New Rural Reconstruction Movement - China

Description

"What is happening instead in many countries is the huge growth of urban slums as people migrate from the countryside into cities that contain insufficient employment opportunities. Around one-third of the world’s city dwellers now live in slums.81

In response to these realities a powerful New Rural Reconstruction Movement has emerged in China—associated in particular with the pioneering ecological thinking of Wen Tiejun—that rejects large-scale farming-agribusiness systems as a viable pattern of development in today’s circumstances. Instead agriculture is to be rooted in the village system of collective land rights (the product of the Chinese Revolution) and the utilization of traditional knowledge of some 240 million small household farmers—further informed by contemporary ecological science. This transformation of food production and socio-ecological relationships also involves expanding rural education, medical services, and infrastructure. This strategy is “committed to the Three Ps (the People’s Principles): people’s livelihood, people’s solidarity, and people’s cultural diversity.” (http://monthlyreview.org/2012/12/01/the-planetary-emergency)

More Information

• Wen Tiejun, et. al., “Ecological Civilization, Indigenous Culture, and Rural Reconstruction in China,” Monthly Review 63, no. 9 (February 2012): 29–35; Wen Tiejun, “Deconstructing Modernization,” Chinese Sociology and Anthropology 49, no. 4 (Summer 2007): 10–25.

URL = http://monthlyreview.org/2012/02/01/ecological-civilization-indigenous-culture-and-rural-reconstruction-in-china

• Addressing Rural Crisis in Developing Countries. Lessons from the New Rural Reconstruction Programme in China. By Wen Tiejun. South South Dispatch 2, 2015

URL = http://www.southsolidarity.org/addressing-rural-crisis-in-developing-countries/

"The Council for Social Development (CSD), the Institute for Chinese Studies (ICS) and the South Solidarity Initiative (SSI) at ActionAid India hosted two events (a seminar and a lecture) in 2013 with Prof. Wen Tiejun (Executive Dean, The Institute of Advanced Studies for Sustainability, Renmin University of China, Beijing; The Institute of Rural Reconstruction of China, Southwest University, Chongqing and The Institute of Rural Reconstruction of the Straits, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzho).

This briefing paper on China’s New Rural Reconstruction Programme is based on the proceedings of these meetings. We are grateful to Prof Wen, who made the main presentation at the seminar and delivered the lecture upon which this briefing paper is largely based."