have gone through the process of merging surrounding villages and become "communities" of original villagers and newly joined villagers. Moreover, these "super villages" have achieved urbanization, and most of them have exceeded the development level of surrounding towns and become local de facto economic, cultural and social service centers. The appearance and new features of "super villages" bring many new challenges to rural governance.

The "village in the city" in the crack of the city. In the process of urbanization, due to the stage of development, the central area often develops into a city first, while the relatively remote suburbs evolve into a "village in the city". "Village in the city" mostly refers to the villages located at the edge of the city that have been classified into Urban area in the process of rapid economic development and continuous urbanization. Although they have become part of the city regionally, they still retain rural mode in land ownership, household registration and administrative management system, which is also called "village in the city." According to the distance from the city center and the possession of agricultural land,"villages in the city" can be divided into three categories: one is in the prosperous urban area, there is no agricultural land village; the other is in the urban periphery, there is a small amount of agricultural land village; three is in the outer suburbs, there are more agricultural land village.

Although the "village in the city" in the crack of the city has become a part of the city geographically, its infrastructure, public services and environmental sanitation are still very backward compared with the real city. The existence of "village in city" not only affects city management and restricts city development, but also changes the original characteristics of village and brings many new problems to village governance.

New challenges facing rural governance

In the traditional rural society, the old rural governance model has achieved certain results in promoting rural progress, agricultural development and farmers 'prosperity. However, with the rapid development of economy and society and the rapid advancement of urbanization, a large number of new situations such as new rural communities,"hollow villages","super villages" and "villages in cities" have emerged, bringing many new problems and challenges to rural governance. The traditional "one-size-fits-all" rural governance model is far from meeting the development requirements of the new era. The Communiqué of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 2013 pointed out that it is necessary to "form a new type of urban-rural relationship between workers and peasants that promotes agriculture through industry, urban and rural areas, mutual benefit between workers and peasants, and integration of urban and rural areas, so that farmers can participate in the modernization process on an equal footing and share the fruits of modernization together." However, the old rural governance model has seriously hindered the development of urban-rural integration.

New challenges to governance of "new rural communities". First of all, it caused some villagers to "go upstairs to poverty". The construction of new rural communities is often accompanied by farmers "going upstairs". In this process, there is a widespread problem that local governments do not compensate farmers enough for their real estate and homestead, and farmers often need to pay extra money to buy buildings. In addition, the increase in farmers 'living costs after "going upstairs" will cause the adverse consequences of "going upstairs and causing poverty". Moreover, after farmers "go upstairs", they will basically leave the land and lose their important source of income-agricultural income. Under this circumstance, if the problem of non-agricultural employment after farmers go upstairs cannot be solved well, the problem of farmers 'income will become a long-standing problem.

Secondly, there are unique community phenomena such as "raising pigs on the roof and planting vegetables in green belts". At present, in most rural areas of our country, agriculture is still the main production activity of farmers, courtyard economy and family livestock raising are still important sources of income, land is still the main means of security, and rural villagers 'sites with villages as the main form are still relatively suitable for rural villagers to live and engage in various kinds of production. In the face of sudden "upstairs", many villagers, especially the elderly, are difficult to adapt in a short time, coupled with the difficult feelings with the land and livestock, some villagers will choose to open up "their own territory" on public spaces such as rooftops or green belts for raising pigs or growing vegetables.

Thirdly, the local relationship weakened, the cohesion of the village declined, and the villagers 'relationship gradually became unfamiliar. In the construction of new rural communities characterized by farmers 'concentrated residence, the important links are the merger of villages and the participation of outsiders. With the merger of villages, the relatively closed traditional village residence pattern, which was originally linked by blood and region, was broken, and the villagers who originally belonged to different villages became common community residents, which weakened the original local relationship of villages. Although the new community has improved the living conditions and living environment of farmers, the high-rise housing and anti-theft system in the community are not convenient for villagers to visit and chat, and it is not convenient for villagers to help each other, especially in the community,"the public space is becoming less and less, and the function of some surviving public spaces is also weakened." With the addition of foreign "strangers", the warm relationship of kinship in the old countryside gradually gives way to organized and institutionalized professional relations. The cohesion of the original village community is weakened, and the relationship between villagers is gradually unfamiliar and indifferent. How to "live well" among different villagers has become an urgent problem to be solved.

Finally, how to manage and serve the new community beyond the village boundary is a big challenge for the new rural governance. Before the villages were merged, there were already elites in the original villages running the villages. Nowadays, the village merger brought about by the construction of new rural communities has brought about the loss of some elite "leadership" positions on the one hand, and on the other hand, the "leaders" of new communities cannot know all the villages, and the new "leaders" may not be able to manage and integrate the communities as well as the former patriarchs. Moreover, the villagers 'autonomy system is still implemented in the new community, which may trigger the elite to win the control of community management, which not only affects and weakens the elite's own strength, but also makes it difficult for the rural community to form an authoritative center with lasting influence and wholeheartedly serving the villagers. Therefore, how to manage and serve the new community beyond the village boundary and embed the traditional rural governance structure with villagers 'autonomy as the core into the open new community construction is also a big challenge for the new rural governance. In addition, with the construction of new communities, the investment in public utilities in the communities continues to increase, many public service functions related to villagers 'livelihood continue to extend to the grass-roots level, and the extension of rural governance gradually expands. How to undertake these tasks and ensure the supply of public services is a new challenge for rural governance.