supervision and decision there, because most of those staying in the countryside are elderly people and children. We need capable persons to run rural villages and effectively implement the above-mentioned policies. The county governments may encourage college graduates or capable migrant workers to return to serve the villagers by guaranteeing them acceptable salaries.

Social security

Xu Guangjian (professor and Vice Dean of the School of Public Administra-tion at Renmin University of China): The government has invested hugely since 2003, addressing agriculture, the countryside and farmer-related issues and brought about big changes to the rural environment. However, it remains a great challenge to provide equal access to basic public services for both urban and rural residents.

The urban-rural disparity lies not only with the income gap, but also with the different public services urban and rural residents enjoy. The latter contributes a huge urban-rural gap in the overall quality of life. The government has to expand budget spending to allow rural villagers to enjoy the same public services that urban residents have.

The essence of building a new countryside is to improve rural public services, but this endeavor cannot rely only on central budget investment. The key issue is how to guide the development of economic entities in rural areas and make them capable of providing public services for rural residents.

Sustainable development

Wang Puxun (professor of politics at Renmin University of China): Industrial development and city expansion have had a negative impact on rural environment and resources, such as air and water pollution and the shrinking of arable land. Local governments need to consider changing the situation and stopping moves that could menace sustainable development in rural areas, and to focus on an economic growth model that would not destroy the environment.

Measures and guidelines

We should stick to and improve the basic economic system for rural operations, improve the strict land management system in rural regions, expand policy support and protection for agriculture, establish a modern financial network in rural areas and a system that balances economic and social developments in urban and rural areas, and improve rural democracy.

We must adhere to the requirements of “high-yield, best-quality, high-efficiency, eco-friendly and safe” production for developing modern agriculture. It is imperative that the government speed up the transformation of agricultural growth models, promote the upgrading and innovation of agricultural technology, invest more in agricultural material, technical equipment and facilities, improve the agricultural industry system, enhance land productivity and the efficient use of resources and labor productivity, and strengthen risk-resistant capacities, global competitiveness and the sustainable development capacity of China’s agriculture sector.

We should invest more of the government’s budget in public services in rural areas in order to build a new socialist countryside and form an integrated pattern of economic and social development for urban and rural areas, including offering equal opportunities in education, employment, health care, pension and housing to the vast population in the countryside. We should boost rural culture, promote education for rural residents, improve the medicare system and the social security system in rural areas, promote infrastructure construction, improve the rural environment, intensify development-oriented poverty-relief efforts in the countryside, enhance disaster prevention and reduction capacity in rural areas and strengthen social administration of the countryside.

Wang Puxun (professor of politics at Renmin University of China): This part of the communiqu might be regarded as the requirements or specific guidelines by the Central Government on rural reform and development in the coming years. In general, there are three aspects. First, the government encourages reform and innovations and enhancements to the institutional construction of the countryside, which involves the basic operation system, namely the household-based contract responsibility system, the land management system, the rural financial networking and grass-roots democracy. Second, the government stresses the basic requirements for developing modern agriculture and enhancing the sector’s comprehensive productive capacity. Third, the government pledges to expand budget spending to improve public services in rural areas, covering rural culture, education, health care, social security, infrastructure, the environment, poverty relief and disaster prevention and reduction. All the three requirements or tasks, specific and explicit, address the major contradictions and challenges that rural reform and development face at present, and will serve as feasible guidelines for achieving substantial results during a new round of rural reform and development. It indicates more importance is given to issues concerning the farmers, mostly in hopes of achieving the goal of building an all-around, well-off and harmonious society.