By Zhang Xiaohuan, Research Team on “China’s Rural Governance in the New Era”, Institute of Public Administration and Human Resources, DRC

Research Report, Special Issue, No.48, 2019 (Total 1676), 2019-7-29

Abstract: In recent years, capital going to the countryside has been not only accelerating the agricultural modernization drive and the evolution of rural land system, but also shaping a new rural governance pattern. Capital going to the countryside will change the original power structure and leads to the decentralization of township power to village level, which will weaken the public support for rural social governance and villagers’ self-governance. In particular, the appearance of “village ruled by the wealthy” is exactly the intervention of strong market organization in rural social governance, which might give rise to new tension and conflicts in rural society. To deal with it, policy options are given on the following aspects. First, work needs to be done to optimize the relationship between towns and villages, clarify the responsibility of the committees of both towns and villages for capital going to the countryside; efforts need to be made to enhance the power structure of rural social governance, sort out the relationship between rural areas and industrial capital and a long-effect interest-sharing mechanism needs to be established between the two sides; the capability of rural households and rural household organizations to participate in the governance needs to be improved and the organization of villager’s self-governance needs to be innovated; the property rights ownership system of rural resources needs further optimization so as to revitalize the capacity of collective economic organizations to participate in the governance; the non-economic benefits of capital going to the countryside need to be brought into full play to boost its positive effects.

Key words: capital going to the countryside, rural social governance, rural business environment