Du Zhixiong Cui Hongzhi: Deepen Rural Reform and Promote "Strong, Rich and Beautiful"

In 2015, the No. 1 Central Document will deepen various rural reforms as the fundamental driving force to promote stronger agriculture, richer farmers, and more beautiful rural areas, and clearly stated that "in accordance with the overall deployment of the central government, improve the top-level design, do a good job in pilot experiments, and continue to summarize and deepen, Strengthen supervision and implementation to ensure that reforms have progress and success". Rural reform is an important part of comprehensively deepening reform, and experiment first is the successful experience of rural reform in China. However, how to design the ideas, steps and methods of rural reform in the stage of gnawing hard bones and deep water areas, and how to really give full play to the effect of pilot experiments?

This paper discusses some immature views on the new situation found in the investigation and evaluation of several rural reform pilot areas.

Characteristics of Rural Reform Experiment at Present Stage

significant increase in the relevance of reform measures in rural (I)

general Secretary Xi Jinping's speech and the "decision" of the third Plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee have repeatedly stressed that deepening reform should pay attention to systematicness, integrity and synergy (referred to as the "three characteristics"). Document No. 1 proposes a series of major rural reforms. On the whole, there is a strong correlation between many reform contents. Whether the reform measures can achieve the expected results depends to a large extent on the matching status between the various reform measures.

A typical case in recent years is that people are generally concerned about the mortgage loan of collective construction land such as agricultural land and rural homestead. In fact, this is a very strong problem of "three characteristics". Rural land mortgage first involves the integrity of agricultural land and construction land rights, and secondly involves the legal qualification of whether it can be mortgaged. Even if these obstacles are gone, there is ultimately a question of whether land capital can be cashed in and settled in the market. Therefore, the existence of a fully functional and realizable land transaction market is necessary. Otherwise, if the mortgaged land cannot be realized, the enthusiasm of the bank cannot be too high. The current academic research, policy discussions, reform experiments, etc., pay much more attention to the first two than to the settlement of the bank mortgage land market.

The experiment of the reform of the management system and mechanism of innovative agricultural support funds in Bijie City, Guizhou Province, illustrates the importance of the relevance and synergy between various rural reforms from both positive and negative aspects. Bijie is a typical poor area. Since the reform and opening up, the higher-level departments of Bijie's financial support for agriculture has a large amount of funds. However, due to the imperfect system and mechanism of financial support for agriculture funds, the limited financial support for agriculture funds have not exerted the greatest benefits, and it is even more difficult to play the leading role of "four or two allocations. Bijie agriculture as a whole is relatively backward, the poverty of the rural population is large, the degree of poverty is deep. In view of this situation, the theme of the rural reform experiment in Bijie City is to innovate the management system and mechanism of financial support for agriculture funds, and to explore the fund integration mechanism with project integration to avoid institutional obstacles as the core. Whether this approach can be effective requires certain conditions. One is to have strong organizational leadership. Otherwise, it is impossible to have a unified, coordinated and complementary project declaration at the county level. The second is to have scientific planning to lead. Otherwise, the more money is integrated, the greater the waste is likely to be. Third, there should be a financial supervision mechanism to support. After the funds are integrated and used, the effectiveness of departmental supervision is reduced, requiring new regulatory measures to supplement and replace the original regulatory measures. To this end, Bijie City has carried out a number of supporting reform initiatives. First, do the planning. Bijie Experimental Zone adopts planning first to plan and determine projects; establishes a project library, starts from the source of budgeting, and realizes fund integration through project integration, thus avoiding institutional obstacles. Second, pay attention to the participation of farmers in the implementation of the project. The construction of small rural infrastructure such as Lianhu Road and Yuanba cement hardening does not engage in bidding, but allows farmers to do it themselves, which not only ensures the quality of work, but also promotes farmers' employment and income, and can also solve the problem of insufficient project funds. In a broader sense, this approach will also provide a carrier for promoting rural democratization, mobilizing farmers to participate in community public affairs, and improving rural governance. Third, establish a financial supervision mechanism. There are relatively standardized application, approval, fund supervision and acceptance procedures for departmental project funds. In terms of agricultural support funds and project supervision, strengthen the supervision, inspection and audit of the establishment, use, management, project management and protection of agricultural project funds, encourage supervision from all walks of life, and build financial and industry supervision, audit supervision, social supervision, Discipline inspection and supervision and other parties participate, county (District), township (town), village and group four in one multi-level, all-round supervision and inspection system of supporting agriculture projects. In the form of supervision, five supervision carriers with complementary functions have been established: "Consensus Network of Agriculture-related Funds", network supervision platform, SMS notification platform, telephone inquiry platform and public announcement column. The survey found that Bijie City attaches great importance to the reform of the associated and collaborative work methods have produced good results, the infrastructure in some areas has been significantly improved in a relatively short period of time, farmers' income has also been greatly improved.

However, the reform of the Bijie Experimental Zone is a partial exploration under the condition that the fragmentation of financial funds for supporting agriculture has not changed. At present, there are many management departments for supporting agriculture projects in China, many channels for fund allocation, inconsistent project application time, and different acceptance methods for projects. A considerable part of the funds for supporting agriculture are still used in a scattered way. This limitation of reform illustrates another aspect of the importance of focusing on the relevance and synergy approach of reform.

The relationship between the direct effect of (II) reform and the overall effect and potential impact is closer.

The effect and impact of any reform initiative are multifaceted. The reform should not only pay attention to its direct effect, but also pay attention to its long-term effect and potential impact, and strive to avoid the situation that "there are more new problems than solved problems.

The experiment of urban-rural integration system construction in Xinxiang City, Henan Province, takes the construction of new rural communities as the combination point of overall urban and rural development, the entry point of promoting urban-rural integration, and the growth point of promoting rural development. According to the principle of "classified guidance, voluntary masses, industry-based, employment-oriented, livelihood first, and acting according to one's ability", the planning of 3571 administrative villages in the city will be integrated into 900 communities. As of the end of 2014, the city has started the construction of 352 new rural communities, completed various types of capital investment of 38.96 billion yuan, completed the construction of 39.196 million square meters of houses, and occupied 142000 farmers. The survey found that the exploration of Xinxiang City has produced many positive effects, such as the improvement of the intensive use of rural land resources, the obvious improvement of farmers' living and living conditions in a relatively short period of time, the improvement of the efficiency of government public resources input, and so on. However, this reform pilot has also led to some noteworthy joint and chain effects.

The capacity of rural sustainable development is weakened. After the merger of villages, the right of farmers as the main body to the conversion and development of rural land, that is, the right to development of agricultural land, has been weakened. In the village renovation through the "increase and decrease linkage" of land and "linkage between people and land", the vacated construction land needs to be recultivated, and some of them are classified as permanent basic farmland, and collectives and farmers have lost the development of non-agricultural industries. space. Even in those villages that are not linked to land increase or decrease, most of the construction land vacated by them is used by enterprises for development. The forms of development include building houses for sale, using surplus construction land indicators to develop non-agricultural industries, etc. Collective and farmers still have no space to develop non-agricultural industries.

2. The livelihood security of farmers is threatened. The merger of villages disintegrates the traditional livelihood model of farmers. First, village mergers are often accompanied by the transfer of land to new agricultural business entities, and the function of land to protect farmers' employment and old-age care is further weakened. Second, the offspring of farmers will be difficult to enjoy free use of homestead. Third, the commercialization of farmers' lifestyles and the increase in the cost of living. Fourth, the living environment of farmers is no longer a society of acquaintances, and the mechanism of mutual aid among villagers weakens or even disappears.

3. Potential threats to food security. Xinxiang is a national commodity grain base, a high-quality wheat production base and a production and processing base for grain and livestock products in Henan Province. Innovating the mechanism of food security, cultivated land protection and land intensive and economical use is an important experimental content of Xinxiang experimental area. At the practical level, Xinxiang City tries to ensure the output rate of arable land by strengthening the construction of high-standard grain fields and innovating agricultural management mechanisms; through comprehensive land improvement and exploring the policy of linking people to land, solve the contradiction between agriculture, industry and urban land, so as to ensure the amount of arable land. However, this logical and reasonable reform idea has encountered challenges in practice. Whether it is the "increase or decrease linkage" of urban and rural construction land, the comprehensive land renovation, or the "human land linkage", the vast majority or even all farmers in a village are required to complete the demolition of old and new buildings in a relatively short period of time, so as to ensure the increase of cultivated land quantity and urban construction land index through the reclamation of old villages. However, there is a general difference in the willingness of farmers to demolish the old and build the new in the village renovation. Differences in family economic status, population size and structure, nature and location of employment, quality, area and location of old houses will affect farmers' willingness to participate in demolishing old houses and building new ones. If some farmers are unwilling to demolish the old and build the new, the old villages will be difficult to reclaim, and the amount of arable land will not increase but face the risk of decreasing. Moreover, concentrated residence has accelerated the transfer of farmers' contracted land to companies and large producers. After the transfer of rural land, the planting structure presents the phenomenon of non-agricultural and non-grain, and the risk of food security is further highlighted.

Existing (III) policies and laws and inconsistencies between different laws are highlighted.

Reform and innovation is undoubtedly in line with existing policies, laws and regulations. But policies, laws and regulations are always lagging behind. At the same time, there are inconsistencies between the various policies of the country, and there are also contradictions and inconsistencies between policies and laws, within various policies, and within various laws. The survey found that incongruity was a serious impediment to the smooth progress of rural reform and experimentation.

Promoting the reform of the rural collective property rights system is one of the important reforms proposed in the No. 1 document this year. In fact, the incoordination between policies and laws and the lag in legal adjustments have become important obstacles to the reform of the rural collective property rights system.

For example, the decision of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee put forward: "stabilize the rural land contract relationship and keep it unchanged for a long time." Is the long-term unchanged land contract relationship equivalent to the long-term unchanged land contract management right? When Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, carried out the experiment of urban-rural integration, it was proposed that the rural collective land and other resource assets should be confirmed to the farmers as members of the rural collective economic organizations, and issued ironclad evidence. With regard to compensation for land expropriation, the Chengdu Municipal Government adopts the policy of "who is expropriated and who is compensated. However, in the distribution of land acquisition compensation income, there is the problem of the invalidation of farmers' land confirmation rights, and some farmers are required to divide the compensation among all members of the collective economic organization according to the existing legal requirements, so that the interest demands can be realized. The Beijing Municipal Government also stipulates that "when land acquisition for national construction is encountered, whether it is land compensation for farmers' contracted land, villagers' homesteads, collective construction land, etc., it shall be distributed equally or equally according to the members of the collective economic organization when the land acquisition plan is determined. Quantify". This situation actually reflects the contradiction between the law and the contradiction between law and policy. Article 59 of the "Property Law" stipulates: "The real and movable property owned by farmers collectively belongs to the collective members of the collective"; Article 5 of the "Rural Land Contract Law" also stipulates the rights of members. The above-mentioned legal provisions relate to the farmers' right to membership in agricultural land, which implies the idea of "natural land rights", which is an individual right that dies with the departure or death of a member. The "Decision" of the Third Plenary Session of the Seventeenth Central Committee proposed: "Give farmers more adequate and secure land contractual management rights, and the existing land contracting relationship must remain stable and unchanged for a long time"; Article 26 of the "Rural Land Contract Law" stipulates: "During the contract period, the contractor shall not recover the contracted land". Article 27 states: "During the contract period, the contracting party shall not adjust the contracted land". Article 32 stipulates: "The right to land contractual management obtained through household contracting may be subcontracted, leased, exchanged, transferred or transferred in accordance with the law". The above-mentioned legal provisions relate to farmers' usufruct rights over agricultural land, which implies the principle of property rights of "no increase in life and no decrease in death. In practice, individual rights and property rights are bound to conflict, and the claims of both rights can find a legal basis.

For another example, in the reform of the rural collective property rights system to protect the rights and interests of women, especially married women, there are also contradictions and conflicts between laws. Article 32 of the newly revised Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests in 2005 stipulates that women enjoy equal rights with men in the management of rural contracted land, the distribution of income from collective economic organizations, the use of compensation for land acquisition or acquisition, and the use of homestead. Article 33 stipulates that no organization or individual may infringe upon women's rights in rural collective economic organizations on the grounds that women are unmarried, married, divorced or widowed. However, China's "villagers' committee autonomy law" provides for the implementation of villagers' self-determination, which can be passed with the consent of more than 2/3 villagers in the village affairs decision. Although Article 20 of the Villagers' Committee Autonomy Law stipulates that the villagers' self-government regulations, village rules and regulations, and matters discussed and decided by the villagers' meeting or village representatives shall not conflict with the Constitution, laws, regulations and national policies, and shall not infringe on the personal rights, democratic rights and legal property rights of villagers, but it does not stipulate how to review the self-government regulations and village rules and regulations formulated by villagers, how to correct the provisions in the village rules and regulations that violate the law. This situation has led villagers in many places to deprive married women of their legitimate rights and interests on the grounds that the state implements villager autonomy, ignoring the basic national policy of equality between men and women and the provisions of the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and interests.

The division of labor and cooperation of "unified guidance and local focus" in (IV) rural reform needs to be strengthened.

In order to mobilize local enthusiasm, the existing rural reform experiment adopts the implementation method of "unified guidance and local focus. However, in some places, the change of main leaders and the change of their working ideas make the reform experiment have the risk of poor stability and continuity. During the evaluation and research process, we found that some places simply abandoned some of the original set of test topics and test content. For example, there are four experimental contents in the experimental area of Xinxiang City, Henan Province: coordinated development of urbanization and new rural construction, food security and intensive and economical use of land, reform of rural property rights system, and social management system of urban and rural integration. However, after the start of the experiment, Henan Province and Xinxiang City have strongly promoted the construction of new rural communities, taking the construction of new rural communities as the entry point for the overall planning of urban and rural development and the integration of urban and rural areas. In this case, the reform experiment of Xinxiang experimental area revolves around how to establish a new type of rural community. Some places adopt selective and responsive reform experiments, that is, to carry out pilot projects within their jurisdiction, while the scope of the pilot projects is very small, even limited to a certain administrative village.

Implementing the No.1 Document and Perfecting the Experiment of Rural Reform

the No. 1 document of 2015 not only put forward a series of major reform contents, but also clearly put forward the reform principle goal of doing a good job in pilot projects and "ensuring progress and success in reform. To achieve this goal, the following four aspects deserve attention:

the relevance and synergy between (I) and rural reforms should be well matched.

In order to solve the problem of the relevance and coordination of various reform measures in the reform experiment and the serious fragmentation of the reform experiment pilot, the measures that can be selected are: first, strengthen the research on the relevance of various reforms, and clarify which reforms are strongly related and which are weakly related. Second, when determining the test theme and content of the test area, fully consider the preliminary basis of the test area and the completion of other reforms that are strongly related to the test theme and content. Third, we should encourage the rural reform pilot areas to include the reform experiments in various fields in rural areas, especially the reform items put forward by the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, into the pilot areas as far as possible, so as to facilitate the coordinated promotion of various reforms and give full play to the comprehensive effects of the experimental areas.

The direct effect of the (II) reform experiment needs to be well balanced with the overall effect and potential impact.

Reform is a means, not an end. Whether the reform achieves its goal should not only look at its direct benefits, but also its possible negative effects and potential impacts. Taking into account the relationship between the direct effect of the reform experiment and the overall effect and potential impact, the key measure is to build an evaluation system, carry out the post-evaluation of the reform effect in a timely manner, and revise and adjust the reform path and content in a timely manner according to the evaluation results. In order to achieve the goal of reform and experiment, it is necessary to introduce the lifelong system of decision-making accountability, so as to prevent blind decision-making and unscientific decision-making.

The relationship between (III) reform and existing policies and laws needs to be addressed

the important purpose of the reform experiment is to upgrade the measures that have been tested by practice to be correct at the bottom into policies, laws, and regulations, and to institutionalize the results of the reform experiment. The central government has clearly pointed out that the rural reform pilot area is allowed to break through certain policies and systems in accordance with the law during the experiment. However, due to the lack of clear regulations on the content and degree of breakthroughs, some local reforms and innovations are not active enough, and they always try to circumvent policies and laws instead of choosing breakthroughs and innovations. It should be said that this choice of the experimental area is normal and rational, but the value and effect of the reform have been reduced accordingly.

In view of the possible contradictions between the reform experiment and the policies, laws and regulations, we believe that as long as the general direction of the reform in the experimental area is consistent with the socialist legislative spirit and grasps the direction, we can boldly explore. In order to further stimulate the innovative spirit at the grass-roots level, the following measures are proposed: first, the relevant departments of the central government allow approved pilot projects to break through the policies and systems in relevant fields, and make a specific list of the contents and scope that can be broken through. Second, the central government has clearly given the rural reform pilot area the "right to trial and error". Testing is not the same as demonstration. The results of the test include confirmation and falsification. The test is successful and can be promoted as a demonstration experience. Even if the test fails, it is meaningful and can provide reference for other places to avoid detours. Third, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress agreed that the pilot area will not implement the relevant provisions of the relevant laws that are not conducive to the theme and content of the reform during the trial period. Fourth, strengthen the communication between the relevant central departments and the experimental areas, and make a normative summary and affirmation of the innovation and breakthrough at the grass-roots level.

The relationship between unified (IV) guidance and local-oriented needs to be well coordinated.

In order to coordinate the relationship between unified guidance and local-based work in the rural reform experiment, we suggest that more attention should be paid to the leadership and guidance of the central level to the work of the experimental area to ensure the stability of the reform experiment. First, when selecting the rural reform pilot area and the test content, consider the comprehensive factors such as the reform motivation of the test area, the early foundation, and the degree of dependence of the test content on leadership changes, and do a good job in the risk assessment of the continuity and stability of the test content. Second, the place applying for the test area should clearly promise the stability, continuity, balance in spatial layout and replicability of the test work during the test period. Third, during the implementation of the test, the relevant central departments should track, manage, monitor and inspect the test projects throughout the process.