1. News Highlights
On February 22, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) released the “No. 1 Central Document: Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on the Key Work of Comprehensively Advancing the Rural Revitalization in 2022” (hereinafter “No. 1 Document”), which is the document that has focused on “the three rural issues” of farmers, rural areas and agriculture for 19 consecutive years since 2004 (See Appendix). This shows that the three issues have been a major concern of the Chinese government for a long time. In addition to the continuation of the “Advancing Rural Revitalization” theme in last year’s No. 1 Document, the 2022 version, which weighs in with nearly 10,000 words, clearly points out that “ensuring national food security” and “not returning to poverty on a large scale” are the two bottomlines that must be kept, and it also gives strict instructions on issues such as food production, agricultural product supply, arable land protection, raising farmers’ income, rural industry development, environmental improvement, infrastructure construction, village governance, farmland development, and modern agricultural technology. This policy document sets out primary goals for the CCP’s work regarding “the three rural issues” in 2022 while stabilizing the “agricultural fundamentals” and achieving the stability of such rural issues.[1]
2. Security Implications
2-1. Food security is China’s national strategy
Ensuring food security has become a key national strategy for China in recent years. Since food supply is regarded as the foundation of China’s economic stability, the 14th Five-Year Plan proposed in late 2020 included a series of binding targets related to food security for the first time, specifying that China’s combined production capacity for food and energy must reach 650 million tons and 4.6 billion tons respectively by 2025. The 2022 “No. 1 Document” also makes it clear that “all efforts should be made to ensure food production and supply of major agricultural products”, and every region in China must fulfill the food production and transaction responsibilities to “secure farmland areas” and “secure food production volume”. According to the directives given by the Central Rural Work Conference in late 2021, the food production volume should reach 650 billion kg and 100 million Chinese acres of high-standard farmland should be developed by 2022. Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the CCP, has repeatedly mentioned in public that “Chinese people’s rice bowls must always be held firmly in our own hands, and should be full mainly of Chinese grain”[2] to emphasize his concern for food security and hope to improve China’s declining food self-sufficiency rate.[3]
2-2. Avoid a “return to poverty on a large scale”
After Xi Jinping announced in February 2021 that China would “end poverty in all aspects”, avoiding “return to poverty on a large scale” became the top priority of the CCP’s governance and a key task of the 2022 “No. 1 Document”. Xi hailed the “eradication of all poverty” as “a miracle on earth,” saying that “98.99 million poor rural people from 832 poor counties, or 128,000 poor villages, have been lifted out of poverty as the overall regional poverty has been resolved.”[4] However, in order to avoid “return to poverty on a large scale”, an effective “help” mechanism from the Chinese government is essential along with the creation of an remarkable economic performance that sustainably boosts the income of those who have left poverty.
2-3. Gap between urban and rural areas remains
From the perspective of farmers’ income, the uneven development between urban and rural areas is still a problem that the Chinese government tries to tackle. According to official statistics, the income gap between urban and rural residents in China is still wide. The per capita disposable income of rural residents grew from RMB 10,489 in 2014 to RMB 18,931 in 2021, while the disposable income of urban residents grew from RMB 28,844 to RMB 47,412, widening the income gap between the two groups of residents from RMB 18,355 to RMB 28,481 (see Figure 1). Although the income gap is slightly narrowing as urban income decreases from 2.75 times to 2.5 times that of rural residents, the income structure shows that the increase in rural residents’ income mainly comes from the wage income and net transfer income of industrial workers from rural areas,[5] which is unrelated to agriculture development and local industries.[6] Therefore, “No. 1 Document” of 2022 proposed to “reasonably protect farmers’ income from grain cultivation”, “vigorously develop industries that enrich the people” and “promote the development of rural industries”, and other policy plans to improve the income of farmers.
Figure 1 Changes in per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents in China over the years
Source: compiled by the author from the statistical releases on national economic and social development for the past years by the National Bureau of Statistics of China (http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/).
3. Trend Observation
3-1. “Social stability” and “avoiding return to poverty” are primary goals before the 20th National Congress
With the 20th National Congress just around the corner, the CCP’s top priority in 2022 is to maintain social stability, which is reflected in “the three rural issues”: to maintain “stable and increased food production”, “stable income for farmers” as well as “stable and peaceful rural areas”, and, more importantly, to ensure that the results of poverty eradication in rural areas, which hailed by Xi as “a miracle on earth”, can be effectively sustained. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of the many “helping” social assistance and health care policies proposed in “No. 1 Document” of 2022 will depend heavily on the government’s financial investment; with China’s economy facing the triple pressure of “shrinking demand”, “supply impact” and “weakening expectations” as well as the continuation of substantial tax cuts and fee reductions,[7] it remains to be seen whether the limited fiscal income can achieve the goal of avoiding “return to poverty on a large scale”.
3-2. Farmland conservation and better food self-sufficiency are long-term issues
In terms of food security, the acute problems China is facing are farmland protection and insufficient self-sufficiency of major agricultural products (such as soybeans and oil crops). According to Chinese agricultural experts, China’s farmland decreased by an average of 11 million Chinese acres per year from 2009 to 2019, leading to the difficulty in effectively achieving the goal of increasing production due to the low quality of the existing farmland.[8] The “Third National Soil Census”[9] recently announced by the State Council of China will be launched in order to grasp the real situation of land use in each province. In terms of the supply of major agricultural products, take soybeans as an example, according to statistics, China’s soybean production in 2021 is only 16.4 million tons, while imports are as high as 96.518 million tons, showing an extremely high degree of dependence to foreign sources.[10] However, it’s difficult to achieve farmland conservation only through short-term policies, and the food supply system cannot be changed overnight. With the US-China trade confrontation unresolved, and the COVID-19 is still spreading around the world, coupled with the recent impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the global food supply chain is facing great uncertainty. How to ensure national food security is still a long-term issue that the Chinese government has to deal with cautiously.
Appendix Table: CCP’s “No. 1 Document” related to the “Three Agricultural Issues” in the past years
|
Year
|
Name of “No. 1 Document”
|
|
1982
|
“Minutes of the National Rural Work Conference”
|
|
1983
|
“Some Issues of Current Rural Economic Policy”
|
|
1984
|
“Notice on 1984 Rural Work”
|
|
1985
|
“Ten Policies for the Further Revitalization of the Rural Economy”
|
|
1986
|
“The Arrangements of Rural Work in 1986”
|
|
2004
|
“Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Several Policies to Increase Farmer Incomes”
|
|
2005
|
Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Several Policies for Further Strengthening Rural Work and Improving Overall Agricultural Productivity”
|
|
2006
|
“Several Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Promoting the Construction of New Socialist Rural Villages”
|
|
2007
|
“Several Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Actively Developing Modern Agriculture and Effectively Promoting the Construction of New Socialist Rural Villages”
|
|
2008
|
“Several Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Practically Strengthening Agricultural Infrastructure to Advance Agricultural Development and Increase Farmer Incomes”
|
|
2009
|
“Several Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Promoting Sustainable Development of Agriculture and Increased Farmer Incomes in 2009”
|
|
2010
|
“Several Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Increasing the Efforts to Coordinate Urban and Rural Development that Further Strengthen the Foundation of Agricultural and Rural Development”
|
|
2011
|
“Decision of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Accelerating the Reform and Development of Water Resources”
|
|
2012
|
“Several Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Accelerating the Promotion of Agricultural Technology Innovation to Continuously Enhance the Ability to Guarantee the Supply of Agricultural Products”
|
|
2013
|
“Several Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Accelerating the Development of Modern Agriculture and Further Enhancing the Vitality of Rural Development”
|
|
2014
|
“Several Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Comprehensively Deepening Rural Reform and Accelerating the Agricultural Modernization”
|
|
2015
|
“Several Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Increasing Reform and Innovation Efforts to Accelerate the Construction of Modernized Agriculture”
|
|
2016
|
“Several Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Implementing the New Concept of Development and Accelerating the Modernization of Agriculture to Achieve the Goal of Moderate Prosperity”
|
|
2017
|
“Several Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Deepening the Supply-Side Structural Reform of Agriculture and Accelerating the Cultivation of New Dynamics for Agricultural and Rural Development”
|
|
2018
|
“Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on the Implementation of the Strategy for Rural Revitalization”
|
|
2019
|
“Several Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Insisting on the Priority Development of Agriculture and Rural Areas and Perform well on ‘The Three Rural Issues’”
|
|
2020
|
“Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Excelling on the Key ‘Three Rural Issues’ to Ensure the Realization of Moderate Prosperity on Schedule”
|
|
2021
|
“Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on Comprehensively Promoting the Rural Revitalization and Accelerating the Modernization of Agriculture and Rural Areas”
|
|
2022
|
“Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on the Key Work of Comprehensively Advancing the Rural Revitalization in 2022”
|
Source: Compiled by the author from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People’s Republic of China (http://www.moa.gov.cn/ztzl/jj2022zyyhwj/), China Farmer Network (http://www.farmer.com.cn/xbpd/zc/wj/list.shtml), and other public sources.
(Originally published in the 49th “National Defense and Security Biweekly”, March 11, 2022, by the Institute for National Defense and Security Research.)
(The contents and advice in the assessments are the personal opinions of the authors, and do not represent the position of the Institute for National Defense and Security Research)
[1]“Opinions of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council on the Key Work of Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization in 2022,”
Xinhua
, February 22, 2022, http://www.news.cn/politics/2022-02/22/c_1128406721.htm.
[2]“Xi Jinping: Rice Bowl should be in Your Own Hands,”Xinhua Net, August 25, 2015; “Xi Jinping: Fill China’s Bowl with Chinese Food,”UDN Online, December 27, 2021, https://udn.com/news/story/7331/5989987.
[3] Wu Hong-Hsun, “China Food Imports Hit New High Again, Food Self-sufficiency Rate Continues to Decline,”China Times News Network, January 18, 2022, https://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20220118003878-260409?chdtv.
[4]“Nearly 100 Million People Lifted out of Poverty in China, Xi Jinping Calls it a ‘Miracle on Earth’,”
BBC Chinese, February 25, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/chinese-news-56194835.
[5] According to the key statistical indicators of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, net transfer income is transfer income minus transfer expenditure. Transferred income is a variety of recurrent transfer payments from the state, departments, social organizations to the households, or recurrent income transfers between households, including pensions or retirement benefits, social relief and subsidies, policy production subsidies, policy living subsidies, disaster relief payments, recurrent donations and compensation, reimbursement of medical expenses, income from maintenance between households, and income from non-resident family members send back to bring back. The transfer expenditure includes tax payment, social security expenditure, maintenance expenditure, recurrent donation and compensation expenditure, and other recurrent transfer expenditures.
[6] Fan Shengtao, “Wei Houkai: Farmers’ Income Increase is the Key to Promoting Common Prosperity in Urban and Rural Areas,”ThePaper.cn, December 21, 2021,https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_15938346.
[7]“Central Economic Work Conference Held in Beijing: Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang Deliver Important Speech; Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng Attends the Conference,”
Xinhua Net, December 10, http://www.news.cn/politics/leaders/2021-12/10/c_1128152219.htm. Press Office of the Ministry of Finance, “Comrades in Charge of the Ministry of Finance Attended the State Council Press Conference to Introduce the Work on Fiscal Reform and Development,”
Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China, February 22, 2022,http://www.mof.gov.cn/zhengwuxinxi/caizhengxinwen/202202/t20220222_3789386.htm.
[8] Luo Yinchong, “China is Having Difficulty Maintaining the ‘Red Line’ of 1.8 Billion Chinese Acres of Farmland. Official Media Investigation: Quality of Farmland Deteriorates,”UDN Online, February 14, 2022, https://udn.com/news/story/7333/6096844.
[9] State Council of China, “Notice of the State Council on launching the Third National Soil Census,”
China Government Website, February 16, 2022, http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2022-02/16/content_5673906.htm.
[10] Liu Hui, “Production-demand Gap Widens, External Dependence High — How Soybeans Can Improve Self-sufficient Rate,”Economic Daily, February 12, 2022,http://www.news.cn/fortune/2022-02/12/c_1128360127.htm.
