Integrated Governance in Rural China: Case Study of Nanjiang County 9811930848, 9789811930843

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Shaolai Zhou Jun Zhang Ying Sun

Integrated Governance in Rural China: Case Study of Nanjiang County

Integrated Governance in Rural China: Case Study of Nanjiang County

Shaolai Zhou · Jun Zhang · Ying Sun

Integrated Governance in Rural China: Case Study of Nanjiang County

Shaolai Zhou Institute of Political Science Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Beijing, China

Jun Zhang Institute of Political Science Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Beijing, China

Ying Sun Institute of Political Science Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Beijing, China Translated by Guan Yu Lecturer of School of Foreign Languages University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Beijing, China

ISBN 978-981-19-3084-3 ISBN 978-981-19-3085-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3085-0 Jointly published with China Social Sciences Press The print edition is not for sale in China (Mainland). Customers from China (Mainland) please order the print book from: China Social Sciences Press. © China Social Sciences Press 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publishers, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publishers, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Introduction

You ask me when I can return, but I don’t know, It rains in western hills and autumn pool o’erflow. When we can trim by window side the candlelight, And talk about the western hills in rainy night.

This classic piece of poetry, which told the Tang poet’s melancholy, reveals the hardships of the road to Shu or today’s Sichuan Province. During the reign of Xuanzong (A.D. 847–860) in the Tang Dynasty, poet Li Shangyin made his journey from Bashu or Sichuan back to the capital city Chang’an. As the road was obstructed by heavy autumn rain in the Bashan region or today’s Nanjiang County, Sichuan Province, he felt a deep melancholy and wrote the poetry above, “Written on Rainy Night to My Wife in the North”, which is cherished through his ages. In addition to the longing for relatives and friends as a long-time traveler, this piece mirrors the centuries-long plight of the Basha hinterland, as evidenced by a verse of Li Bai: “The hardships of the road to Shu are harder than ascending blue heaven.” After over a millennium of profound changes, what is the Bashan hinterland or today’s Nanjiang County like? This book will take a close look at the historic changes that took place in Nanjiang. Through many in-depth field trips and investigations, we are keenly aware of the tremendous progress for local places. Since the introduction of the reform and opening-up policy, in particular the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Nanjiang’s county-level Party committee and government have led the 700,000 Nanjiang people to work hard in solidarity and make pioneering and innovative efforts, which brought about earth-shaking changes in its economy and society. During this process, Nanjiang, a mountainous county, explored and built a model of upgrading and transforming rural governance through green development and created an institutional mechanism of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. Such a model and mechanism were adopted by the 80 counties

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Introduction

in the Qinling-Daba Mountains1 and provide important inspirations and references for the nationwide rural revitalization and governance modernization of China’s mountainous counties.

1

The Qinling-Daba Mountains span between the Qinling Mountains and the Daba Mountains, crossing Henan, Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu. In 2012, the Poverty Relief Office of the State Council and the National Development and Reform Commission issued the “Plan on Regional Development and Poverty Alleviation for Qinling-Daba Mountainous Area”, in which 80 counties were designated to constitute the Qinling-Daba Mountainous Area. See Appendix 3 “Administrative Division of Qinling-Daba Mountainous Area”.

Contents

1 Changes of Nanjiang over the Past Millennium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

2 Innovative Practice in Green Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Poverty Alleviation Propelled by Green Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Improved Traffic Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Optimization of Water Conservancy Facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Poverty Alleviation Relocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Green Development Concept as a Core . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Green Industries as a Driving Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 Rural Talent Fostering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Rural Revitalization Led by Green Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Blooming Green Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Beautiful, Livable Ecosystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Enhanced Rural Civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Innovative Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Coordinated Urban–Rural Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11 11 12 13 15 19 20 21 23 23 25 26 28 29

3 Collaborative Governance in Green Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Party and Government Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Corporate Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Social Organization Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Talent Guarantee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 External Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33 33 36 38 40 42

4 Path to Green Development and Rural Governance of Mountainous Counties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Target Positioning: Poverty Alleviation Before Comprehensive Rural Revitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Prerequisite: Basic Instructure as the First Step of Poverty Alleviation and Revitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Path: Great Efforts in Green Ecological Industry to Guide Integrated Development of the Three Main Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

45 45 47 49

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4 Strategic Focus: Accelerated Urban–Rural Integrated Development to Boost Urban–Rural Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 5 Institutional Guarantee: System and Mechanism Innovation that Enhances the Modernization Level of Rural Governance . . . . . . . . 51 5 Proper Ways to Deal with Relationships in Green Development and Rural Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Relationship Between Government Leadership and Farmers’ Dominance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Relationship Between Material Poverty Alleviation and Spiritual Poverty Alleviation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Relationship Between Short-Term Benefit and Long-Term Benefit . . . 4 Relationship Between Overall Advancement and Differentiated Guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Relationship Between Industry Development and Rural Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53 53 54 54 55 56

6 Outlook on Promoting Green Development and Rural Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

About the Authors

Shaolai Zhou is Ph.D. in political science, researcher of Political Science Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, current director of the Division of International Politics Theory, and chief researcher of the innovative project “Political Development and National Governance Research”. His main research fields include contemporary China’s political development, democratic theory, rural construction and grassroots governance. He published more than 130 academic papers and participated in the writing of 10 treatises. His representative monographs include Humanity, Politics, and Institutions: A Study of Idealistic Political Logic and Its Issues (China Social Sciences Press, 2004), Contemporary Chinese Political Parties, Nation, and Society (World Affairs Press, 2010), Historical Logic of Democracy Formation in East Asia (China Social Sciences Press, 2013), Theoretical Construction of a Democratic Society (China Social Sciences Press, 2017), Village Governance: Structural Changes and Problem Solving (China Social Sciences Press, 2018). Jun Zhang is Ph.D. in political science, associate researcher of the Institute of Political Science of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and executive researcher of the innovative engineering project “Political Development and National Governance Research”. His main research fields include democratic theory and political party research. He published Politics of Western Party Selection and more than ten academic papers in journals such as CASS Journal of Politics Science and Contemporary World and Socialism. He also participated in nearly ten projects entrusted by the National Social Science Fund of China and national ministries, winning him many awards, including the second prize of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Outstanding Strategy Information Award. Ying Sun is a female Ph.D. in political science and an assistant researcher at the Institute of Political Science of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Her research fields mainly include local government and grassroots governance, political systems

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and comparative politics. She participated in the investigation and writing of multiple major studies, such as the national “Research in a Hundred Counties” and innovation projects, with articles published in newspapers and magazines, such as People’s Daily and Theory Journal.

Chapter 1

Changes of Nanjiang over the Past Millennium

Located at the northeastern edge of the Sichuan Basin, Nanjiang County is a part of Bazhong city, Sichuan Province, and it sits at the southern foothills of Micang Mountain in the Qinling-Daba mountainous area. It has been designated as one of the major counties in poverty relief and economic development, one of the first pilot counties in developing national functional zones, the key county for the Plan on Boosting Development in the Old Revolutionary Base of Shaanxi and the comprehensive pilot county on the new type of urbanization. With a length of approximately 84 km and a breadth of approximately 31 km, Nanjiang County covers an area of 3388 km2 . Due to its complex terrain, towering peaks and criss-crossing gullies, there is an exaggerated saying that mountains take 90% of local land, waters 5% and farmland 5%. According to the 2016 survey on land use rezoning, arable land covers approximately 65,573.33 ha, accounting for 19.3% of the county’s total land area, with arable land area per capita of 0.13 ha; forest land covers 232,533.33 ha, accounting for 68.6% of the county’s total land area. At present, the county has 48 townships under its jurisdiction, including 27 towns and 21 townships, a total of 516 administrative villages and 111 communities, totaling 202,000 households and 709 thousand people.1 Historically, Nanjiang belonged to the Kingdom of Ba in ancient times. During the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, the area was established as an administrative district. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the name “Nanjiang County”, founded in the sixth year of Liang Putong’s reign (525 AD), was picked to reflect the difficulty of navigating the river. For nearly a thousand years, Nanjiang’s administrative division has changed frequently. In the eleventh year of Zhengde’s reign in the Ming Dynasty (AD 1516), Nanjiang County was renamed another version of “Nanjiang” (named after the river surrounding the “south” of the city). The county is located in

1

Except for direct indication, the data contained in this book are provided by relevant departments of Nanjiang County. See the Compilation of Survey Data for Nanjiang County, Sichuan Province edited by Nanjiang Research Group, the Institute of Political Science of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, June 2018.

© China Social Sciences Press 2022 S. Zhou et al., Integrated Governance in Rural China: Case Study of Nanjiang County, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3085-0_1

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1 Changes of Nanjiang over the Past Millennium

today’s Nanjiang Town. Since then, the name of Nanjiang County has been in use till today. For thousands of years, Nanjiang County has always “held the fortress of Sichuan and Shaanxi in the Shuhan Dynasty”, thus known as the “Gate of Shu and Gateway of Qin”. Despite multiple changes to the county name, the true summary of the rugged and difficult Shu roads behind each name remains unchanged. Serving as the key road in and out Sichuan, or Shu, Nanjiang County boasts steep mountains and rugged roads, where the “Micang Ancient Road”—one of the ancient Shu roads— runs through the whole region. This road is known as a “living fossil in the history of transportation in China and the rest of the world”. In ancient times, it was a commercial road, military road and post road connecting the Central Plains in the north and Bashu in the south. In the early days, at least 100 horses and 1000 Bashan back-carriers2 shuttled back and forth on the Micang Ancient Road every day, mainly selling and carrying various trade materials such as salt, cloth, tea, and white fungus. In the history of China’s revolution, Nanjiang County is deemed as a red-hot base and an old revolution area. During the Second National Revolutionary War, Nanjiang became one of the central areas for the Sichuan-Shaanxi Old Revolutionary Base Area, the second largest Soviet area in the country. From 1933 to 1935, Xu Xiangqian, Li Xiannian and other old revolutionaries fought and lived here. After the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army withdrew from the Sichuan-Shaanxi Revolutionary Base in 1935, the Bashan Guerrilla force kept fighting hard for five years. According to incomplete statistics, at that time, 22,000 people in Nanjiang County joined the Red Army, among whom 16,000 devoted their precious lives to the Chinese revolution. In December 1949, Nanjiang County was liberated, enabling its people to become masters and enter a period of socialist transformation and building. In the following 30 years, Nanjiang County conducted arduous exploration from scratch, which initially improved the basic conditions of people’s production and life, laying a political and economic foundation for subsequent development. However, the development conditions were not fundamentally changed for thousands of years, especially natural conditions featuring traffic congestion and poor communication, a long-standing bottleneck that restricts development here. Since the reform and opening-up, four decades of continuous exploration, innovation and development, especially since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), have brought tremendous historic changes to economic, social and cultural undertakings in Nanjiang County, an achievement that has never been seen in a thousand years. First, economic growth has accelerated significantly, and industrial structures are continuously optimized. Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, Nanjiang County has a smaller economic size than the eastern coastal area, but its economic growth has shown an apparent acceleration in the vertical direction. The main economic indicators rose by 2

Bashan Bei’erge (Bashan back-carriers), or Bashan Beilao’er, refers to the people who used to carry things as a means of survival on the ancient Shu Roads in the Qinling-Daba Mountain Area all the year round. This is a local name given to them by the people there.

1 Changes of Nanjiang over the Past Millennium

3

Table 1 Summary of changes in the main economic indicators for Nanjiang County since the reform and opening-up Indicator name

1978 data (RMB’0,000)

2017 data (RMB’00 million)

Growth (x)

Annual growth rate (%)

Gross regional product

6977

124.81

177.89

14.2

Fixed investment

355

300.07

8461

26.1

Total retail sales of consumer goods

3861

58.55

150

13.7

General public budget revenue

465

8.09

176

14.2

Fig. 1 Change in general public budget revenue for Nanjiang County since the reform and openingup

hundreds or even thousands of times, with all average growth rates reaching double digits (see Table 1). Taking the change in general public budget revenue as an example (see Fig. 1), Nanjiang County has been in a steadily growing state, particularly after post-disaster reconstruction in 2008, which saw an astonishing growth rate of 29.1% year on year. The average annual growth rates for the three consecutive years 2010–2012 all exceeded 50%. Amid rapid economic growth, Nanjiang County also saw a surge in the output value of the three main industries, with industrial structures continuously adjusted and optimized. In the early stage of reform and opening up, the output value of those industries in Nanjiang County was RMB 86.2 million, RMB 41.68 million, and RMB 10.22 million, respectively; by the end of 2017, their output value increased to RMB 1.823 billion, RMB 7.309 billion, and RMB 3.35 billion, respectively, pointing to an

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increase of 20 times, 173 times, and 334 times, respectively. The structure ratio of the three industries was gradually optimized from 62.4:30.2:7.4 to 14.6:58.6:26.8. In the future, accelerated development in tourism in Nanjiang County will further optimize and raise the proportion of the tertiary industry. With further optimization of industrial structures, prominent progress has also been made in improving the quality and efficiency of economic development, realizing a positive interaction between industry and economy. One part is the hugely improved quality of economic development. In 2017, Nanjiang County resolved 180,000 tons of coal overcapacity, and the proportion of the tertiary industry increased by 1.8 percentage points compared with 2016. The cultural and tourism industry’s contribution to the economy reached 17.8%, and the four major industries accounted for 81% of the industrial output value. A total of 54 “enterprises above four standards” and leading agricultural companies above the city level were added. 130 key provincial, municipal and county projects were implemented, with a total of RMB 76.4 billion invested and RMB 26 billion completed, an increase of 24% from 2016. The other part is a steadily expanding consumer market and improving living standards. The growth rate of the tourism economy in Nanjiang County ranked among the highest in Sichuan Province. As of the end of 2017, e-commerce trading volume increased 23.5%, while the “price scissors” between urban and rural consumption decreased by 0.2 percentage points. The per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents increased from 82.6% and 76% in the proportion of the provincial average level during the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period to 92% and 89%, 1.5 and 3 percentage points, respectively, higher than the economic growth rates. Second, political development is showing steady progress, with continuous improvement in governance capabilities. Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, Nanjiang County adopted the socialist democratic political system with Chinese characteristics, ensuring that people’s rights to be masters of the country are carried out and that their political rights and interests are further developed and guaranteed. At the same time, as the CPC’s leadership and governance methods perfected and matured, the level of scientific governance, democratic governance, and law-based governance improved. After its district division was changed from Da County to the Bazhong area in 1993, Nanjiang County carried out multiple rounds of township removal for town integration or establishment. In 2003 and 2005, respectively, county police offices and district offices falling between the county level and the township level, were abolished, making the administrative division of the area more reasonable. In 1997, Nanjiang County once governed 79 towns and townships. After several rounds of township institutional reform and adjustment, the county’s township institutions were now reduced to 48 units, and grassroots governments’ public services and governance capabilities were improved. In recent years, Nanjiang County also actively delegated human rights, administrative powers, and financial powers and fully launched the pilot work of expanding power in Changchi town, Zhengzhi town, Shahe town and other towns to further empower and stimulate towns. In addition, the county also focused on the reform to “delegate power, streamline administration and optimize

1 Changes of Nanjiang over the Past Millennium

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government services” to accelerate the transformation of government functions and strengthen the standardized operation of administrative power to establish a smart government service system. This will help coordinate key areas such as the commercial system, household registration system, and comprehensive urban law enforcement in the promotion of reforms while promoting and upgrading the development of law-based government, service-oriented government, and clean government. Nanjiang County has always adhered to the “good cadre” standard focused on the “three front lines”3 for training and selecting cadres, establishing a complete set of systems and mechanisms for cadre evaluation, rewards and punishments, etc., to purify the county’s political ecology. Moreover, strict implementation of policies and regulations for front-line cadres in poverty alleviation stimulated the motivation of grassroots cadres to set up businesses. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, 204 grassroots CPC organizations and 409 individuals have been commended by the central, provincial, city, and county CPC committees. Specifically, in 2016, the Qiaoting Township CPC Committee was commended as an advanced grassroots CPC organization in China by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee; in 2017, the poverty alleviation spirit of “rubbing skin and flesh without falling behind, shedding blood and sweat without tears” won Nanjiang affirmation and praise from the provincial cross-examination team for national poverty alleviation. In recent years, Nanjiang County has promoted party building at all levels and in various fields as a whole, focusing on building a new village-level governance system of “one core and multiple participants”.4 Before the change of the “two committees” (village CPC branch committee and village committee) in Nanjiang County’s villages (communities) in 2017, over 24.7% of the main persons in charge of the two committees in the 517 villages throughout the county were over 60 years old, among whom fewer than 12% had junior college education or above and 41% had an education of less than junior high school. This posed a serious challenge to the grassroots governance system and capabilities. In recent years, the Nanjiang County Party Committee and government have innovated by organizing the “Bazhong Village Political College”, with the purpose of “coming from the grassroots, understanding the grassroots, returning to the grassroots, and building the grassroots”, to specifically train “retainable” talent for poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. It has plans to dynamically cultivate at least 2 village-level reserve cadres for each village. In the 2017 transition of the two village committees, 104 among the first batch of 116 graduates from the “Bazhong Village Political College” in 2016 entered the two committees, and 29 of them became village party secretaries and village directors. More than 90% of village political college graduates became local leaders for poverty alleviation, which greatly helped transform party organizational advantages 3

“Three front lines” refers to the front line of primary-level work, the front line of projects, and the front line of poverty alleviation. 4 “One core and multiple participants” refers to a modern system of primary-level governance, with party committees and party branches at all levels as the core leadership, and diversified engagement and coordinated co-governance by governments, enterprises, social organizations, press media, and the masses.

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into development advantages and into a powerful driving force for poverty alleviation. At the same time, the county kept building and consolidating the foundation of primary-level governance to consolidate and improve primary-level governance capabilities. In May 2017, the Sichuan Provincial Organization Department promoted the “Nanjiang Model” adopted by the Village Political College to the whole province, requiring the creation of a village-level talent team of 100,000 people in the province in three years. Third, all-around development in science and technology, education, culture and health enriched the masses’ spiritual and cultural life. Since the reform and opening-up, with science and technology, education, culture, and health services developing soundly, Nanjiang was selected as a county with basically balanced development of compulsory education in China, a county with advanced work in science and technology in China, a county with advanced technological progress in China, and a national health county, among other honorary titles. In terms of science and technology, Nanjiang County had not had a single science and technology-based enterprise before the reform and opening-up. Nowadays, the county’s technological strength is sharply enhanced, with the number of patent applications on the rapid rise. In 2017 alone, there were 244 patent applications, 54 of which were granted patents. In the same year, Edible Fungus Research Institute (Expert) Workstation of Nanjiang Bashan Hongxin Biotechnology Co., Ltd. and Biofertilizer Research Institute (Expert) Workstation of Nanjiang Wanshikang Biotechnology Co., Ltd. were named the second group of academicians (expert) workstations in Bazhong city. Industry-university-research cooperation serves as a link to guide academicians, experts and their innovative teams to gather in the enterprise sector to help companies address core key technologies of the industry, industrialize scientific and technological achievements, and boost technological progress and industrial transformation and upgrade. In terms of education, Nanjiang County’s school-operation conditions have been fully optimized since 1978, and the floor area of school buildings rose nearly 6 times; the educational level continuously improved, with the average years of education up from 5.8 years to 10.5 years; the ever-rising quality of education sent nearly 13,000 students in the county to undergraduate colleges since the 18th CPC National Congress, and 17 of them were enrolled in Tsinghua University and Peking University. Meanwhile, vocational education oriented to social needs is also in vigorous development, cultivating urgently needed professionals in various industries at multiple levels. Nanjiang County Xiaohe Vocational Middle School, a national key secondary vocational school, is also one of China’s 1000 secondary vocational education reform and development model schools. Under the leadership of the government, this school formed a cooperation model of “integration between school and enterprise, work and study, and industry and school for order-based training” and established a cooperation pattern featuring “joint specialty building, joint talent education, joint process management, and achievement sharing”. This helped achieve a win–win situation between school education and enterprise talent acquisition.

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In terms of culture, a public cultural service network was gradually set up, centered on the county and radiating to all towns in Nanjiang County. By integrating newly built cultural centers, libraries, museums, and the Bashan Guerrilla Memorial Hall, among other measures, the dilemma of lacking venues and facilities for cultural events was fundamentally approached. In addition, all 48 townships in the county built comprehensive cultural stations, where 100% of the villages and communities set up cultural rooms and farmhouse bookstores equipped with loudspeakers, televisions, books and other cultural activity facilities, and 90% of the villages provided radio stations. By the end of 2017, 130 impoverished villages and 234 nonpoor villages have completed rural grid reconstruction. 134 impoverished villages and 316 non-poor villages have been connected to the network of radio stations, finishing 87% of the entire task. The county’s wireless network coverage and broadband network connection rates reached 90% and 91%, respectively, which further promoted network connectivity at the cultural level. In terms of health, infrastructure construction of the three-tier healthcare system at the village, township and county levels in Nanjiang County became faster. The number of medical institutions increased from 84 before the reform and opening-up to 633, and hospital beds expanded from 688 to 3142. Nowadays, there are standard central health centers in every township and standard health rooms in every village. To improve healthcare services for the poor, the government distributed over RMB 9 million in medical assistance and health assistance funds, benefiting 17,400 poor patients and paying a total of RMB 13.64 million in personal medical insurance premiums for 88,000 poor people. In 2017, 61,900 poor people in the county stably exceeded the national standards for poverty alleviation through health promotion. In addition, in recent years, endemic diseases such as Keshan disease and Kashin-Beck disease have been eradicated, while infectious diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis have been effectively controlled, indicating a perfect health status. Fourth, social undertakings continued to advance, and people’s living standards hugely improved. After 40 years of continuous development, Nanjiang County’s infrastructure sharply improved, bringing profound changes to the urban and rural landscapes and raising the urban and rural per capita income, hence improving the quality of life. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, two rounds of transportation development work have contributed to great strides in Nanjiang County’s transportation industry. From 2014 to 2017, over 2100 km of rural roads were hardened up, with cement roads connected to every village in the county. Railways, highways, and national roads were built from scratch, more than quadrupling the total mileage of roads. All administrative villages were connected to paved roads. These smooth roads facilitated communication between the villages, improved the quality of the villagers’ lives, and laid the infrastructure prerequisites for further development in the rural economy, smooth poverty alleviation and village vitalization. Poverty alleviation relocation, relocation to avoid geological hazards, renovation of dilapidated and old rural houses, and exchange of newly added cropland quotas with the land for construction, among other policies, were also actively implemented here, ensuring safe housing for everyone. Taking poverty alleviation relocation as an example, Nanjiang County precisely identified 156 poverty-stricken villages, 24,000

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poverty-stricken households or 88,300 people. During the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, the county planned to relocate 8476 registered poor households or 31,087 people. According to the wishes of the farmers, relocation and resettlement classification was carried out to completely solve the issue of safe housing for farmers who live in dangerous areas, resource-deprived areas, and areas facing difficulty in equipping facilities. In addition, more than 200 rural drinking water projects were built in recent years, and rural grid reconstruction was completed in the original supply areas for 9 small hydropower enterprises. As of June 2018, an accumulated RMB 450 million was placed in 3715 new rural water supply projects by providing subsidies after reconstruction or replacing subsidies with grants. This action provided safe drinking water for 258,000 rural people in 326 villages, including 56,000 impoverished people. At the same time, the county accelerated the construction of power grids in rural settlements, transforming rural power grids into 364 villages in 48 townships and realizing full coverage of safe drinking water and safe electricity use at the administrative village level. In terms of residents’ income, Nanjiang County’s per capita disposable income increased from RMB 131 at the beginning of the reform and opening-up to RMB 16,889.8 in 2017, an increase of 127 times. Specifically, the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents rose from RMB 560 and RMB 67 to RMB 28,362 and RMB 10,927, respectively, 50 times and 163 times that of 40 years ago. In terms of social security, as of 2017, coverage of the “five major insurances” in Nanjiang County exceeded 97%, demonstrating a better livelihood protection capacity. Specifically, medical insurance coverage for urban and rural residents reached 100%, and pension insurance coverage reached 98%. Taking the subsistence allowance policy as an example, Nanjiang County has implemented classified policies on the basis of per capita compensation in recent years by appropriately increasing the amount of protection for the critical ill, elderly over 70 years old, college students, and children in need. This policy assisted 21,115 households or 29,872 persons with a monthly security amount of RMB 6,753,300, securing access to elderly care and medical services and avoiding return to poverty due to illness, among other problems. Fifth, as the awareness of ecological civilization has been continuously strengthened, green development has achieved outstanding results. In the early stage of reform and opening up, Nanjiang County ignored the carrying capacity of the ecological environment and took a detour of making money at the cost of the natural environment. In recent years, it has deeply realized the importance of treating “lucid waters and lush mountains as invaluable assets”, working to transform local ecological advantages into economic development advantages and keeping the concept of green development more deeply in mind. After years of continuous comprehensive management, Nanjiang County now boasts a bluer sky, greener land, and cleaner water. The number of days with good air throughout the year reached 90%, forest coverage in the county reached 68.8%, and the greening rate reached 98.5%. 26 major rivers met “good” standards of water quality. Since 2014, Nanjiang County has invested more than RMB 1.2 billion in the

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ecological environment (including RMB 480 million for sewage treatment, RMB 140 million for garbage disposal, RMB 205 million for natural forest protection, RMB 310 million for geological disaster prevention, and RMB 71 million for water and soil conservation), generating remarkable results. First, the air quality continues to improve. The average number of days with good air quality exceeded 330, accounting for more than 90% of the year. Second, water quality remained excellent: the survey and delineation of protection areas in 70 centralized drinking water sources in the county’s 48 townships was completed, showing a result of 100% water quality compliance. Finally, the safe and controllable quality of the soil environment is manifested in the county’s completed construction of 51 township garbage transfer stations, rolling out a household garbage collection and disposal model featuring village-level collection, township-level transportation, and county-level treatment. In addition, Guangwu Mountain was officially included in the national 5A-level tourist attraction creation list, while Guangwushan-Nuoshuihe Geopark became a UNESCO global geopark. Micang Mountain National Forest Park was approved among the first batch of model bases for forest-based health and wellness pilots in China and one of Sichuan Province’s top ten national forest oxygen bars. Yuhu Lake was successfully upgraded to a national water conservancy scenic spot, while 10 ecological parks, including the Broken Canal Wetland Park and Nanjiang City Park, were built one after another. Currently, Nanjiang County successfully built itself into a pilot demonstration county for national major function zoning, a national ecological protection and construction demonstration zone, a national greening model county, a provincial ecological county, a provincial environmental protection model county, and a provincial environmentally beautiful demonstration county. At the same time, green emerging industries were also being vigorously cultivated, including Nanjiang gutturosa, Yuanding tea, Xingma honeysuckle, and Changchi jade rice, so as to further develop a new green economic development model that integrates rural eco-tourism, agricultural organic food, and farmers’ farming culture. In the space of 40 years, Nanjiang County underwent tremendous changes unseen in a thousand years, especially since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, which brought economic and social undertakings to a new level. In summary, all these achievements are impossible without the development concept of “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” firmly held by Nanjiang’s cadres and the masses, the active practice of Nanjiang people’s pressing ahead with green development, and the road to modernization of rural governance innovatively explored in mountainous counties.

Chapter 2

Innovative Practice in Green Development

Changes to Nanjiang over the past millennium benefited from reform and opening up, especially since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, when Nanjiang County has promoted the innovative path of green development, which boosted poverty alleviation and provided an inexhaustible impetus for the simultaneous promotion of rural revitalization. In the past, the people “boasted valuable assets but wore ragged clothes”; nowadays, by guarding the green waters and mountains, they can continue to develop in a green manner for prosperity and well-being. Nanjiang County, in the hinterland of the Qinling-Daba Mountains, adopted “green development” as a fundamental measure to connect the strategic paths of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization, pioneering a road of rural revitalization that integrates poverty alleviation amid green development, revitalization through green innovation, and sustainable development amid green revitalization.

1 Poverty Alleviation Propelled by Green Development Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the Party Central Committee has further elevated poverty alleviation and development to an important position in its governance of China. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC clearly stated that by 2020, the goal should be achieved that all poor people and villages shake off poverty. Nanjiang County has thoroughly implemented the strategic requirements of the Party Central Committee’s targeted poverty alleviation and has carried out a series of reform and innovation measures in terms of improving modern transportation networks, making up for shortcomings in infrastructure, establishing green development concepts, strengthening the development of green industries, and cultivating local practical talents. It hence embarked on an innovative path to promote poverty alleviation through green development.

© China Social Sciences Press 2022 S. Zhou et al., Integrated Governance in Rural China: Case Study of Nanjiang County, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3085-0_2

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1.1 Improved Traffic Conditions As a main road of transportation in the Qinling-Daba Mountain area, Nanjiang remains the only route that connects Sichuan and Shaanxi. Until the reform and opening-up, the “millennium dilemma” of Shu Road still haunted the development of Nanjiang. Its inaccessibility and the difficulty of survival have made local people suffer from endless pains. During the local investigation, local people emotionally reported that the only way out of Sanxi Village in Nanjiang Town, only 9.5 km away from Nanjiang County, and into the county used to be a steep slope locally named “ladder bay” (“Tiziwan”) consisting of more than 1270 steps. A round trip by farmers to the town took more than 9 hours. Many patients died because of the inability to receive timely treatment, and farmers had to ask five or six strong laborers to carry pigs to be sold in the county’s market, which means that navigating the slippery “ladder bay” frequently killed pigs and injured people from falls. At the same time, the mountainous area within Nanjiang County is a disaster-prone area and one of the hardest-hit areas of the Wenchuan “May 12” earthquake. As of 2018, there were 828 hidden danger points of geological hazards above the provincial level in the county. The frequent occurrence of geological disasters is a natural condition that seriously affects economic and social development and restricts the completion of the task of poverty alleviation. Since the reform and opening-up, Nanjiang County has regarded solving the “bottleneck” of transportation difficulty as the fundamental prerequisite for poverty alleviation. After years of a continuous increase in transportation infrastructure construction, Nanjiang County’s traffic conditions were optimized. As of June 2018, the county had an accumulated area of 5435 km open to traffic, including 2 national highways, 1 provincial road, 11 county roads, and 33 township roads. Rural roads reached 5096 km, accounting for 94% of the county’s total road mileage, reaching a 100% road access rate of townships and administrative villages. Specifically, there are 39.7 km of railways, 121 km of expressways, 2 national roads of 136.8 km, 1 provincial road of 41.4 km, 11 county roads of 386.4 km, 33 township roads of 570.5 km, and 4139.2 km of village roads. A series of major transportation projects helped build expressways and national highways from scratch, fulfilling their longawaited dream of building roads. This fundamentally improved the county’s traffic location conditions and profoundly changed its urban and rural appearance, effectively promoting its sustained, rapid economic and social development. Rural roads became the biggest highlight in the construction of a new countryside and the most satisfying project among the people. Behind this achievement, what is impressive is the importance and determination attached by the county and township party committees to transportation issues and the solid implementation of relevant policies, measures and projects by governments at all levels. These actions greatly enhanced the most urgently needed transportation conditions for the masses. Priority should be given to solving the difficulty of people’s travel, particularly for the people living in deeply-poor areas in remote, corner, and border areas, by

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bridging “roads disconnected to network” for higher road access depth and coverage to ensure that people in need can go out of the mountains and have a stronger sense of access to transportation. In recent years, more than 2700 km of roads in villages and groups have been built, utterly rewriting the history of traveling with goods on their shoulders by nearly 200,000 people in remote mountains. Emphasis should be placed on increasing masses’ income. In reality, povertystricken mountainous counties are often stuck in a dilemma that products cannot be shipped out, enterprises cannot be introduced in, and information cannot be distributed. In this regard, Nanjiang County seriously took into account its advantages of ecological resources, adhering to the goal of “building a rural road, prospering the urban and rural economy, and beautifying the rural environment”. This will combine tourist and industrial roads with a development plan for the new village, promoting the in-depth integration of “transportation and tourism” and “transportation and agriculture” to build roads where industries saw development. In 2017 alone, the county built and renovated more than 180 km of tourist roads and built more than 260 km of supporting roads in the industrial park, giving full play to the fundamental and leading role of roads in poverty alleviation. Under mass supervision, the roads most supported by the people were repaired. They stuck to a construction mechanism of “government-led, mass-based, social participation, competitive initiation, and proactive implementation” and the masses’ participation in quality supervision from beginning to end. When building rural roads, how to repair them and manage the project quality is all up to villagers. Every project will involve some local migrant workers and beneficiaries who are highly motivated to participate in road construction, and they will monitor engineering quality while building roads. At the same time, villager representatives, CPC member representatives, and grassroots cadres spontaneously set up a quality supervision team to take turns participating in quality supervision and revenue measurement for highway construction. All links are interlocked and checked at all levels, urging construction companies to conduct engineering projects in a conscientious, qualified, reliable, satisfactory, and clean manner. Prominently improved transportation infrastructure transformed Nanjiang from a blocked mountainous area into a bridgehead open to the north and east in Sichuan, as an important link between Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Chongqing. This created a basic condition for the decisive victory of poverty alleviation and comprehensive rural revitalization in this county.

1.2 Optimization of Water Conservancy Facilities Before the reform and opening-up, Nanjiang County faced special geographical conditions. Mountains accounted for 95% of the territory, while hills, valleys and flat dams accounted for only 5%, pointing to a fragile ecological and geological environment. In the past, there was a saying in Nanjiang: “Basically, traffic relies on walking, communication relies on roaring, and security relies on patrol dogs.”

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Restricted by natural conditions such as poor traffic, other rural infrastructures were obviously unable to match, with drinking water and living conditions undoubtedly being the two most prominent issues. In terms of safe drinking water, Nanjiang County regards water conservancy construction as a priority in agricultural infrastructure. It made overall planning and comprehensive deployment, building a total of 15,500 water conservancy projects of various types, achieving 75.1 million cubic meters in combined irrigation by storage, diversion and pumping. The effective irrigation area registered 11,293.33 ha, urban daily water supply capacity 20 thousand cubic meters, and daily sewage treatment capacity 10 thousand cubic meters. Since 2014, 572 water supply projects have been built in 210 villages, improving safe drinking water for 29,800 poor people and 177,000 non-poor people. These achievements were mainly achieved through three aspects of construction work: First, the construction of rural safe drinking water projects. As of June 2018, such projects in 156 poor villages and 101 non-poor villages constructed in 2017 have been completed. Of the projects initiated in 260 non-poor villages and 5 communities since 2018, 258 have been completed as of the end of June, solving the issue of drinking water safety for 243,000 people, including 32,100 poor people. At the same time, work has been done to urge townships and project villages to establish a management and protection mechanism that deploys management and protection personnel for smooth project operation. Second, the construction of water conservancy projects in key poverty alleviation villages mainly involves two areas. As of the end of June 2018, Baiping Village, Zhugong Township, Nanjiang County renovated 6 ponds, 2 reservoirs, 1.4-km channels, 13-km water-saving irrigation pipelines, and 26.67-ha efficient irrigation area; Xixiang Village, Chixi Town renovated 3 ponds, 1.5-km channels, and 6-km pipeline installation. Third, the assistance work based in villages. Since 2018, the CPC organization of the water affairs system has teamed up with party branches in 2 impoverished villages and 7 non-poor villages. They would assign 3 outstanding young cadres as lead secretaries of these villages and select 16 cadres to join 9 village work teams for off-job assistance work in villages. Meanwhile, over 400 cadres and employees across the system were organized to assist over 2500 poor people in over 600 households through one-to-one and one-tomany activities. They deeply dived into the villages to provide direct help in poverty alleviation, generating remarkable results. As of the end of 2017, Nanjiang County had invested RMB 531 million in building 5 centralized thousand-ton water supply projects serving tens of thousands of people, 551 points in the pipeline network extension project, and 313 points in the decentralized water supply project. It approached the issue of drinking water safety for 458,300 people in 516 villages in 48 townships to ensure that Nanjiang County could successfully escape poverty alleviation in 2018. During the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, the county plans to build 8 centralized water supply projects and use extended parts of the main pipeline network to provide water sources for more than 400 villages, covering 471,500 rural residents, or 82% of the population. Meanwhile, after the completion of all the projects, networked operation can be adopted to ensure the same pipeline network and complementary water sources.

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In accordance with the principle of “priority and urgency first, key points highlighted, step-by-step implementation”, Nanjiang County combines the construction of a new countryside with poverty alleviation, oriented toward addressing registered poor population, while solving drinking water safety for non-poor households to eventually achieve full coverage. In 2016, it provided drinking water for 32,600 people in 47 villages; in 2017, it provided drinking water for 175,000 people in 209 villages; and in 2018, it implemented drinking water safety projects in 260 villages to achieve a comprehensive solution to the issue of drinking water safety. In addition, Nanjiang County initiated construction of the Hongyudong Reservoir and irrigation area project. For the Hongyudong Reservoir dam pivot, the filling of the cofferdam in the three areas and the pouring of the dam foundation concrete were completed, and the process for the right main canal and the Enba branch canal was on track. The resettlement of people from the Huangshipan Reservoir was rolled out. The Huitianhe Reservoir was listed in the PPP project library of the Sichuan Provincial Department of Finance; the centralized water supply station in Zhengjiagou Village in Dahe Town was in operation, while the Bamiao Town water supply station and the centralized water supply project in Kongmu River in Pinghe Town were 60% completed. 337 reservoirs and ponds, a 193-km canal system, and 7 dangerously weak reservoirs were newly built and renovated; 1.3 million cubic meters of stored and diverted water was added, and 5.9 km flood protection dikes were built, winning the county title of “advanced county in provincial farmland water conservancy in 2017”. This amounts to a series of large-scale water conservancy projects possessing functions such as flood control, irrigation, urban and rural life and industrial water supply. When completed, the project will increase and improve an irrigation area of 27,306.67 ha, which can solve the drinking water problem for 400,000 people in Bazhong. On this basis, a special tourism industry can be developed, which is of great significance to promoting poverty alleviation and prosperity and economic and social development in old areas.

1.3 Poverty Alleviation Relocation Nanjiang County keeps innovating the relocation model by promoting four aspects of “relocation plus” to ensure that poor households enjoy safe housing and can live stably and become rich after relocation. The first is to promote “relocation and revitalization”, mainly through the establishment of collective asset management companies to revitalize the collective idle resources of villages to increase the income of poor households. It is necessary to promote the “three 1/3” dividend model in poor villages (distributing quantified dividends to people under the “three 1/3” method, in the form of collective shares, poor household shares, and ordinary household shares) and implement the “40% plus 60%” dividend model in ordinary villages (collective stocks and farmers’ stocks account for 40% and 60%, respectively). Among the 8341 relocated households,

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5668 invested in the collective asset management company, earning RMB 300 in dividends per capita each year. Specifically, revitalization mainly involves the following aspects. First, revitalization of relocated people’s assets. The results of land contractual management rights confirmation and registration were expanded through mortgage and secured financing with land management rights, realizing RMB 96 million in financing for their assets. Such people were encouraged to lease or subcontract the contracted land and forest land to obtain rental income and were guided to participate in the production and operation of farmer cooperatives to obtain share capital. They have priority to work at nearby professional cooperatives and agricultural enterprises to gain labor income. Second, revitalization of the industry support fund. Based on the number of poor people, a village-level industry support fund of RMB 0.3–1 million was initiated to set up an industrial cooperative dominated by relocated people. Its members collectively select those with strong management capabilities for industry operations, securing minimum dividends and second rebates for each member. An industry support fund invigorated will drive up their income. Finally, the revitalization of collective assets. Work has been done to explore an operation and management model of “addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division” for collective assets,1 boosting the reform of the collective asset shareholding system. On the basis of share allocation without asset division, collective operating assets were quantitatively converted to shares distributed to people, with certificates issued to households, meaning that collectives, ordinary farmers and relocated masses each accounted for one-third. This promoted a “three-change reform” by turning resources into assets, capital into equity capital, and farmers into shareholders. In this way, it not only broadens the income increase channels for the relocated people but also enhances the capacity for independent development of poor villages. The second is to promote “relocation and zone”, mainly focused on Nanjiang gutturosa, walnut, selenium-enriched tea, ecological breeding, honeysuckle and other characteristic industries. Guided by leading enterprises, professional cooperative organizations and large professional households, the income of relocated households can be increased by various methods, such as large-scale transfer, shared participation and dividends, and local employment. The county cultivated 2280 new business entities and built an agricultural industry base of 86,666.67 ha. Among the relocated rural households, 5316 households were driven by the owners, realizing an annual income increase of RMB 1670 per capita. Specifically, the main measures are as follows: First, upsizing the base. The focus will be placed on characteristic industries, such as Nanjiang gutturosa, walnut, selenium-rich tea, and honeysuckle, to create five hundred-li featured industrial corridors. A “company and farmer household” model is implemented while developing “small breeding, small planting, small processing, and small operation” industries

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This refers to a collective asset reform model featuring “addition” for asset and capital verification, “subtraction” for member definition, “multiplication” for vitality release, and “division” for equity quantification.

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in each household. As of 2016, the county’s featured industrial base has registered 86,666.67 ha, driving 4516 relocated households with 16,225 people and increasing the per capita income by RMB 1670. Second, leading enterprises should be strengthened. Emphasis is placed on cultivating and introducing leading enterprises with strong influence and high industrial relevance to boost their development by formulating preferential policies. It successively introduced Huanyong Agriculture, Huabang Agriculture, Hongxin Edible Fungus and other enterprise groups and cultivated 2 national-level leading enterprises, 5 provincial-level leading enterprises, and 34 municipal-level leading enterprises. Under a model of “company, base and farmer household”, by the end of 2016, 1936 relocated households enjoyed an average income increase of RMB 1720 per household. Third, building a dominant brand. In accordance with the requirements of “one industry, one company, one brand”, we implement a unified name, a unified quality, and a unified standard, focusing our efforts on creating advantageous brands of specialty agricultural products such as Nanjiang gutturosa, Yunding Minglan, and “Changchi” jade rice. There are 88 products with “three product certifications and one standard” in the county and 30,000 ha of production bases recognized for pollution-free agricultural products. In particular, the Nanjiang gutturosa was awarded the “China Well-known Trademark”, “Yunding Minglan” and “Yunding Green Bud” received the national organic food certification, and “Changchi” jade rice received the A-level green food certification. The third is to promote “relocation and tourism”. To “build a batch of relocation resettlement areas and create a rural tourism-led route”, a number of rural boutique tourism loop lines were built, covering 84 relocation resettlement areas. Relying on resettlement sites for relocation poverty alleviation, vigorous efforts were made to develop modern agriculture and sightseeing agriculture, which will organically integrate agriculture and tourism. Specifically, the main measures in this regard are as follows: First, speed up the construction of rural boutique tourism loop lines. To “build a batch of relocation resettlement areas and create a rural tourism-led route”, four rural boutique tourism loop lines have been built, including “Beautiful Zhengzhi Town—Yunding Tea House”, “Honeysuckle Sea (Hongsi Township)—Leisure Group (Yuejin Village and Huaishu Village)”, “North Sichuan Residential Village (Dongba Village)— Fishing in Villages (Zhongjiang Village)”, and “Xiaowu Gorge—Guangwu Mountain”, covering 64 relocation resettlement areas. Second, leisure and sightseeing agriculture should be vigorously developed. Relying on resettlement sites for relocation poverty alleviation, vigorous efforts were made to develop modern agriculture and sightseeing agriculture, which will organically integrate agriculture and tourism. The county registered 5,198,000 visits by tourists in 2016, averaging an annual revenue of approximately RMB 4 billion in rural tourism, up 36.7% and 37.4% year-onyear, respectively. Third, rural tourism brands should be cultivated. Based on the Guangwu Mountain Scenic Area, Yunding Tea Village, and Yuhu Lake-Long Beach Rural Tourism Scenic Spot, support was given to relocated people in engagement in tourism services and farm stay. For those who grow farm stay in the “Guangwu Tour”, a subsidy of RMB 1000 was given to each bed, and 2264 beds were added in 2016, driving the development of 564 farmhouses.

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The fourth is to promote “relocation and labor”. Integration of the county’s vocational education and training forces provides full coverage of employment skills training for relocated people with the ability to work, leading to 22,000 person-times of “wisdom enhancement” among relocated people. Among those who have settled down, 14,467 devoted labor after skill training, raising an annual income per capita of RMB 3080. Thanks to traditional advantageous industries, tourism, commerce, and other service industries, 3320 people were hired nearby, with an average monthly salary of over RMB 2000; 3043 people were employed by public welfare positions, with an average monthly salary of over RMB 500. Specifically, the main measures are as follows: First, improved quality stabilizes output. Based on poverty alleviation projects, employment training projects and other training programs for migrant workers, emphasis is placed on building labor brands such as “Sichuan Girl (Chuanmeizi)”, “Sichuan Chef (Chuanchushi)”, and “Sichuan Construction (Chuanjiangong)” to improve their labor and employment skills. Second, supporting policies were carried out to help with entrepreneurship. The county issued 18 pieces of policy for reward and support in “Cultivating New Types of Agricultural Business Entities to Sustainably Raise Farmers’ Income” and set aside RMB 18 million in initiating three funds for loan interest discounts, risk sharing, and loan guarantees as part of targeted poverty alleviation, granting a total of RMB 131 million in loans. In each poor village, an industry support fund of no less than RMB 300,000 was set up. According to the standards of RMB 400/person for households who completed poverty alleviation, RMB 600/person for households who have not completed poverty alleviation, and RMB 1000/person for households who completed poverty alleviation that year, an industry support fund targeting households was set up to tackle money shortages in their planting and breeding development. Third, skill training promotes employment. Based on integrated resources such as vocational education in Nanjiang County, identification and classification of the masses was conducted, combined with comprehensive training. Free training was offered to technical backbones in poor villages, self-taught farming experts, and new-type professional farmers, totaling more than 14,000 people. According to rough statistics, the county plans to relocate 8476 households or 31,087 people from registered poor households. According to the farmers’ wishes, the classification work is done for relocation and resettlement: 1349 households or 5405 people made housing purchases in cities or towns; 2273 households or 8159 people moved to central villages (settlement clusters); 4480 households or 16,703 people built their own houses separately, and 374 households or 820 people stayed at their relatives’ or friends’ places. As of the end of May 2018, 8422 households or 30,949 people finished the task of building (purchasing) houses, and 7788 households or 29,054 people completed relocation and settled down, accounting for 99% and 93% of the total progress, respectively. Construction projects for 215 settlement sites have all been started, among which 209 have been completed, including 174 accepted, while 6 have entered the final phase. Through innovative practices such as poverty alleviation relocation, Nanjiang County pioneered a path guided by mass needs and aimed at satisfying the masses. By providing diversified solutions, it steadily promoted project construction aligned

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with “people’s wishes” so that they could truly obtain a sense of safety in secure settlement.

1.4 Green Development Concept as a Core Green development, the core concept of poverty alleviation in Nanjiang County, is reflected in protective ecological development as a priority and targeted assistance based on the conditions of poor households, changing from reliance on external support such as a blood transfusion to a more sustained effort from self-motivation and enhancing their motivation and ability to fight against poverty. Nanjiang County adheres to President Xi Jinping’s development philosophy of “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” and regards his concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era and the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress, as well as the important instructions made during his visit to Sichuan, as core guidance for Nanjiang County’s green development. The county carried out in-depth “large-scale study, discussion, and research” activities to normalize and institutionalize learning and education to solve the fundamental issue. Focusing on party nature education and poverty alleviation, the main training, special training, reading classes and expatriate learning were organized, which continuously strengthened the ideological and capacity building of the cadre team in the new era. A development path is confirmed as follows: “a county built on ecological development, strengthened by cultural and tourism industries, rising in a green manner, and getting well-off altogether”, with a high-standard ecological construction and environmental protection plan formulated for the county and a building plan for the national ecological civilization demonstration county. At the same time, the building goals and detailed responsibilities are confirmed to strengthen measures that continuously improve the ecological environment and space while growing the ecological economy and forming a green lifestyle. In its green development plan, Nanjiang County inspires its people with the motivation and the ability to change from “blood transfusion” to self-development, guiding impoverished people to increase their confidence and morale in overcoming difficulties. Through activities such as cadres’ going to the countryside, returning home to deliver a speech, and typical characters and cases being introduced to the countryside in batches, especially publicizing true stories about poverty alleviation achieved by the masses, both the poor and the non-poor can find a way of personal entrepreneurship in overcoming poverty and growing green development. Thanks to joint efforts made by hundreds of thousands of people, Nanjiang County saw continuous improvement in the ecological environment and space, a growing ecological economy and a changing way of ecology and life, and a flourishing ecological culture. It pioneered a new path for green development in impoverished mountainous areas.

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1.5 Green Industries as a Driving Force Green industries serve as a strategic measure for poverty alleviation. The green development concept determines the need for green industries to adopt an independent development model to enable the masses to feel a genuine sense of happiness in “happy employment”. Based on the green development concept, the county developed leading enterprises, professional cooperative organizations and large professional households around the green industries, such as gutturosa, walnut, selenium-enriched tea, and honeysuckle, while using microcredit for poverty alleviation and industrial support working capital. It adopted large-scale land transfer, year-end dividends based on stocks, local employment and other methods to increase the income of relocated households so that poor households can obtain “dividends” from green development in secure housing and enjoyable employment. The county vigorously supported poverty alleviation and income increasing industries, including small planting, small breeding, small processing, and small operation, to help poor households get rid of poverty on their own. Among them, the most distinctive poverty alleviation model is “borrowing and returning gazelles”. Since 2014, Nanjiang County has gradually explored a new independent poverty alleviation model, that is, lending 1 ram and 20 ewes to a poor household insured by five parties, including “finance, agriculture, finance, special collective, and enterprise”, to guarantee that this household can earn RMB 50,000 one and a half years later. It begins to return gazelles of the same quality and quantity in the third year. Since the rollout of this low-cost, easily promoted, and sustainable model in 2017, it has smoothed poverty alleviation with practical results. In summary, the government mainly promotes the following measures: it always puts farmers’ income increase in the first place, focused on six characteristic industries, to foster and expand new agricultural production and operation entities through policy support, investment attraction, and high-quality services. First, preferential policies encourage industry entities. The “Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Development in Agricultural Industrialization in Nanjiang County to Promote Poverty Alleviation” and the “1 + 5” industrial development serial supporting documents, including Nanjiang gutturosa, tea, walnut, honeysuckle, and “four small” industries, were issued. It uses funds, talent, technology, infrastructure and other aspects as a policy portfolio that keeps vitalizing agricultural industrialization. Second, investment drawn back can attract entrepreneurs. The “Implementation Opinions on Encouraging and Supporting Entrepreneurship Back Home” were issued, which states that the county’s financial department budgets RMB 30 million each year to establish a development fund for entrepreneurship back home. It gives a reward, support, guarantee, and interest discount to the businesses that were set up, sometimes as a leading role, in the hometown, where a recommended project library is specifically formulated for the characteristics of successful people in other areas to actively attract them back home to invest in agriculture and lead villagers to become rich. According to statistics, the county managed to attract 1374 entrepreneurs, setting

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174 projects of more than RMB 500,000 and RMB 1.03 billion allocated. Third, the functional conversion of governments should service enterprises well. For investing enterprises attracted back home, the county strictly implements a “five ones” promotion mechanism featuring one project, one contact leader, one service class, one responsible authority, and one set of promotion mechanisms, which provides comprehensive services to those enterprises. For successful entrepreneurs willing to return to their hometowns to set up or lead the setup of family farms, professional cooperative organizations and other forms of businesses, Nanjiang County will organize relevant departments such as the Agricultural Commission, the Agriculture Bureau, the Forestry Bureau, the Water Affairs Bureau, and the Transportation Bureau to help them formulate scientific development plans and coordinate solutions to specific issues such as land transfer, financing and loans, and production technology. In recent years, over 1290 professional cooperatives and over 5400 family farms (large professional households) have been cultivated.

1.6 Rural Talent Fostering Rural talents are an endogenous force that guarantees continued stability in rural poverty alleviation. In targeted poverty alleviation, Nanjiang County has sent a group of local talents who understand agriculture, love the countryside, and can be retained using various channels, such as poverty alleviation through education, farmers’ night schools, and village political colleges. Education on poverty alleviation starts with children. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, Nanjiang County has implemented RMB 130 million in student aid funds, reduced or exempted over RMB 100 million in aid funds, and subsidized 216,700 students in need. The county has seen no school failure and dropouts due to poverty. Farmers’ night schools cultivate a new type of farmers who know how to operate and manage. By establishing fixed classrooms, online classrooms, and practical classrooms, five major training focuses are highlighted: education on gratitude for policy, legal safety and health knowledge, as well as training on skill, technology, and family motto. (1) Establishment of a faculty database. In accordance with the procedures—individual self-recommendation, mass election, party committee (party group) scrutiny, and county party committee review, Nanjiang County selected 1000 full-time and part-time lecturers from “five aspects”: leaders and cadres with grassroots work experience; agricultural employment and vocational education experts; backbones in political, legal, health, childbirth planning and other systems; cadres in youth league committee, women’s federation and mediation organization; and major secretary. In this way, it established a teacher pool for county-level farmers’ night schools, consisting of lecturers trained by hired experts in a uniform manner. (2) Unified training requirements. Each night, the school is equipped with 6 relatively fixed full-time and part-time teachers. Combining curriculum settings for public subjects, basic subjects, and special subjects, while taking into account the local

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economic and social development and actual needs of farmers, schools formulate an annual training plan at the beginning of a year and arrange lecture timing and content at the beginning of a quarter, combined with announcements issued. This will ensure that more than 2 lectures are taught a month, and each poor household will master 1– 2 practical techniques. (3) Unified funding guarantee. Farmers’ night school-related expenses are included in the special budget of village-level organizations for serving the masses at RMB 8000 per village; night school training and teaching plans are guaranteed by special funds arranged by the county party committee’s organization department; part-time teachers do not charge lecture fees except for reimbursement of travel expenses under the township subsidy; poor villages integrate part of the agriculture-related funds to support night school training. At present, every village throughout the county has organized farmers’ night schools, where more than 6000 education training sessions were conducted and more than 400,000 people were benefited, thus injecting new impetus into poverty alleviation and pursuit of moderate well-being. Village political colleges aimed to cultivate reserve cadres who are “retainable” in the countryside. Faced with practical issues concerning rural grassroots cadres, such as insufficient capacity, lack of successors, and serious losses, Nanjiang County takes specific issues in poverty alleviation and rural revitalization as guidance, using Xiaohe Vocational Middle School, a national key vocational high school, as a carrier to cultivate leaders in such fields. The county took the lead in setting up a special village political college nationwide, which was affirmed by the Central Organization Department. In 2017, 103 trainees were admitted to the “two committees” of villages (communities), and 271 became leaders to help others become rich. The advanced experience of cultivating “village officials” and “capable talents” was summarized and replicated throughout the province, fostering a team of “permanent” rural talents boasting culture, policy understanding and skills. Xiaohe Vocational Middle School helped improve local talents’ vocational skill training to alleviate poverty. Nanjiang County Xiaohe Vocational Middle School, founded in 1984, is a comprehensive national-level key secondary vocational school integrating academic education, social training, and skill appraisal. (1) High employment rate and high entry rate into higher education among students. The vocational college entrance examination achieved a matching enrollment rate of 96%, and the number of students scoring above the undergraduate study entry level ranked first among similar schools in northeastern Sichuan. Most of the students work at Fortune 500 companies such as Lenovo, Haier, New Hope, ZTE, and Wens Foodstuff. The student employment rate was 98%, where 96% of jobs matched skills. (2) Active contribution to poverty alleviation. The school opened short-term training courses on breeding, planting, electricians, welders, and tourism services. It trained more than 7000 people per year, cultivated 50 city (county)-level entrepreneurial models, and carried out 283 industrial projects, driving over 3500 people to find local jobs. The county established the Bashan Native Chicken Industry Technology Research Institute and carried out breed selection and research to guide the development in the Bashan native chicken industry while establishing 5 Bashan native chicken protection areas, 10 breed expanding areas and 100 breeding communities.

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By adopting a series of effective measures, such as production development, relocation, ecological compensation, education development, and social security, Nanjiang County ensured that poverty alleviation advances on schedule. By the end of 2017, the incidence of poverty had dropped to 4.94%. The relocation for poverty alleviation was completed ahead of schedule, and the county’s task of getting rid of poverty in 2018 was launched earlier than planned, laying a solid foundation for further revitalization of rural areas.

2 Rural Revitalization Led by Green Development The green development path explored and summarized by Nanjiang County not only strongly promotes poverty alleviation but also serves as a key measure to realize rural revitalization. Nanjiang County has always adhered to the strategic concept of establishing “a county built on ecological development and rising in a green manner” and vigorously promoted comprehensive countryside revitalization on the basis of achieving industrial prosperity, ecological livability, rural civilization, effective governance, and a prosperous life.

2.1 Blooming Green Industries Industrial prosperity is the key to rural revitalization. In addition to targeted poverty alleviation, Nanjiang County built five hundred-li featured industrial corridors: Nanjiang gutturosa, walnut, tea, honeysuckle, and rural tourism through the development of green ecological industries, forming a green circular industrial system and modern service industry systems, including an “internet plus” that covered urban and rural areas. Green agriculture is carried out throughout the country. The first meat product trading center, Nanjiang Gutturosa Trading Center, was listed in operation; Nanjiang Daye Tea series products won 5 gold awards at the 6th China (Sichuan) International Tea Expo; 41 standardized breeding farms, leisure farms and professional villages for leisure agriculture were built, and 4 national and provincial agricultural demonstration parks were established. Due to the excellent quality of “green, selenium-rich and organic” characteristic agriculture, Nanjiang was chosen as a pilot county for national planting and breeding integration. It successfully built itself as a national green husbandry demonstration county, and was shortlisted for the establishment of a national organic product certification demonstration county. New industries continue to improve. In the transformation and upgrading of county industries, Nanjiang County resolutely increased its environmental protection and governance. In 2017, it completed industrial investment of RMB 4.712 billion, including technological transformation investment of RMB 2.62 billion; industries above a designated scale achieved RMB 11 billion in total output value, up by 10%.

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Eleven industrial projects, including Shengshi Building Materials, were completed and put into production, fostering 3 new demonstration enterprises for the integration of IT development and industrialization, as well as 9 industrial enterprises with revenues of over RMB 100 million. Modern services accelerate prosperity. In 2017, commercial complexes such as Hifete Square and Yealink E-Commerce Mall were completed for operation. Wellknown commercial and logistics companies such as Haitian Mall and SF Express have settled in Nanjiang. Ten agricultural markets were either newly built or rebuilt. Four key e-commerce enterprises were newly cultivated, along with 44 service sites and over 500 online and offline interactive enterprises, successfully creating a national comprehensive demonstration county for e-commerce in rural areas. Industry integration is actively promoted. Having established a concept of tourism development in the entire county, Nanjiang County vigorously promoted the “cultural tourism plus” strategy and close integration of tourism, using new urbanization, new industrialization, and modern agriculture. Tourism serves as the core of structure adjustment, town development, product design, and construction, which helps create tourism space in the whole area, boosting tourism development across fields and popularizing tourism concepts. Efforts are made to develop “cultural tourism and towns”, to build a town construction pattern consisting of landscapes in the city and scenic spots around the city, and “cultural tourism and villages” centered on the construction of “beautiful villages”. The development follows a model of “new residence and characteristic industries and eco-tourism in Bashan”, as well as the idea of parallel development of “industrial parks, new-type communities, and pastoral scenic spots”, to enrich folk customs and upgrade rural tourism. The focus will also be placed on “cultural tourism and health care”, “cultural tourism and sports”, etc., to diversify tourism products and add cultural connotations to them. Figure 1 shows that the focus of “cultural tourism plus” development confirmed in Nanjiang County since the 18th National Congress of the CPC has sharply raised both the number of travelers and revenues. In 2016, 7.1 million people in Nanjiang

Fig. 1 Number of domestic travelers and domestic tourism revenue in Nanjiang County from 1996 to 2017

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County traveled nationwide, including 5.198 million trips made to the countryside. These two figures increased 33.4% and 36.7%, respectively, over the previous year. Of the RMB 5.76 billion in tourism revenue, rural tourism contributed RMB 4.22 billion, with the two figures increasing by 34.6% and 37.4%, respectively, over the previous year. As of the end of 2017, the number of domestic tourists and tourism revenue steadily increased. Among the 7.95 million domestic trips, there were 5.82 million trips made to villages. Compared with 2016, 70% of the increase in trips came from village trips. Of the RMB 6.56 billion in tourism revenue, rural tourism revenue was RMB 4.79 billion, and over 70% of the revenue increase over 2016 was mainly derived from rural tourism. As a firm advocate of the belief that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets”, Nanjiang County emphasizes integration between ecological and industrial sectors on the basis of protecting the ecology to accelerate the promotion of green value and embark on a path of green development in mountainous counties.

2.2 Beautiful, Livable Ecosystem Green industries are the foundation of ecological livability. Beautiful new villages that are ecological and livable can guarantee a high quality of life. As of the end of 2017, Nanjiang County had established a provincial garden county, while thanks to local superior resources, building characteristic towns and beautiful villages and launching a number of ecological brands under the theme of culture and tourism. Adhering to the integration of industries and villages and village development through industry, Nanjiang County follows the standards of “different industries, gardens, scenes and styles for different villages” and a principle of “government promotion, farm household as main bodies, market operation, and social participation”. It actively guides the masses to live in urban areas, industrial parks, eco-tourism areas, and new village communities (removed and merged into towns) so that the masses in new villages can live a good life in good houses. During construction, new homes were built in accordance with local conditions in various ways, such as unified planning and separate construction, unified planning and unified construction, development and construction (replacement for public service supporting construction through land development), group construction, and joint construction of farmers, businesses and so on. The construction considered the wishes of the masses, engaging them in planning, construction and management during the entire process to achieve an organic combination of residential, production, and tourism functions. The simultaneous development of rural tourism and new village construction, combined with strict landscape management, ensured a close tie among cultural characteristics, regional characteristics, and humanity characteristics. The county successfully created a provincial garden county. Overall greening and colorization of both banks of the Bin River from Dongyu town to the broken canal was completed, and 230,000 m2 of urban green space was added. Micangshan Avenue and the municipal road from Chaoyang District to Yangjiahe Community

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were upgraded. Hongta Park and Zhongheba Park were completed for use, and the project for Yangshengtan Wetland Park was 80% completed. The construction of characteristic towns achieved remarkable results. Guangwushan Town was selected as one of the “100 Most Beautiful Forest Towns in China” and one of the first batch of provincial forest towns; Qiaoting Town was built as a characteristic town for the Red Leaf Journey; Fengyi Township started construction of the characteristic town project “Pretty Flowers and Water Town”; the project for Forest Health Care Characteristic Town in Zhaipo Township was successfully signed; “Construction Pilot Sites in Hundred Towns” in Zhengzhi Town and Changchi Town and the key towns, including Shahe Town, Xialiang Town and Dahe Town, continued to be set up. In addition, the county’s 48 towns and townships accelerated improvement in public facilities. In 2017, the urban population increased by 19,500 people, and the urbanization rate of permanent residents reached 37.3%. The construction of beautiful villages achieved remarkable results. The county promoted the renovation of dilapidated and old rural houses, improving the living environment of rural households. It persists in the parallel construction of industrial parks, pastoral scenic spots, and new-type communities, with further renovation of water facilities, kitchens, and toilets in rural areas. In recent years, the rate of safe drinking water in Nanjiang County reached 100%, and the penetration rate of rural sanitary toilets reached 95.5%, pointing to a huge improvement in the living conditions of rural residents. At the same time, continuous efforts to comprehensively improve the rural environment fundamentally changed the phenomenon of “dirty, chaotic, and poor” rural areas. It is worth mentioning that 20 villages, including Muluo Village, filed applications for provincial traditional villages, while Jinbei Village built a village history museum and a farming cultural museum. Ecological brands in cultural tourism are going global. Efforts have been made to create a national 5A-level tourist attraction in Guangwu Mountain; Guangwu Mountain-Nuoshui River Global Geopark successfully passed the inspection by UNESCO experts; the 2017 Sichuan Red Leaf Eco-tourism Festival was successfully held; ancient roads in Shu, including the Micang Ancient Road, are applying for double world heritage. Yu Lake was successfully promoted as a national water park, and Micang Mountain National Forest Park was awarded the titles of the “first batch of pilot demonstration bases for forest health care” and the “province’s top ten national forest oxygen bars”. In 2017, it received 7.7 million tourists, generating tourism revenue of RMB 6.28 billion.

2.3 Enhanced Rural Civilization The strengthened rule of morality in the countryside to enhance rural civility provided solid support for prosperous industries and ecological livability. On the basis of the original “red gene”, Nanjiang County developed through green ecology and a series of moral and cultural building activities, such as “ethical banking”, to form a new social trend that emphasizes dedication and civility.

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The “red gene” helps build a solid foundation for civilization. In Nanjiang, the central hinterland of the Sichuan-Shaanxi Old Revolutionary Base Area, the second largest Soviet area in the country, older proletarian revolutionaries such as Xu Xiangqian and Li Xiannian wielded their strategies and weapons amid bloody battles. Bashan Guerrilla force kept fighting hard for five years thanks to their familiarity with high mountains and deep forests. Nanjiang preserves a wealth of modern revolutionary deeds and memorial buildings, boasting the most preservation of stone slogans from the Soviet area in Bazhong city. Red Army weapons, ink books, documents and other revolutionary cultural relics are spread all over the county. There are a total of 182 revolutionary sites (pieces), including 93 Red Army stone slogans, 4 provincial-level cultural relics protection units, and 8 county-level cultural relics protection units. A total of 294 Red Army cultural relics (sets) are owned in the county’s collection. It included 170 rare cultural relics, containing 1 first-grade cultural relic, 23 s-grade cultural relics (sets), 146 third-grade cultural relics, and 124 materials. These vivid historical red cultural materials are evidence of Nanjiang people’s selfless dedication when overcoming difficulties, which also boast vivid educational significance today. In 2012, Nanjiang County established the County Culture, Radio, Film and Television Press and Publication Bureau after integration, consisting of 8 public institutions for cultural broadcasting, including the County Radio and Television Station, the Comprehensive Cultural Law Enforcement Team, Cultural Relics Bureau, Cultural Center, Library, Museum, Bashan Guerrilla Memorial Hall, and Rural Broadcasting Service Center. Institutions. Each of the 48 comprehensive cultural stations in towns and villages is equipped with 1 full-time or part-time employee. The county built 10 study halls of intangible cultural heritage and organized more than 600 cultural volunteers. Each village is equipped with fulltime or part-time cultural stewards and cultural volunteers. From the arrangement and protection of rich red culture resources to the improvement of the red culture propaganda mechanism, a series of measures have had a profound impact on the formation of the local red cultural atmosphere and rural civilization. Ethical banking stimulates endogenous motivation. Since 2017, Xiaotian Village, Guanba Town, Nanjiang County has explored the “ethical banking” incentive model using the construction of rural spiritual civilization as a lever to ensure virtuous people “benefits”. Based on the banking operation philosophy, there are more than 40 standards centered on the people’s love for the CPC and the country, filial piety, honesty and trustworthiness, and diligence to get rich. Through villagers’ democratic assessment to judge their moral behaviors, moral points are quantified and deposited into their personal accounts. Meanwhile, the level of points is used as an important basis for the selection of moral models, and then collective economic revenue will be used to provide quarterly incentives for production and living materials in accordance with points. As a result, a system of “dedication-return-dedication” was formed in villages. In early 2018, the “ethical banking” model was rolled out. In addition, focused on the principle of “ecology benefiting the people”, Nanjiang County strengthens the public awareness of environmental protection, conservation and ecology while advocating low-carbon, frugal and green lifestyles and consumption patterns.

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2.4 Innovative Mechanism The key to green development and rural revitalization lies in mechanisms as institutional guarantees. Nanjiang County continuously deepened reform and innovation in rural revitalization, forming a set of coordinated, supporting and efficient operating mechanisms. Deepened reform: Governments are deeply streamlined to stimulate social development vitality. By further promoting the reform of the fiscal and taxation system, Nanjiang County optimized the management and use methods of the finance funds for industry development investment guidance to maximize the leveraging effect. The reform of the investment and financing systems was strengthened, including restructuring county credit unions into rural commercial banks and setting up the Nanjiang Gutturosa Trading Center under the Tianfu Mercantile Exchange. The reform of the rural property rights system was launched on a full scale. The confirmation and certification work for “eight rights and one share” was completed, with 655,000 property rights certificates of various types issued, leading to the county’s large-scale transfer of 8333.33 ha of land and 16,400 ha of woodland. The county also orderly quantified shares in collective assets and financial support funds and the registration reform of integrated rural real estate, completed comprehensive reforms for places such as supply and marketing cooperatives, and improved the mechanism for the introduction and cultivation of new rural business entities and benefit linkage for industrial development. It is steadily reforming the urban household registration system, which actively guided the rural masses to move to cities and towns in an orderly manner while simultaneously advancing the reform of community management and the social security system. Party and government integration: The Nanjiang County Party Committee and county government have always been the core leaders and main organizers in promoting green development and rural governance, who resolutely advanced the implementation of relevant policies in a top-down way. Taking the building of a national ecological civilization demonstration county as an example, Nanjiang County adheres to the responsibility system of “party and government have the same responsibility, and one post has double responsibilities” and sets up a work leadership team, where the county party secretary and county chief are team leaders, the county party committee and county government are leaders in charge, and the main persons in charge of the relevant county-level departments are members. The team is responsible for organizing and coordinating various development tasks to ensure effective progress. Departmental collaboration: The collaboration and coordination between counties and townships and between county-level departments is a core mechanism to promote effective governance. For example, in building national ecological civilization demonstration counties, the overall deployment is divided into 6 key areas, 10 key tasks, and 38 specific indicators, which are then implemented in 48 townships and more than 20 county-level departments. Responsibility agreements for project

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promotion are signed at all levels, which guarantees responsibility fulfillment closely linked to project goals. Performance appraisal: In building the national ecological civilization demonstration county, Nanjiang County formulated the “Nanjiang County’s Target Evaluation Measures for Ecological Civilization Construction” as the evaluation basis for the county’s ecological civilization construction. At the same time, the county issued the “Nanjiang County Green Development Index System” to conduct annual evaluation on the construction of ecological civilization in each township; the “Nanjiang County’s Evaluation Target System for Ecological Civilization Construction” was issued to evaluate ecological civilization construction in all townships after the end of each five-year planning period. Appraisal results would serve as an important basis for the comprehensive appraisal of the party and government leadership groups and leading cadres in each township, as well as for the appointment and removal of cadres, rewards and punishments. Strict accountability: The healthy and effective operation of mechanisms cannot occur without the fulfillment and guarantee of responsibilities. In building the national ecological civilization demonstration county, Nanjiang County strictly carried out the “Implementation Rules for the Investigation of the Responsibility for Ecological and Environmental Damage of Party and Government Leading Cadres in Sichuan Province (for Trial)” and the “Implementation Plan for the Off-Office Auditing Pilot Project of Natural Resource Assets by Leading Cadres in Sichuan Province” and other systems, which strengthened party and government leading cadres’ responsibility for protecting the ecological environment and resources. Those who damage the quality of the ecological environment shall be resolutely held accountable for life.

2.5 Coordinated Urban–Rural Development In the rapid advancement of new urbanization, Nanjiang County adheres to planning as a guide, urban–rural integration, and multi-plan integration. Through the continuous optimization of production, living, and ecological space layout, the integrated development in urban and rural areas is coordinated. Scientific preparation of master planning: Keeping the whole area in mind, the county follows the principle of “let planning come first, lead the work, and do the overall coordination” and prepared the “Nanjiang County Urban Master Plan”, “County System Planning of Villages and Towns” and “County New Village Master Plan”. It planned 3 key towns, 5 characteristic towns, 23 general townships, 210 happy and beautiful new villages and over 500 settlements, combined with the whole-area supporting plans for infrastructure, public services, industrial development, land use, etc. The work formed a system featuring whole-area coverage, multi-plan supporting, connection and integration. Coordinated planning of urban and rural areas: Nanjiang County implemented “1 + X” (“1” refers to the overall plan for new villages; “X” refers to multiple

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plans for roads, industries, water conservancy, and public services) for planning, including principles such as “three avoidances” (avoiding rock side, waterside, roadside), “four nears” (near the county’s surrounding areas, townships or towns or surrounding areas that have been merged into them, industrial parks, resource-rich areas), and “three passes” (passing evaluation by villagers’ representatives, examination by the county planning committee, and public notice disclosure). Overall planning is made for infrastructure, industrial development and public services to enhance the attractiveness, driving force and radiation of new villages. A rapid rise in new types of towns: Centered on Chaoyang New District, Hongta New District and Golden New City, Nanjiang County accelerated its overall construction, with the established area expanding from 8.5 to 18 km2 . Meanwhile, a large number of key municipal projects, such as Golden Avenue, East Ring Road, and Hongta Park, were completed, boosting the transformation of shantytowns in the east and north of the city. In addition, 3 new urban parks were built, with more than 15,000 m2 leisure squares and over 20,000 m2 urban green spaces. The municipal functions were improved to upgrade the quality of the city. Strengthened management of new-type rural communities: Nanjiang County strengthened rural grassroots party building and improved village rules, agreements among villagers and community management systems to continuously improve villagers’ discussion, decision-making, and supervision systems. Starting from the return of power, empowerment, and residents’ strengthened autonomy, the county comprehensively enhanced the management and operation of new-type rural communities. The county financial department granted a special operation and management budget of RMB 30,000 to RMB 50,000 to each newly built rural community for the management and protection of basic and public welfare facilities to effectively solve the lack of employees and funds for management in new communities and ensure that those newly built communities can achieve successful completion and standardized operation. Villager education and community construction and management should go simultaneously, focused on strengthening the cultivation of gratitude awareness, to ensure that every community is built into one featuring gratitude, civilization and harmony. Accelerated integration of industries and villages: Nanjiang County adheres to the principle of getting gathered and scattered where appropriate to orderly guide the rural population to gather in counties, key towns, central villages, and industrial clusters. Through unified planning and unified construction, unified planning and separate construction, unified planning and joint construction, 32 central villages, such as Changtan Village, Qinggang Village, and Huaishu Village, were built, constructing more than 650 settlements and 85,000 new residences in Bashan. Vigorous efforts have been made to develop eco-tourism, with importance attached to the following projects: the creation of Guangwushan-Nuoshuihe Global Geopark completed the assessment and acceptance by United Nations experts; the creation of Guangwu Mountain National 5A-level tourist attraction is speeded up, and “Guangwu Mountain Red Leaf Festival” won the famous trademark of Sichuan Province; the construction of “Red Leaf Journey—Qiaoting 3A characteristic tourist town” and Guanba and Zhaipo tourist towns is accelerated. These projects basically formed the county’s

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great ecological tourism loop. Leading agricultural industrialization enterprises centered on fundamental agriculture are cultivated, such as Dejian Foods, Liangyuan Foods, and Huanyu Agriculture, while striving to increase the market share of foods produced and manufactured in Nanjiang. The county’s characteristic industrial base reached 86,666.67 ha, with Yiya Agriculture, Shujiang Biology and Huanyong Agriculture successively introduced among other enterprise groups to realize integrated development in industries and villages. Perfecting urban and rural infrastructure: Surrounding the goal of entire-area traffic, Nanjiang County accelerated road traffic construction by connecting the entire Micang Mountain Tunnel of the Bashan-Shaanxi Expressway, with the section from the county to Guanba officially opened to traffic; centered on the goal of “same grid, same price” power consumption, the county completed the renovation of rural power grids in 27 townships and 97 villages (communities) in the original supply area of 9 small hydropower companies, including 16 thousand electricity meters at households. Active promotion helped construct “Smart Nanjiang”, which built 185 “broadband village” projects and 170 4G base stations, driving up the county’s wired broadband and wireless 4G network coverage to above 75%. This points to an overall upgrade in urban and rural informatization. Coordinated development of social undertakings: Nanjiang County vigorously implemented school safety projects, weak school renovation and campus beautification projects, while Xiaohe Vocational Middle School was added to the list of provincial high-skilled personnel training base construction projects. At the same time, the “Safe Nanjiang” project was firmly launched, and the first phase of the “Sharp Eyes Project” was completed and put into use, involving 33 villages and 20 communities in 25 townships. The three-level public health service network was improved, and the reform of rural health integration was actively carried out, constructing supportive facilities in all administrative village clinics. In addition, the county kept deepening the reform of the construction and management mechanism for affordable housing projects, improving the urban housing security system, and innovating the new models for transforming dilapidated and old houses in shantytowns and finding affordable housing. On the basis of the “Implementation Plan for the Reform of Improving the Urban Affordable Housing Construction and Management Mechanism in Nanjiang County”, a series of regulatory documents, such as the “Nanjiang County Public Rental Housing Management Measures (for Trial)”, “Implementation Measures for Monetized Resettlement in Shantyt Town Transformation in Nanjiang County (for Trial)” and other documents, have been issued. The gradual improvement in the housing security system helps significantly raise the living conditions in urban low- and middle-income families, newly employed workers without housing, and migrant workers.

Chapter 3

Collaborative Governance in Green Development

The foundation for rural revitalization is effective governance, whose key lies in collaborative governance featuring “one core and multiple participants”, including party and government integration, enterprise implementation, societal coordination, and external integration. This is the modernization of the rural governance system and capacity. The efficient advancement in Nanjiang County’s green development benefited from the governance system of “one core and multiple participants” as an institutional guarantee. From poverty alleviation to rural revitalization, Nanjiang County places the party and government as the heart, combining multiple factors, such as enterprises, social organizations, the masses and external forces, to form an organizational system with upper-lower, internal–external coordination. This will help with collaborative governance in green development.

1 Party and Government Integration As the core leadership of Nanjiang’s Green Development, the county’s party committee and government internally and vertically integrated the party and government departments at the county, township, and village levels and implemented a series of national policies and guidelines through the party building responsibility system and the administrative responsibility system. They also seek assistance and cooperation from the outside to integrate technology, capital, personnel and other factors into the process of green development through horizontal coordination between organizations. In the current process of grassroots political practice, the party and government have become the core of grassroots governance. Enterprises, social organizations across various fields, and people from all walks of life were unified by the party committee and the local government, forming a deeply, organically coordinated governance system. Specifically, despite differences in functions and division of © China Social Sciences Press 2022 S. Zhou et al., Integrated Governance in Rural China: Case Study of Nanjiang County, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3085-0_3

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labor between the party committee and the government, they share one set of leaders in terms of personnel composition. From the perspective of organizational function, integration of the two sides is conducive to maximizing the pooling of resources to gather resources, functions, and advantages of various governors vertically and horizontally, thereby enhancing the overall governance capabilities of the grassroots and realizing the goal of collaborative governance. Specifically, in vertical integration, the grassroots power system uses the bureaucracy model as the main path and carrier to empower players at various levels and activate their principal role in grassroots governance. The basic structure of bureaucracy mainly consists of three levels—county, township and village. Each level itself is a micro system with hierarchical characteristics, which can be subdivided into various functional departments and work organizations. For example, under China’s administrative hierarchy and power structure, the county-level government authority includes four leading groups—the county Party committee, county government, county people’s congress, and county CPPCC. Under these four groups, there are corresponding functional departments, as well as functional bureaus, institutions, and dispatched agencies under their jurisdiction.1 The basic logic of domestic county governance is that leading institutions and functional departments at all levels, under the leadership of the four groups, carry out governance actions in accordance with laws and regulations. Correspondingly, main players such as the market, society, and individuals were also introduced into the governance system by different entities of different bureaucracies. Following the policies and actions by players at different levels, various resources of main players at each horizontal level would begin to converge to the governance system, leading the hierarchical mobilization with the government as the principal role to “spill” into a broader market and social system. Horizontal collaboration, in contrast, highlights collaborative governance effects among different governance entities (markets, enterprises, social organizations, individuals, etc.). In particular, it is necessary to introduce capital and technology in the market and enterprises to activate local resources according to local conditions. This will support the concept of green and sustainable economic development to achieve common prosperity and build a solid economic foundation for social and cultural governance. It is also essential to engage social organizations in various fields and forms for a broader, deeper public service function, thereby reducing government administrative costs and making social governance more professional, systematic and time-efficient. In addition, we should also give play to the role of individuals in grassroots governance. For example, “New Village Elites” and other social organizations can boost coordination and communication between villages and townships, officials and people, turning the dual governance involving the township government and the “two village committees” to multiple governance to improve the autonomy of rural society and lay a solid foundation for the occurrence and evolution of the rural endogenous order. 1

Sun Ying: Grassroots Collaborative Governance under Integration of the CPC and the Government: An Example of Poverty Alleviation and Rejuvenation in N County, Sichuan Province, Theory Journal: No.1, 2019.

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Internally, regarding vertical integration, Nanjiang County implemented relevant policies at the central, provincial, municipal and county levels by integrating the party and the government for the same responsibility. Meanwhile, the joint efforts of multiple county departments can press ahead with projects, which can ensure their ability and responsibility to do so. These actions are mainly reflected in the CPC committee’s decision-making and government responsibility, where special documents, institutions and work teams are the main lever of efficient county governance. After decades of evolvement, CPC organizations at all levels remain the most important governing bodies in China’s grassroots politics. Today, China’s public governance is mainly conducted within an institutional framework of “CPC leadership and government-based integration”. On the one hand, the party committee at the core reflects the decision-making status in the political operation system. On the other hand, the CPC currently has nearly 90 million members and more than 4.5 million grassroots organizations, covering many fields such as politics, economy, society, and culture. They also bear important responsibilities for grassroots governance in social fields where government organizations are lacking, cannot act or hardly do so. In the modernization progress, economic and social transformation brought fundamental changes to the social structure and hence a trend of diversifying grassroots governance entities. Therefore, the government is playing an ever more significant role in deepening comprehensive reforms and tackling complex economic issues, especially at the grassroots level, where one team is shared in actual personnel arrangements by the party and the government, despite an organizational principle of using separated teams. Apparently, the government plays an indispensable role in grassroots governance. Such organizations at all levels in China possess major political, economic and ideological resources of the whole society, resulting in unquestionable authority in economic and social development. “With the development and progress of our society, traditional omnipotent government can no longer meet the needs of current social development, gradually shifting government functions to an orderly, efficient service model.”2 This also fundamentally solved some problems that the government could not solve in past grassroots governance. Taking poverty alleviation in Nanjiang County as an example, the work established a multi-level ledger in six major aspects (cards for households, registers for villages, books for townships, files for counties, volumes for cities, and treasuries for provinces), combined with a support mechanism called “five ones” (each impoverished village has one leading cadre at or above the county level in contact, one assistance department, one resident working team, one “first secretary” from the party organization, and one agricultural technician stationed in a village), to realize integrated leadership of counties, townships, and villages in resident working teams. Party-government integration not only exists within a region but also occurs between regions. From the perspective of macro-spatial politics, such integration can also be reflected in collaborative governance between higher levels and between

2

Wang Guangming: Grassroots Governance in Need of Joint Governance by All Parties, People’s Tribune, No.9, 2018.

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regions, mainly including the following dimensions: Vertically, it involves the participation of administrative units above the county level in governance at the county level and below; horizontally, it involves the integration of the party and government systems in different counties and the participation of other regional space enterprises, social organizations and individuals in the governance of local space. These different actors form a cross-regional integrated governance system through cooperation and interaction, formal systems, geographical, cultural, and economic affinity, or personal relationship networks. Through industrial cooperation, land use cooperation, or sharing and exchange of advanced ideas and experiences, different regions can mobilize the initiative and creativity of each entity to generate value and knowledge. Specifically, horizontal collaboration between external forces in Nanjiang County mainly includes assistance cooperation from external funds, personnel, and technology. On the one hand, there is government-level interaction, whose management and market support are provided by developed regions. For example, Jinyun County, Zhejiang Province and Nanjiang County formed a pair for collaboration in poverty alleviation. On the other hand, enterprises and social organizations help local industries use funds, such as the assistance provided by the Hong Kong Poverty Alleviation Association Limited for Nanjiang’s gutturosa industry and the comprehensive, targeted assistance provided by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to Nanjiang County. In general, integration of the party and government at the grassroots level is hierarchical mobilization oriented toward difficulties and dilemmas in grassroots governance to gather various resources, factors, and entities’ command and integration capabilities. In this regard, “the leadership of the party committee and the government responsibility resemble a vertical ‘strip’ system and a micro ‘block’ in grassroots governance. On this basis, the participation of enterprises, social organizations and the public diversifies the entity composition and content of integration, forming an integrated system and capacity vertically and horizontally at the grassroots level.” (see Footnote 1).

2 Corporate Implementation Enterprises are an important part of “one core and multiple participants” in generating actual effectiveness. When green development is boosting poverty alleviation and leading rural revitalization, enterprises are not only implementers of engineering projects but also organized carriers of the revitalization of green industries. During the political and economic practice of the 70 years since the founding of New China, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with the purpose of serving society and promoting common prosperity have assumed certain government functions. Their production and operation activities have important social governance implications and public service effects, which play an important role in grassroots governance. However, market-oriented private enterprises in the traditional sense are not the main

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players of grassroots governance because the essence of corporate production and operation activities is to make profits rather than providing public services. However, the positive externalities, released by corporate profit-making activities, positively affected grassroots governance and endowed companies with a principal status if maintained, promoted, and strengthened through institutionalization. At present, due to their economic, social and political nature, central or local SOEs are the main corporate actors in grassroots governance. Boasting a large number of resources essentially owned by the entire people in key areas of the national economy, SOEs can swiftly concentrate capital and technical factors on social development, thus playing an irreplaceable role in rural revitalization and poverty alleviation. The full use of SOEs’ initiative can raise the market competitiveness and risk-resisting ability of various market entities by optimizing the production layout and value creation process of local industries. SOEs also need to fulfill their political and social responsibilities by paying back the rural collective economy through independent operations. In the two-way interaction between grassroots needs and their own responsibilities and capabilities, SOEs have become an essential carrier of rural industrialization. Unlike SOEs, private enterprises isolated from the existing political system do not assume corresponding responsibilities in grassroots governance, nor do they have the awareness of participating in it. However, grassroots party and government systems can use their own political, organizational, and ideological advantages to enhance the spillover effects of their positive externalities into the governance process through certain integration methods. Some scholars have emphasized that political absorption and organizational embedding are the integration means used by the CPC to guide private enterprises to invest more in production and long-term activities.3 The two methods also matter in the integration of enterprises in grassroots governance participation by incorporating private enterprise elites into the decision-making process, combined with the cultivation of a sense of social responsibility at private enterprises, to extend and explore the implication of public services of business activities. In this way, the paths to integrate the economic and social aspects of companies are optimized, which can sharply widen their space to intervene in grassroots governance. On this basis, the government can engage enterprises in the grassroots governance system using projects—an institutional arrangement led by the party committee and the government, allowing enterprises to undertake specific projects as a platform to join the specific practice of grassroots governance. It is worth noting that the government also needs to adjust its working rules and discussion procedures to allow enterprises to perform their role. For example, in development zone management, the “government-corporate integration” model formed by organically unifying administrative and corporate departments in the development zone will be more conducive

3

He Xuan, Ma Jun: The Communist Party of China’s Integration Policy Toward Private Enterprises and Its Effectiveness: An Analysis of the Ninth National Survey of Chinese Private Enterprises, The Chinese Journal of Sociology, No. 5, 2016.

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to leveraging the two main players—government and enterprises—in institutional innovation and industrial development.4 In terms of functions and responsibilities, Nanjiang County’s companies are currently divided into the following categories: village-level collective asset management companies, the organizational form of the village-level collective economy that protects farmers’ basic interests in each village by sharing participation for dividends; tourism companies, integrating cultural and natural resources to turn them into capital and communities into scenic spots, driving the development in local industries using tourism; processing companies, such as Sichuan Beimu Nanjiang Gutturosa Group Company, Sichuan Dejian Nanjiang Gutturosa Foods Co., Ltd. And so on, while constructing ecological function zones in Nanjiang to boost farmers’ ingenious development in agricultural characteristic industries and sophisticated processing industries; engineering construction companies, which, under the guidance of government policies and projects, promote project implementation through targeted capital investment, such as the unified planning and construction of central villages and resettlement sites, where the state-owned platform Chunhui Company served as the project management unit and the major implementer, with project departments and construction teams organized across townships; e-commerce platforms, which used the “internet plus” model to build a three-level internet sales system covering county, township and village levels to achieve cross-regional sales of green organic products.

3 Social Organization Engagement In the rural governance system, social organizations, which are non-profit and public welfare oriented, play an important role as professional organizations in governance participation. For a long time, China’s grassroots governance has been largely controlled and dominated by a single administrative power, indicating a lack of autonomous social organizations and insufficiency of social vitality.5 Due to the weak representativeness of public opinions and under-stimulated vitality of social autonomy, the top-down, government-led system design will inevitably face disadvantages including high cost, low efficiency, and difficult implementation. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, China’s social organizations and forces gradually matured and were activated in grassroots governance, giving birth to a governance system consisting of governments, enterprises, and social organizations that emphasizes mutual benefit and win–win. In recent years, social organizations in Nanjiang County have seen steady growth. In terms of poverty alleviation, Nanjiang County gave full play to the unique advantages of veteran cadres by establishing party branches for retired members and 4

Chen Kelin: The Research on “Government-enterprise Integrated Mode” in the Governance of Development Area, Journal of Gansu Administration Institute, No. 4, 2015. 5 Zhou Qingzhi et al.: Rural Governance: System Construction and Social Evolvement, China Social Sciences Press, 2016, p. 43.

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elderly volunteer service teams for poverty alleviation in 48 townships and villages throughout the county, building four platforms around party building, science and technology, love and gratitude. Focusing on the industrial presence of green development, Nanjiang County leveraged the professional expertise of the “China Association of Senior Scientists and Technologists” and turned it into a “think tank” for poverty alleviation assistance, which provides free access to policies, information, technology and other services to poor households. In terms of civility, the “Elderly Volunteer Service Team” of Nanlin Road Community is a business card of Nanjiang County, which helped the community solve difficulties in production and daily life. “Sister Wang’s Chat Room” in this community has innovated methods of people’s mediation, which greatly reduced residents’ conflicts and family disputes. In recent years, thanks to the efforts made in this room, there has not been a case of petitioning in the Nanlin Road community. The development and participation of social organizations is a concrete manifestation of the level of grassroots governance. Through the participation and coordination of multiple types of social organizations, Nanjiang County realized a three-level vertical linkage among counties, townships and villages, enhancing the modernization of grassroots governance. In the “Decisions of the Central Committee of the CPC on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensive Deepening of Reform” adopted by the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC”, “social governance” replaced “social management”, marking the entry of China’s social governance into a new stage.6 Correspondingly, the report at the 19th National Congress of the CPC further proposed to “create a social governance pattern of joint construction, governance and shared benefits”. As the number of social organizations in China has rapidly increased, they are performing an increasingly important function of public services in grassroots governance, especially in the fields of elderly care and education. For social organizations to act in grassroots governance means a need to change the function of state power in grassroots society. By transforming government functions from social control and management to social guidance and services, a new pattern will be created, where the state, the enterprise sector, and social organizations, among other main elements, participate in governance. Specifically, judging from the actual situation in Nanjiang County, grassroots party organizations and governments at all levels should integrate social organizations into governance through at least the following three methods. First, according to time and local conditions, targeted promotion of the development in specific social organizations can be conducted. Development stages, major contradictions and interest relationships vary across regions and hence different demands on social organizations. The government must take the initiative to resolve the contradiction between the lagging development in social organizations and local economic and social development by building platforms to grow social organizations of specific types and fields. This is conducive to timely responding to economic and social problems and can 6

Liu Hua, Li Cheng: Speech Logic, Times Features and Improvement Paths of Social Governance during 70 Years since the New China, Academic Exploration, No. 8, 2019.

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closely integrate social organization governance with government governance for stronger inherent vitality in horizontal integration (see Footnote 6). Second, efforts can be made to set a communication and cooperation mechanism for efficient negotiation between multiple participants. As the social division of labor and interactions became complicated, the trend of expanding social organizations, functional differentiation, and a wide range of activities became increasingly obvious. How to promote cooperation among social organizations thus became a major institutional problem. The government and party organizations need to use institutional constraints and propaganda guidance to build channels for communication, dialog and feedback between social organizations and the public, between social organizations themselves, and between social organizations and the government. This will help create a policy environment for communication and negotiation among all parties, giving birth to an equal and cooperative “political-social” ecosystem, to enhance institutional incentives for harmonious evolution of social organizations in various fields. This can also prevent social organizations from acting independently so that different organizations can raise their own value through complementary networks of information, policies and resources.7 Finally, emphasis should be placed on establishing a mechanism for expressing public opinions and feedback. The creation and development of social organizations depends on public engagement, but the homogenization logic of small groups within organizations can produce demand for safeguarding their own interests in bureaucratic systems, which will likely deviate from the masses to the opposite side of the public interest. As a result, a mechanism for expressing public opinions is needed to boost institutional construction inside social organizations for public participation in organization building, decision making and implementation; a regulation and restraint mechanism based on public opinions is also needed to supervise the trend of involution and bureaucracy inside such organizations. In this regard, the proper use of internet information technologies to create an internet platform for collecting, processing, and returning public opinions is of great importance to build a mechanistic space where social organizations collaborate with the party and the government in evolvement under a “political-technological” environment combining the rule of law, intelligence and deliberative reasoning.

4 Talent Guarantee The core of green development in Nanjiang County is to make green “dividends” accessible to everyone. Only by putting people at the core and stimulating the endogenous power of rural participants can the goal of rural rejuvenation be achieved.

7

Zhu Xiaoling, Xiao Huafeng: Challenges and Countermeasures in Multiple Collaborative Governance Practice in Urban Grassroots Societies, Provincial Conditions and Strategies, No. 8, 2019.

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In the organizational system of “one core and multiple participants”, rural talents are a foundation of poverty alleviation and pursuit for well-being among farmers, which is important to optimizing rural governance and tackling its current dilemmas. Expanding the team of rural talents can nourish the main participants of rural governance, which may revert the unfavorable outflow of rural elites in large numbers, enhance the strength and capacity of the main participants in economic growth, cultural transmission and other aspects of grassroots governance, and improve the use of current governance systems. A wider and stronger talent team will help turn the dual governance, led by the township government and the “two village committees”, to multiple governance, which can better the grassroots government’s regulation of villages and autonomous governance of village societies. A stronger talent guarantee to maximize the positive side of people in governance practice requires replenishing and fostering the intellectual capital of rural participants from the perspective of internal–external grassroots mechanism linkage, that is, expanding the existing grassroots capital by means of “exogenous–replenishing” and “endogenous–fostering”: on the one hand, attracting intellectual elites to create their own value by starting businesses at the grassroots level; on the other hand, setting up a knowledge education system covering the grassroots level to add new knowledgeable participants internally. Meanwhile, an integrated force of the party and the government is needed to improve talent teams’ moral and political quality, to form a whole set of normalized terms and textual systems serving as a guidance and example, which combines public opinions and the rule of law in designing an ethical standard for elite culture. Finally, development in autonomous governance by the grassroots public is essential to enhancing people’s democratic awareness and political engagement habits, with their participation and governance capacity to be strengthened through practice. Improving talent teams from intellectual, political and ethical aspects can raise the efficiency and quality of addressing issues to guide deliberative democracy and multiple collaborative governance to better solve issues in grassroots social and economic development to build a stable, normalized governance structure. To set up a talent team that supports grassroots governance, Nanjiang County’s party committee and government raised the quality and capacity of all groups, from common farmers to professional large households to technical personnel and village cadres, by cementing the base of the main participants in an all-round way, which helped create a team of rural talents who have endogenous vitality, love the countryside and prefer to stay. Farmers are the major force in the countryside, but the commonly seen hollowing out of rural areas points to a serious outflow of talents, meaning that people who understand agriculture and love the countryside are decreasing. Rural rejuvenation is impossible without talents who understand policy and village conditions and possesses capabilities. Relying on farmers’ night schools, Xiaohe Vocational Middle School, village political colleges and other types of training institutions, Nanjiang County improved farmers’ capacity and quality, fostering groups of talents who come from the grassroots, work at the grassroots and can take root in the countryside. This formed a solid foundation for rural development in terms of participants.

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5 External Collaboration While tapping into endogenous momentum, Nanjiang County actively sought external help, combining multiple support sources from other places to join the local work of poverty alleviation and rural rejuvenation. In 1995, the ICBC decided to provide targeted support to Nanjiang County. In the past two decades, the bank successively assigned 56 cadres for poverty alleviation, granting a total of over RMB 4 billion in loans and over RMB 90 million in voluntary donations. Through the precise implementation of poverty alleviation via financial, industry, educational and health measures, the county formed a path for targeted poverty alleviation consisting of “reliance on external support such as a blood transfusion and a more sustained effort from self-motivation” and “enhancing farmers’ motivation and ability to fight against poverty”. The ICBC contributed funds to provide impoverished households with featured resources, such as Nanjiang gutturosa, Bashan aardvark, Kongshan cattle, and meat rabbits, and carried out green projects to develop green circular industries as part of poverty alleviation. In 2016, the bank explored a targeted poverty alleviation model via industry development involving the ICBC, government, two village committees, leading companies, and impoverished households to help targeted counties continue growing featured, advantageous industries. Taking Nanjiang gutturosa assistance as an example, the ICBC buys quality female gazelles from local leading companies for donation to poor villages, which would lend the gazelles to poor households for breeding. Two years later, those households return the animals to the village and keep the babies. This model has multiple effects: rural households enjoy targeted support, rural villages accomplish the task of “generating revenues from the collective economy” to no longer be poor, and other non-poor households can increase their revenues by joining village collective economic organizations. The model of “borrowing and returning gazelles” was widely publicized by Farmers’ Daily and Sichuan TV, among other media houses. In 2017, the model was further expanded to “custodian breeding”, where the ICBC would donate gazelles to poor households or villages for collective breeding by professional breeding personnel organized by collectives and large professional households, with dividends distributed to poor households or villages and non-poor households joining collectives. This model boosted industrialization and large-scale development in the Nanjiang gutturosa industry, continuously alleviating poverty and raising revenues for poor households. In paired assistance activities between Sichuan and Zhejiang, Nanjiang County and Jinyun County of Zhejiang Province formed a pair for poverty alleviation collaboration. In January 2018, the two parties signed a Framework Agreement for Poverty Alleviation Eastern-Western Collaboration between Jinyun and Nanjiang, planning how to carry out paired assistance projects, policies and mechanisms. Deep collaboration will be conducted on talent exchanges, e-commerce, agricultural industries, investment attraction and other aspects to boost new results in paired assistance. Jinyun County set up a related assistance mechanism that links its cadre promotion with temporary posts in Nanjiang-related assistance work. This can encourage

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cadres in the east to use their own advantages in industries, technologies, talents, and other resources to actively participate in poverty alleviation and rural rejuvenation. For example, a cane shoot project in Jinyun County was introduced to Nanjiang, where cadres from both sides joined the entire industrial chain spanning planting, technology guidance, marketing and sales, forming a win–win basis to complement advantages between the east and the west, which boosts mutual balanced development. In addition, external collaboration also includes support from all walks of life in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Poverty Alleviation Association Limited is a newly added force that provides support, with Nanjiang County confirmed as its first place for targeted poverty alleviation. In May 2018, the association signed a memorandum of cooperation with Nanjiang, raising RMB 100 million in assistance funds, and participated in targeted poverty alleviation in some townships in Nanjiang County while supporting featured industries, education technologies and poverty alleviation via medicine, among other fields. Its ability to explore an innovation path of green development fundamentally relies on a collaborative governance system of “one core and multiple participants”. Under such a system as the institutional guarantee, green development practice will broaden the innovation path from poverty alleviation to rural rejuvenation.

Chapter 4

Path to Green Development and Rural Governance of Mountainous Counties

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, Nanjiang County has gradually embarked on a new path of economic and social development in the Qinba Mountains through the innovative practice of promoting green development, which helped rebuild the county-level collaborative governance system. While diversifying ways of poverty eradication in China, the practice can help us sum up the basic experience and patterns of green development and rural governance in mountainous counties. This understanding of patterns can serve as significant inspiration and demonstration for the 80 counties (cities and districts) that belong to the Qinba Mountains and have important reference value for most mountainous counties across the country to promote green development and improve governance.

1 Target Positioning: Poverty Alleviation Before Comprehensive Rural Revitalization Nanjiang County, a state-level impoverished county, has a wide distribution of poor people, featuring a deep degree of poverty and a large poor population in rural areas. In 2014, the county accurately identified 156 poverty-stricken villages and registered 24,840 poverty-stricken households with 88,084 people, pointing to a poverty headcount ratio of 15.8% at that time. Faced with the arduous task of poverty alleviation, Nanjiang County determined a development path of “ecological development as a base and green development as a driver” and strived to transform abundant green resources into sustainable green ecological industries. When promoting green development, Nanjiang County has a clear goal orientation. First, it benchmarked against the goal of “two no worries and three guarantees”1 so that people have no 1

“The Outline for Development-Oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011–2020)” provided in the overall goal of development-oriented poverty alleviation that “by 2020, poverty alleviation targets will have no worries about food and clothing and have their compulsory education,

© China Social Sciences Press 2022 S. Zhou et al., Integrated Governance in Rural China: Case Study of Nanjiang County, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3085-0_4

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worries about food and clothing, with compulsory education, basic medical treatment and housing security guaranteed. This will ensure that the entire county eliminates poverty. Only when the fight against poverty is won can the overall revitalization of the countryside obtain a solid foundation. Throughout the country, poverty remains the most prominent shortcoming in current development, and the overall situation of poverty alleviation remains complex and severe. On the one hand, over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, more than 700 million people were lifted out of poverty, especially since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, when poverty alleviation slashed the size of the poor population and the poverty headcount ratio. As of the end of 2017, China’s poor population had decreased by 68.53 million people, an average annual reduction of 13.7 million people, with the poverty headcount ratio sharply decreasing from 10.2% in 2012 to 3.1%.2 On the other hand, China still faces an arduous task of poverty alleviation, with the total rural poor population exceeding 30 million. Compared with the past, lifting those people out of poverty undoubtedly means more costs and difficulties. In this regard, the report issued at the 19th National Congress of the CPC called on the nation to win the fight against poverty and proposed the need to implement a rural revitalization strategy and accelerate the modernization of agriculture and countryside. In contrast, poverty alleviation is a major political task and a project in the public interest that urgently needs to be approached and a short-term goal for rural development with clearer implementation standards and shorter turnaround times. Rural revitalization is an all-around strategy that involves the overall development of the rural economy, politics, culture, society, ecological civilization, and party building, a complete upgrade of agriculture, complete progress in rural areas, and complete development in farmers. It depicts the medium- and long-term vision of the development in China’s rural areas. Therefore, mountainous counties promoting green development require a clear understanding of target setting and logical sequence, which means that green development must first solve the problem of “two no worries and three guarantees” for poor people. The victory of the battle against poverty will free those counties to plan for a green rise to further accelerate agricultural and rural modernization and comprehensive rural revitalization.

basic medical treatment and housing security guaranteed”, referred to as “two no worries and three guarantees” for short. Specifically, “no worries about food” means no worries about rations, securing refined grains as a staple food; “no worries about clothing” means that clothes can be purchased on their own, with seasonal clothes available for each season and daily life. Guaranteeing compulsory education refers to the compulsory education stage where students do not drop out of school due to poverty; guaranteeing basic medical treatment means that farmers can enjoy basic medical care and afford basic medical expenses, and those seriously ill enjoy severe illness assistance; guaranteeing housing security means ensuring that their own houses are safe. 2 Chen Yiwei: China’s Rural Poor Population Down to 30.46 Million by the End of 2017, Xinhua Net (http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018-02/01/c_1122353906.htm).

2 Prerequisite: Basic Instructure as the First Step of Poverty …

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2 Prerequisite: Basic Instructure as the First Step of Poverty Alleviation and Revitalization The backwardness of infrastructure in mountainous counties was deeply felt by people in Nanjiang. Before 1994, there was no graded road in Nanjiang County; in approximately 2010, the main road out of Sichuan, from Nanjiang to Hanzhong, was only a 5-m-wide winding mountain road. Such infrastructure cannot tackle issues with daily travel and drinking water, let alone industrial development and a rich life. For this reason, Nanjiang County’s party committee and government have tried every means to solve the long-standing problem of backward infrastructure, especially transportation, by integrating agriculture-related funds, encouraging social advances, obtaining corporate donations, and mobilizing people’s fundraising. This laid a solid foundation for local poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. Taking road construction as an example, Nanjiang County mainly focuses on the following four aspects: First, integrating agriculture-related funds, which means full and flexible use of the integration policy for such funds. In 2017 alone, agriculturalrelated funds of RMB 139.5 million were integrated for rural road construction and maximized economic benefits. Second, encouraging social advances. Nanjiang County further improved the incentives of social capital advancement for road repair; that is, townships, villages and communities in each project would recruit owners to provide advances for road repair. After a project is completed and passed the acceptance, subsidy funds will be transferred in three years, based on a proportion of 3:3:4 per year. In the past three years, social advances added to RMB 1.022 billion, and the mileage of road repairs with such advances reached 2044 km, which effectively alleviated the pressure on county fiscal expenditures and won time and initiative for poverty alleviation. Third, corporate donations should be obtained. Through visits to Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi and other places abundant with Nanjiang’s entrepreneurs, along with discussions conducted with them, Nanjiang County raised more than RMB 12 million in corporate donations, whereas Pinghe Town and Xingma Township raised over RMB 600,000 in one-off corporate donations from other places. Assistance organizations were guided to support the construction of rural roads: the Sichuan Railway Investment Group donated RMB 20 million for the construction of village roads in Dongyu Town, while linked organizations such as the county national taxation bureau and the county committee of economy and informatization, respectively donated RMB 300,000 to linked villages in assistance projects, greatly boosting local traffic. Fourth, mobilizing people’s fundraising. In place of the traditional fundraising method based on the per capita share of households, the county mobilized the general public to donate, where large households take the lead and people outside the county take the initiative. Higher donations are expected from wealthier farmers, while poor farmers can donate less. This new method can solve fundraising difficulties caused by the wealth gap and different degrees of benefit. Since the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan”, approximately 630,000 people in the county have participated in donation for rural road construction, raising funds of RMB 260 million. Among them, a single individual donation was up to RMB 1.2 million,

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combined with 9 donations of over RMB 500,000 and 56 donations of over RMB 100,000. In fact, the outdated infrastructure in Nanjiang County is far from rare. From the perspective of topography, in such a mountainous country, the mountain area accounts for approximately one-third of the total land area. Relatively speaking, those counties often face unique geographical conditions, featuring overlapping mountains and gullies and hence frequent occurrence of geological disasters such as landslides, collapses, and mudslides. Behind them, poor transportation facilities have caused a long-standing bottleneck that restricts economic and social development. Regarding how to address the development bottleneck, it has become a general consensus in all sectors of society that infrastructure comes first. “If you want to get rich, build roads first” is still the top priority for mountainous counties to get rid of poverty. Taking Ningde as an example, President Xi Jinping, then secretary of the Ningde Prefectural Committee, placed special emphasis on road construction in the “prescriptions” he provided for Xiadang Township that boasts vast mountains, broad forests and inadequate fields.3 Another example is Xiangshui Village in Dongyu Town, Nanjiang County, almost the most remote administrative village in the county. Centered around deep mountains, the town once registered a poverty headcount ratio as high as 73.1% and had a solid foundation for poverty alleviation and revitalization until the 11.3-km road connecting the village was hardened. To improve infrastructure in mountainous counties, great efforts are needed in transportation, water conservancy, energy, and information. However, most mountainous counties, which still belong to the traditional agricultural society, have traditional agriculture as the main pillar industry and seriously insufficient capital accumulation. Faced with higher costs in the construction and maintenance of infrastructure, they can hardly enhance it solely on their own finances. To make things worse, the cost of repairing roads can be much higher than the state subsidy standard, even up to RMB 3–4 million per kilometer. Thanks to strong support of the central government’s special-purpose fiscal funds for poverty alleviation, infrastructure in many mountainous counties has been greatly improved, which solved the long-existing problems concerning daily travel and safe drinking for local people and created favorable conditions for subsequent industrial development, foreign investment and talent return.

3

Zhang Zheng, Liu Wenjia, Gao Jianjin: Thirty Years of Persistence: Records of Poverty Alleviation in Ningde, Fujian, Guangming Daily, May 31, 2018.

3 Path: Great Efforts in Green Ecological Industry to Guide …

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3 Path: Great Efforts in Green Ecological Industry to Guide Integrated Development of the Three Main Industries Located in the mountains around the Sichuan Basin, Nanjiang is a typical mountainous agricultural county. Of the total population, approximately 110,300 households with 386,000 people engaged in small-scale farming, accounting for 54.4%, or 77.9%, of the agricultural population. Meanwhile, Nanjiang County is located at approximately 32°N on the climate boundary between China’s north and south. Such a unique geographical location has created its special natural ecology, giving it reputations such as the “Kingdom of Plants” and the “Treasure Box” of Daba Mountain. In recent years, Nanjiang County has cultivated the green ecological industry using its local ecological advantages. First, based on “green, organic, and selenium-rich” resources, it vigorously developed ecological industries such as Nanjiang gutturosa, selenium-rich tea, walnuts, honeysuckle, etc. second, the county successively shut down 16 polluting companies, including iron mines, coal mines, and brick factories, and introduced over 20 environmentally friendly companies to develop the characteristic processing of agricultural products. Third, it adhered to the parallel construction of industrial parks and scenic spots, developing a number of rural tourism loops, such as “Beautiful Zhengzhi Town—Colorful Long Beach—Watery Huaqiao Township—Yunding Tea House—Yuhu Fishing Village”, etc., as a way to boost ecotourism. Restricted by natural geographical conditions, most of the mountainous counties in China suffer lagging economic development, weak industrial foundations, and difficulties in population agglomeration, but they also enjoy unique advantages, including advantageous natural environments and rich, diverse ecological resources. As early as 30 years ago, President Xi Jinping pointed out in Ningde that it was not impossible to get rich relying on mountains, meaning that good management of mountains for ten, fifteen, or twenty years can turn them into “banks” (see Footnote 3). Given China’s basic national condition of a large population with relatively little land, agricultural production conditions vary greatly across regions. Many scattered plots are only suitable for family farming, which means that smallholder production will still abound for some time. In mountainous counties, the smallholder economy cannot get farmers rich, and small-scale agriculture has little future, while extensive and destructive development is also unsustainable. Therefore, counties must adhere to the concept of green development, relying on local green resources for development in green ecological industries. First, they should promptly shut down existing high-polluting companies and small coal mines and restrict the entry of high energy consumption and high-cost industries to protect their own ecological environment. Second, they must support new agricultural business entities, such as leading agricultural companies, professional cooperatives, large growers, and family farms, to boost ecological agriculture and circular agriculture. Third, they should orderly promote integrated development in the three major industries. On the one hand, it is

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necessary to develop the refined and deep processing industry of agricultural products, which helps increase their added value and turn the primary industry into the secondary industry; on the other hand, integration between industries and villages is advocated to ensure that industries are developed within villages that are scenic spots themselves. On this basis, counties can actively develop characteristic services such as rural tourism and ecological sightseeing, turning the primary industry into the tertiary industry. For those counties, green development is the most significant concept for poverty alleviation and revitalization. The green eco-industry can not only solve the current problems related to poverty alleviation but also serve as the foundation for rural revitalization and solid industrial support for sustainable future development.

4 Strategic Focus: Accelerated Urban–Rural Integrated Development to Boost Urban–Rural Integration Currently, up to 200,000 transfers and exports of rural laborers are done in Nanjiang County each year, manifesting an intensified trend of rural population exodus. For example, 70% of the people in some villages are working outside their hometowns. However, due to the impact of poor operation at local businesses, many migrant workers suffer from falling incomes, making it difficult to fully integrate into the city. Faced with an ever-accelerating urbanization trend, Nanjiang County sticks to promoting urban and rural development in a coordinated manner, focusing on urbanization of nearby counties and construction of the beautiful countryside. Specifically, the first step is master planning, where the county took the lead in the pilot demonstration of multi-plan integration in Sichuan Province. When completing its urban–rural system planning, it focused on building an urban system consisting of counties, key towns, and general market towns. The second step is steady progress in the reform of the urban household registration system, implementing the “zero threshold” for household migration to cities and towns while pushing forward the construction of affordable housing projects. It should improve the incentive mechanism for urbanization of the population transferred from agriculture and guide non-registered population and key groups to settle in cities. The third step is to introduce “Implementation Opinions on Encouraging and Supporting Entrepreneurship in Hometown”, providing an annual fiscal budget of RMB 30 million to initiate a fund for starting businesses in hometowns to reward, support, guarantee, and discount interest for economic entities set up to attract successful individuals working elsewhere to boost agriculture via investment in their hometowns. At present, urbanization in China enjoys accelerating development, seeing more people flow from the countryside to the cities and from smaller cities to larger ones. However, due to the high costs of living in cities under an urban–rural dual structure, the second generation of migrant workers faces an embarrassing dilemma between

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the city and the hometown, which forces a more feasible approach to nearby and local urbanization. In addition, due to a large population base in China, even if the urbanization rate reaches 70%, over 400 million people will remain in rural areas. Therefore, the countryside should not be allowed to hollow out.4 Mountainous counties must stand at the strategic height of integrated urban–rural development when coordinating development in urban–rural integration. On the one hand, it is necessary to lower the urbanization threshold and accelerate farmers’ integration into the urbanization and construction of counties, central towns and general market towns, which are expected to be the main attraction of migrant workers with better living environments and public services. On the other hand, some migrant workers and college students who come from rural areas should be attracted to return home to start businesses to guide the flow of factors caught between urban and rural areas to the countryside. Meanwhile, counties should supplement insufficient infrastructure and public services, turning the countryside into an “urbanized” one. Only by breaking the one-way flow of factors to the city and turning it into a more balanced, equal two-way flow can the integrated development in urban and rural areas be promoted in an orderly manner. In this way, the goal of urban–rural integration can finally be achieved.

5 Institutional Guarantee: System and Mechanism Innovation that Enhances the Modernization Level of Rural Governance When promoting green development, Nanjiang County has valued innovating mechanisms to raise the modernization level of county governance. For example, the reform of devolution to township governments has been conducted to decentralize human rights, administrative powers, and financial powers to many townships, such as Changchi town and Zhengzhi town, which will fully release the vitality of townships. Cadres were selected from the county, township, and village levels to form 520 resident working teams, over 3600 people in total, to ensure full coverage across all administrative villages and stronger grassroots organizations. Relying on Xiaohe Vocational School, Bazhong Village Political College was set up to train village-level reserve cadres and rural practical entrepreneurial talents on a large scale. Drawing on the concept of bank operation, “ethical banking” was explored as a way to judge villagers’ moral behaviors and quantify them into moral points. Accordingly, villagers are offered quarterly with production and living materials, effectively boosting folk customs. The case of Nanjiang shows that the modernization of rural governance is an institutional guarantee for economic and social development, and comprehensive revitalization of the countryside requires the modernization of the rural governance 4

Chen Xiwen, et al.: Follow the Path of Socialist Rural Area Revitalization with Chinese Characteristics, Guangming Daily, July 17, 2018.

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system and capabilities all the more. The structure of the system can be roughly divided into two aspects: horizontal and vertical. Vertically, the system requires counties, townships, and villages to perform their duties in a three-level linkage. Specifically, counties, at the highest level, act as leading regional organizers overseeing the overall situation and coordinating all parties. Townships, in the middle of the system, form the most basic level of government and act as an implementer in the organization responsible for enforcing laws, regulations and policies. Administrative villages, at the lowest level, find themselves at the intersection of the grassroots government and rural society, assisting the implementer and jointly carrying out various aspects of governance. Horizontally, rural governance needs complete mobilization of the government, the market, society, the public and other forces to form a mutually connected and complementary governance network and create an organic system of “one core and multiple participants” for collaborative governance. Specifically, the guarantee of party-government integration is the most important link, which actually controls various forces and integrates resources in society. Under the guidance of market patterns, companies mainly provide funds and technical support needed in rural governance. Social organizations responsible for undertaking the functions transferred from the government provide diversified public services. The public needs to increase their enthusiasm and initiative in participating in rural governance and further exert their role as main participants. Regarding the basic orientation, the report at the 19th National Congress of the CPC proposed improving the rural governance system by combining autonomy, rule of law, and rule of morality. Specifically, autonomy is the foundation, rule of law is the guarantee, and rule of morality is the support. County and township governments should rapidly transform their functions to become service-oriented governments upholding the rule of law. Various social organizations in the countryside should grow up quickly, further stimulating villagers’ sense of self-organization, self-management, self-education, and self-service to play a fundamental role in rural governance. Rural society also needs to further cultivate a new style of civility, advocating the culture of “New Village Elites”, to stimulate people’s endogenous motivation to respect morality and follow good examples.

Chapter 5

Proper Ways to Deal with Relationships in Green Development and Rural Governance

From Nanjiang’s lively practice, it can be seen that advancing governance and reengineering with green development is a huge and complex system project. This requires us to proceed from the overall situation of economic and social development and follow the objective laws for the development of things to properly handle several important relationships.

1 Relationship Between Government Leadership and Farmers’ Dominance The county must adhere to both government leadership and farmers as the dominant entity, which means respecting local farming habits and utilizing the comparative advantages of the industries. This is because the key to promoting industrial poverty alleviation lies in identifying development positioning, plus innovating and improving on the basis of precise positioning. Nanjiang County, which possesses high mountains, deep valleys and few flat dams, is not suitable for development in the secondary and tertiary industries. To break the restrictions of natural geographical conditions, the Nanjiang County Party Committee and the county government leveraged traditional advantages brought by planting of honeysuckle and Chinese medicinal materials and gutturosa breeding as a way to develop a modern agricultural model. Great efforts have been made to build local agricultural product brands to embark on a development path that suits its own reality. It is widely known that not all villages in mountainous counties boast location advantages for industrial development. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively consider local traditional production habits, develop according to local conditions, maximize strengths and avoid weaknesses under government guidance, to select advantageous industries suitable for local characteristics in order to obtain comparative advantages in competition. In addition, the implementation of green development methods is one of the important tasks of rural revitalization strategies, and farmers © China Social Sciences Press 2022 S. Zhou et al., Integrated Governance in Rural China: Case Study of Nanjiang County, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3085-0_5

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are the main participants and promoters of agricultural and rural green development. Therefore, in the construction of industrial poverty alleviation projects, the enthusiasm in poor households, as the main bodies in poverty alleviation and rejuvenation, must be fully mobilized. Poverty alleviation industries should be selected based on the principles of precise policy and precise assistance and the respect of people’s wishes to strengthen villages and enrich people.

2 Relationship Between Material Poverty Alleviation and Spiritual Poverty Alleviation To get rid of poverty naturally involves a change of ways of production and life, but equally important or even more important is undoubtedly the improvement in the spiritual world. An intersecting area between the old revolutionary base, the Qinba mountainous area and a backward area, Nanjiang County has seen a deeply rooted mentality of a small-farm economy and a thinking of “waiting, relying, and demanding” among farmers. During material poverty alleviation, spiritual poverty alleviation is as important as material poverty alleviation, with attention given to accelerating the transformation of rural households’ backward concepts to raise the quality of industrial poverty alleviation. The practice of green development shows that to achieve the grand goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way, we must work not only on the equalization of public services and livelihood improvement but also on the capacity building of farmers themselves and the use of market concepts to guide their industry development. We must not only extend and tilt infrastructure projects to poor villages but also educate and guide poor households to change their concepts so that they can generate self-reliance and boldness in work and gradually improve their self-development skills. Only in this way can poverty alleviation and rural revitalization achieve greater results. Poverty alleviation practices in many other places also illustrate the need to grasp the two pillars: material poverty alleviation and spiritual poverty alleviation. On the one hand, we must carry out poverty alleviation via industry growth, and on the other hand, we should make up for “spiritual shortcomings” to raise the income of the poor and the sound development of industries by stimulating the endogenous force of impoverished people to get richer.

3 Relationship Between Short-Term Benefit and Long-Term Benefit The essence of industrial poverty alleviation lies in path identification and mechanism establishment. In this regard, Nanjiang County has always combined short-term benefits with long-term benefits, with a focus on three aspects. First, in terms of

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thinking, it emphasizes the creation of famous, quality, special and new brands to enhance the stamina of industrial development. Second, in terms of methods, shortterm benefits are combined with long-term benefits, where the former serves as the support of the latter, which means that short-term “financial accounts” are calculated and long-term “industry paths” are tailor-made for poor households. Third, in terms of mechanism innovation, Nanjiang County has explored mechanisms such as “fund integration”, “industry custodianship”, and “share dividends” to ensure short-term poverty alleviation and innovated mechanisms such as “assessment and incentives”, “personnel training”, and “mutual assistance for poverty alleviation” for long-term development. For example, the county chose to plant Chinese medicinal materials, konjac and other short-term projects to quickly solve urgent difficulties but also formulated long-term plans for development in honeysuckle, gutturosa and other industries with reference to local resources. It not only promoted the plans throughout to multiply the number but also innovated high-quality brands such as “Nanyin No. 1” to upgrade product quality. Practice has proven that when promoting poverty alleviation and revitalization, we should take into account both short-term and long-term benefits by gradually cultivating pillar industries with regional characteristics and continuously enhancing the stamina of industrial development to mobilize the enthusiasm and initiative of people for a long time and lead more people to get well off. It is worth noting that rational promotion is needed for ecological development in industries and ecology industrialization on the basis of strict adherence to the ecological bottom line so that good ecology becomes a supporting point for rural revitalization, thereby achieving high-quality development in agriculture and countryside.

4 Relationship Between Overall Advancement and Differentiated Guidance Materialist dialectics believes that everything is an organically connected whole composed of various parts, and the whole and the parts are inseparable and mutually influential. Specifically, the whole prevails over the parts and plays a leading and dominant position; the parts restrict the whole and can even affect the overall development status under certain conditions. This requires us to establish a global concept and focus on the whole when doing things and work well on the parts to maximize the overall function. In accordance with the overall spatial layout of the region, Nanjiang County wholistically considered and planned for its industrial development, consisting of an ecological conservation and tourism economic zone in the north, an ecological industry and urban development zone in the middle, and an ecological characteristic agricultural economic zone in the south. At the same time, according to local conditions, the county provided classified guidance to towns and townships, supporting them in growing characteristic pillar industries. The case of Nanjiang County shows

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that dialectical thinking combining overall promotion and classified guidance helps with green development and poverty alleviation in mountainous counties and is also conducive to the improvement, transformation and reconstruction of governance mechanisms.

5 Relationship Between Industry Development and Rural Governance As the foundation for sustainable development in various rural undertakings, industries must thrive to support the implementation of rural revitalization. To achieve the goal of industrial prosperity in rural areas, it is necessary to consider the following three aspects. First, based on local advantageous resources, we should develop rural characteristic industries in accordance with local conditions, such as characteristic planting and breeding, agricultural product processing, rural tourism, e-commerce and other rural services. Second, we may rely on new urbanization to promote the integrated development of rural primary, secondary, and tertiary industries to build a modern industrial system that integrates agriculture and secondary and tertiary industries and forms a new rural development landscape featuring urban–rural integration. Third, we need to consolidate and improve the basic rural management system and maintain stable, long-term land contracting relations while deepening the reform of the rural land system and the rural collective property rights system to continuously improve the system for the separation of the three rights—ownership, contracting rights and management rights—of rural contracted land. Meanwhile, the innovative reform of the separation of ownership, qualification rights and use rights of rural homesteads will be promoted. In contrast, rural governance is a task naturally contained in rural revitalization but also a necessary guarantee for its process acceleration. At present, amid historical changes in China’s social structure, rural governance is being carried out under the continuous struggle between new urbanization and rural revitalization. On the one hand, with the continuous advancement in reform and opening up, more farmers are pouring into cities, boosting China’s urbanization rate and a steady flow of rural talents, funds and various resources to cities. On the other hand, the rural revitalization strategy requires a large input of money investment, which means that a large amount of manpower and financial resources need to return to rural areas. Faced with such a “reverse pull”, rural governance needs to leverage comprehensive reform deepening to break a series of institutional dilemmas for structural adjustment in governance content and methods. Specifically, rural governance must first adhere to the people-centered principle, prioritizing farmers’ interests, leveraging their dominant role, and respecting their rights to know, participate, decide and supervise. Second, the institutional barriers between urban and rural areas should be removed to promote the two-way balanced flow of various elements and provide necessary human and material support for

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collaborative governance. Finally, we must persist in integrating the rule of law, rule of morality and autonomy by strengthening the vitality and foundation of grassroots democratic autonomy, the construction of the rule of law in rural areas and the power of the rule of customs-related ethics. In this way, an integrated urban–rural governance structure featuring autonomy, rule of law and rule of morality can be formed to build the modernization of rural governance on a reliable and sustainable system foundation.1 Industry development and rural governance are mutually interactive and reinforcing. Development in rural industries can enhance the attractiveness of rural areas and gather various factors of production in rural areas more quickly so that the material foundation required for rural governance can be further secured. In return, a higher level of collaborative governance in rural areas can generate a better social environment for industry development and more sustainable maintenance and expansion of industries.

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Zhou Shaolai, Village Governance: Where is the Institutional Problem, People’s Tribune, No.3 2019.

Chapter 6

Outlook on Promoting Green Development and Rural Governance

Judging from the experience and implications of Nanjiang County using green development to promote governance reengineering, mountainous counties in China should strive for greater support from the central level and further accelerate green development in the following six aspects. First, fiscal support from the central level should be higher for Nanjiang and other mountainous counties, combined with further establishment of ecological compensation mechanisms. As mentioned earlier, Nanjiang County is a typical mountainous county that has limited financial resources. In the face of high costs of infrastructure construction and maintenance, the county also undertakes ecological protection granted by the state, which means that the ecological environment must be given top priority. This requires the central government to issue differentiated fiscal support policies to further raise fiscal transfer payments for infrastructure and ecological compensation in mountainous counties. Meanwhile, the county may gradually establish a market-oriented ecological compensation mechanism, which explores trading systems for water rights, pollution emission rights, and carbon emission rights, thus forming a situation where the two compensation mechanisms complement and promote each other. Second, green ecological industries should be strengthened to further raise the industrialized value of resources. Mountainous counties may boast various rich resources, most of which are often idled and far from being fully developed. In the future, the counties should conduct a thorough inventory and integration of various resources within the region and carry out packaged development and industrialized operations to enhance the industrialized value of local resources. First, characteristic agricultural products can be targeted, and under the premise of stronger market development, the industrial scale of ecological planting and breeding can be expanded. Second, considering the local agricultural reality, the county can develop sophisticated processing of such products and turn the primary industry into the secondary industry. Third, relying on agricultural industries and tourism resources, development is possible in a number of characteristic tourism resources, such as agricultural tourism, eco-tourism, health care tourism, cultural tourism, etc., to turn the © China Social Sciences Press 2022 S. Zhou et al., Integrated Governance in Rural China: Case Study of Nanjiang County, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3085-0_6

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primary industry into the tertiary industry. Fourth, the “tourism plus” model can be promoted when necessary to boost resource capitalization, such as development in natural mineral water and characteristic tourist routes and so on, and to launch local specialty tourism products with high added value and local characteristics, to make the local tourism market more attractive. Third, historical and cultural heritage can be dug out to build a unified brand of green culture in the county. Li Shangyin’s “Written on Rainy Night to My Wife in the North” is a well-known poem that must be memorized for primary and secondary schools, and almost everyone in the Chinese cultural circle can chant “It rains in western hills and autumn pool p’erflow” in it. Therefore, Nanjiang County can consider building on the powerful influence of the poem to create a unified brand for green culture and products closely related to the “Bashan Rainy Night”. On the one hand, various methods, such as a cultural square and a live-action drama named the “Bashan Rainy Night”, can be used to raise publicity. For example, “Where to find night rain in Bashan region? Welcome to green-colored Nanjiang” can be advertised via central media houses and large-scale outdoor billboards. On the other hand, customs and poetry festivals entitled “Bashan Rainy Night” can be hosted, and various rural tourism festivals will be unified under the brand. This will remind local people of special local festivals and allow tourists to form a deep impression of Nanjiang through the brand “Bashan Rainy Night”. Other mountainous counties should also actively explore their own historical and cultural heritage and create county cultural brands that meet their own characteristics. Fourth, it is necessary to expand foreign exchanges and cooperation to further open up the county to the outside world. In recent years, thanks to sharply improving traffic conditions across the country, mountainous counties, including Nanjiang County, have increased their openness, but it undoubtedly needs to be greatly improved when compared with developed coastal cities in the east, particularly on cultural terms. Overall, the counties also lack national and international perspectives. In the future, as high expressways, high-speed rail, airports and other infrastructure continue to perfect, counties should enhance their sense of openness and increase foreign exchanges, cooperation and the degree of openness. For example, drawing on the useful experience of “invigorating a city by hosting a fair”, the county can seek to hold the “Bashan Rainy Night International Poetry Festival” and “Bashan Rainy Night International Ecological Exposition”, among other distinctive national and international conferences. Sound growth in the international “convention economy” may rapidly increase the popularity of the region at home and abroad through concentrated reports from domestic and foreign media. Fifth, talent introduction should be intensified to gather all kinds of talents urgently needed for green development. When improving green development, mountainous counties such as Nanjiang should work harder to foster local talents and increase flexible talent introduction. This entails formulating more flexible strategies, building diversified institutional platforms, and engaging more scientific research institutions, colleges and universities, such as the establishment of the “Green Waters and Mountains Research Institute” and the “Two Mountains” theoretical innovation and practice base and so on., to attract more professionals who can turn “green waters and

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mountains” into precious assets to work locally. In particular, it can attract more professionals in urban and regional planning, industrial development, eco-tourism, environmental assessment, ecological regulation, etc., to provide more professional intellectual support for comprehensive revitalization of the countryside in the future. Sixth, grassroots government functions should be transformed to build a rural governance system that meets the requirements in the new era. Due to the particularity and urgency of the poverty alleviation task, grassroots governments used to take complete charge when adopting governance methods, even regardless of costs, which was necessary. However, there is undoubtedly a long way to go before the modernization of rural governance. In its future promotion, grassroots party committees and governments need to utilize the role of collaborative integration and improve democratic governance and law-based management. This renders decision-making more democratic and law-based and deepens government reform to “delegate power, streamline administration and optimize government services” to stimulate the vitality of social organizations, broaden the channels for citizen participation, and build a rural governance system that meets the requirements in the new era. On the one hand, grassroots people’s self-organization awareness can be strengthened to allow more social organizations to grow up, fully using the governance role of all kinds of social organizations; on the other hand, the grassroots democratic system and autonomous construction may be consolidated by leveraging people’s dominant role and sense of ownership to lay a solid social foundation for long-term stability in rural society.

Conclusion

After over a thousand years, the road to Sichuan is no longer difficult. Today, Nanjiang has been solving the thousand-year-old problem of economic and social development, seeing the expressway open to traffic and high-speed rail and airports under planning and construction. If the great poet Li Shangyin traveled to Nanjiang again and saw today’s colorful picture of “Bashan Rainy Night, green-colored Nanjiang”, and chanted again “When can we trim by window side the candlelight, and talk about the western hills in rainy night”, what mood would he have? Nowadays, the great changes in the green Nanjiang over a millennium are abundant with infinite emotions about smoothing out rough roads, and the path of green development in the Qinba mountainous area will help write another magnificent chapter. Going forward, the concept of green development will become more deeply rooted throughout China, and the process of modernization for rural governance will become better. More mountainous counties will truly realize rural revitalization and people’s happiness and will surely become shiny protagonists in contemporary Chinese modernization.

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