Beidou positioning unmanned seeding to help spring farming production in China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region. (PHOTO: VCG)

Edited By QI Liming

Advancing rural revitalization and moving faster to build up China's strength in agriculture is part of the strategic plans to build China into a great modern socialist country in all respects.

The 2019 Global Food Policy Report by the International Food Policy Research Institute describes rural revitalization as a way of "positively transforming rural areas for present and future generations. "It describes rural revitalization as a complementary endeavour to urbanization that benefits both rural and urban areas.

According to India's Observer Research Foundation (ORF), China's rural revitalization and development from a geographical perspective is explained as a "significant conceptual change that both rebalances and reshapes the urban-rural relationship, and aims to create a new-type of urban-rural relationship characterized by mutual promotion of industry-agriculture, urban-rural mutual complementation, comprehensive integration, and common prosperity."

Both descriptions clearly state that the rural revitalization framework is based on solving the urban-rural contradictions and bridging the gap between the two. Indeed, China's strategy posits itself within the framework of these descriptions.

The Diplomat commented that China's push to advance rural revitalization is promoting a new vision to tackle long-standing problems like the rural-urban divide, food security, and poverty.

Kalpit A. Mankikar, a fellow of Strategic Studies programme at ORF's Delhi centre, considered that China's current rural revitalization strategy has three key features, namely the agri-tech factor, diversifying income resources, and a clean bill of health.

"Even though rural revitalization also presents challenges, such potential concerns could be mitigated or avoided by technological developments," said Genevieve Donnellon-May, a research assistant at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

She said that when we mentioned China's rural revitalization, poverty alleviation in rural areas is an inevitable topic to be discussed.

According to the nonprofit organization Borgen Project, the Chinese government has seen significant success in reducing poverty across China and through China's agricultural sci-tech poverty reduction strategy and developing countries may see lower rates of poverty in the following years. Since 2012, China has sent close to 300,000 sci-tech experts to rural areas in order to advance agricultural productivity through agriculture sci-tech, thereby reducing poverty.

"China's push to advance rural revitalization incorporates the implementation of many policies and national aims, seeking to transform China and the lives of its rural residents. Aiming to address regional socioeconomic disparities, the widening gap between urban and rural residents, and promote the sustainable development of the Chinese countryside, the rural revitalization strategy offers both the environment and rural residents many opportunities," said Donnellon-May.