Chinese President Hu Jintao
and Premier Wen
Jiabao both came to farmers' families to celebrate the
lunar New Year. Experts said their New Year trips to rural
areas showed the top leadership's resolution to build a new
socialist countryside aimed at common prosperity.
Joining villagers in dancing popular rural folk dance "Yangge"
and making glutinous rice cake or "niangao," President Hu spent the
New Year's Eve in farmer Kang Haifa's home, in Hougoumen Village of
Ansai County in the revolutionary base of Yan'an, in northwest
China's
Shaanxi Province.
Enjoying fried "niangao" with family-made rice wine, he told
Kang's family that the goal of building a new socialist countryside
in China is to ensure the farmers become rich more quickly, so that
festival food such as "niangao" will become their daily diet and
their standards of living will become better year by year.
Premier Wen on Friday and Saturday visited the?farmers in
east China's
Shandong Province. In farmer Guo Xuchen's home, in Guozhuang
Village of Heze City, the premier gave money to Guo, whose wife has
been sick for years and who have financial difficulties in
living.
On Friday afternoon, he went to a village clinic and talked with
doctor Dong Longxiang. "We should boost the new rural cooperative
medical system so that farmers can afford medical care," he said.
John McDonald, an expert on China issues living in New Zealand,
said in a Xinhua interview that the fact of Chinese leaders
visiting farmers at the country's most celebrated holiday for three
straight years demonstrated their great concern?for farmers
and the countryside.
"Their new year trips to rural areas also illustrated the
Chinese government's resolution to narrow the gap between the
countryside and city, farmers and urban citizens, so as to avoid
social disturbance and build a harmonious society," he said.
Wu Jiang, an expert on governmental administration and president
of the Chinese Academy of Personnel Science, said in an interview
with Xinhua that the President and Premier are taking actions to
tell the general public that the construction of "a new
countryside" is by no means a slogan, but a top issue in
government's work agenda.
The 5th Plenum of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China mapped out a scheme to boost the construction of a
new socialist countryside in October 2005.
The objectives of the scheme include continuous development of
agriculture, affluent and civilized life for rural residents, good
village environment and democratic administration of village
affairs.
To reach the objectives, Premier Wen promised in an important
speech on rural issues made on December 29, 2005 that the Chinese
government will, in the 2006-2010 period, input more financial
resources to improve farmers' living and production conditions,
promote compulsory education in rural areas, maintain the balance
between food supply and demand, deepen institutional reform at the
township level and financial reform at county and township levels,
provide subsidized medical care and social security for rural
residents and curb illegal farmland acquisition.
"Actually, a series of policies in favor of rural areas were
taken in the year 2005," said Wu, the government administration
expert.
Last December, the Standing Committee of the 10th National
People's Congress, China's top legislature, abolished the
2,600-year-old agricultural tax. In fact, with the fast economic
development in the country, the government began to phase out the
agricultural tax on a trial basis as early as in 2000. The tax
reform helped reduce farmers' tax burden by 23.4 billion yuan
(US$2.9 billion) from 2001 to 2004 and 22 billion yuan (US$2.7
billion) in 2005.
Premier Wen announced last December that tuitions for nine-year
compulsory education in rural areas would be exempted within two
years. The central government and local governments at various
levels would allocate a total of 218.9 billion yuan (US$27 billion)
to subsidize compulsory education in rural areas in the 2006-2010
period.
A report issued by the national legislature last October for the
first time disclosed that about 40 million farmers had lost
farmland in the country's urbanization process.
Premier Wen said in his latest speech that "we absolutely can't
commit a historic error as far as the issue of land is concerned,"
which demonstrates his and the government's strong will to
effectively curb the rampant land seizures for non-agricultural
purposes in rural areas.
(Xinhua News Agency January 29, 2006)
