China's 'Building a New Socialist Countryside': The Ganzhou Model of Rural Development

China’s new model for economic growth can be traced to at least two important shifts in China’s development ideology. First, since the early 1990s the Chinese government has been concerned with increasing domestic consumption and restructuring China’s economy so that it is less reliant on export markets. After the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Justin Yifu Lin argued that China should launch a rural modernization program to resolve the problem of surplus production and weak domestic demand. This idea that China’s economic future is linked to boosting domestic consumption has become mainstream in light of the ongoing global recession. Second, since the early 2000s, the Chinese government has promoted the idea of “integrated urban-rural development,” which may be understood as a strategy for reducing social inequality. To narrow the urban-rural income gap and break down China’s “dualistic society,” the Chinese government eliminated rural taxes and fees in 2006 and began investing enormous resources in agriculture, rural infrastructure and social welfare. This paper addresses the question of how China’s new model for economic growth — increasing domestic consumption and integrated urban-rural development — has been practically implemented at the local level by providing a case study of Ganzhou city, Jiangxi province. In the 11th and 12th Five-Year Plans, the Chinese government outlined a national policy for rural development called “building a new socialist countryside” (NSC), which embodies the principles of China’s new growth model. Ganzhou was the first city in China to implement NSC programs, and since 2005 the “Ganzhou model” has been promoted as a promising new development strategy for China’s central and western regions. In contrast with the “Southern Jiangsu model” of developing collectively owned rural enterprises, or the “Wenzhou model” of embracing market competition and privatizing township and village enterprises, the Ganzhou model is considered appropriate for villages with weak collective assets and limited access to urban markets. The Ganzhou model of rural development emphasizes village renovation and the use of peasant councils to implement government policies. Ganzhou’s NSC program has dramatically altered rural living conditions, bringing paved roads, electricity, running water, flush toilets, and trash collection services to more than 15,000 villages. It has also created a rural housing boom, stimulated reverse migration, and contributed to consumer spending. In many parts of China, however, the NSC has been criticized for being too top-down; for focusing too much on “cosmetic changes” to the village; and for pressuring peasants to build housing they cannot afford. It has also created new conflicts over rural land, as local governments, driven by a profit motive, have consolidated rural housing into “modern” apartment style buildings and sold off “surplus” land for urban-industrial development. This paper, based on three months of fieldwork and approximately 150 interviews, argues that Ganzhou has avoided many of these problems because it has been more successful than other places at increasing villager participation in NSC programs. The innovative use of peasant councils to mobilize villagers and represent their interests has made Ganzhou a curious example of bottom-up participation in a state-led modernization drive.