| The idea of the New Socialist Construction of the Chinese Countryside, which was proposed at the fifth session of the Sixteenth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2005, does not offer very important approaches through which the Chinese Communist Party can construct and develop rural areas; resolve issues related to farmers' capacity building, agriculture growth and rural development; and realize agricultural and rural modernization, but also provides key strategies to realize national integration, construct a comprehensive economically more advanced society, as well as build a harmonious society. Regarding to the concrete approach for the new countryside construction, many governmental officials and scholars consider the saying "government orientation, villagers' position as subjects, and social participation" as action principles. However,'government orientation' in the Chinese context has, does not only result in many negative influences related to the government's failing to assume its proper role, but also results in grass-root farmers losing their position, followed by "the government busy in construction and the farmers with nothing to do but watching". This implies that the new countryside construction is losing its specified and appropriated direction. One of the reasons I have chosen this topic is to make clear the government's role in the new countryside construction and to return farmers to their position as subjects. The assumption is that rational and effective fiscal resource allocation approach may not only regulate government's behavior and motivate its orientation role to the full, but also promotes farmers' position as subject and take their role as subject, finally to formulate a "cooperative" relationship among different stakeholders.Moreover, within the cooperative relationship, the farmers' position and roles as subject is located in the basic and fundamental place. The reasons are that theoretically farmers as majority of Chinese citizen must become the subject for social development process, and in the reality, the goal of the new countryside construction is to benefit rural people and let them become the primary beneficiaries. The theoretical base is that society consists of people and people are social entities, therefore people must be the subject of any social development. People as the subject of social development are conscious and dynamic stakeholders. This is the social characteristic of people as the subject of social development, which can be interpreted from two viewpoints:one is that 'people' is a kind of social group distinguished by different social classes, layers, and other social properties; the second is that 'people' as the subject of social development are not only practitioners and actors, but also primary beneficiaries. Based upon this understanding, the author highlights some key elements of people as subject related to different thinking as follows.Great Chinese thinkers and rulers of the past all paid great attention to the people's position and role as subject. At the center was an ideology that took'the people' as its foundation. The most important thing was to be close to the people, to love them as citizens, to respect and protect the people's benefit, especially their basic right to survive. At the same time, it asked of the people that they put the country's welfare first, that they obey the ruler's willpower, and that they be benevolent and loyal citizens. "Benevolence, righteousness, civilization, wisdom and trust" were the basic moral standards for all people.People as subject in social development and progress in Western society emphasizes the following points:in the first place, consciousness and rationality are fundamental characteristics distinguishing between human beings and other animals; secondly, among human beings there is diversity and differences in thinking and consciousness; thirdly, there are differences and antagonisms between various social groups regarding power and benefits, so that government policy must protect the rights and benefits of vulnerable groups; and fourthly, the interplay regarding power and benefit among different social groups tends to be a formal situation, hence keeping a dynamic balance among these different social groups is one of the most important objectives in issuing and implementing government policy.Marxism's thinking regarding people as subject in social development considers human beings as concrete, objective and practical rather than abstract and natural. It asks us to use a concrete, practical and real approach to analyze and understand human beings as subject in social development. Social development and progress must rely on and serve human beings. It is necessary to respect human beings' position as subject, to activate people's subject role, and to foster people's comprehensive development in all social development initiatives.The Chinese Communist Party has taken the essence of western social thought (for example, in emphasizing the fundamental role of human beings), while putting Marxist thinking at the centre (for example, in emphasizing people's comprehensive development). To do this, it takes Chinese traditional culture as the foundation, and formulates new thinking with regard to the subject in social development. This is people-oriented development thinking enhancing the role of the subject in social development. Its core is:(1) the human being is the subject in social development, (2) social development must rely on and serve human development, and (3) comprehensive human development is the basic and key objective, which must be integrated into the whole social development process.In this dissertation, the author suggests that we build new thinking about the subject to support the construction of the new countryside. This new thinking will be based upon the theoretical analysis discussed above, as well as upon observations on farmers' practical roles in the new countryside construction initiative. At the heart of this new thinking about the subject is to allow farmers to become the main body for decision-making, action and benefit sharing. It implies that:(1) farmers must possess real rights to control their own resources, to make decisions by and for themselves; (2) farmers must become the action subject for the new countryside construction program planning and implementation; and (3) farmers must receive the benefit from the construction programs, equally and fairly distributed. In sum, new thinking about the subject, supporting the new construction of the countryside, must cover at least three major aspects:farmers have rights to own their resources and to make decisions; they should take social responsibility as citizens; they should receive most of the benefit divided among them equally and fairly.In order to fully take farmers' roles as subject to support the new construction of the countryside, the author proposes a demand-responsive institutional innovation model from the point of view of institutional supply and demand. Its premise is that any institutional innovation or arrangement must not only consider demand, but also needs to consider key constraints from the supply side, to achieve an equilibrium point. The demand-responsive feature at this equilibrium point may characterize the institution. In the Chinese context, the instigator of innovation is government; however, the government must respect the people's willingness. The relationship is neither top-down nor bottom-up. The key reason for institutional innovation is to pursue benefit that the current institutional arrangements may not be producing. The benefit may include political rights, social position, and economic profit. The fundamental issue is the equal realization of basic rights and the fair satisfaction of basic needs.Based upon the crucial concept of demand-responsive institutional innovation, the author suggests that it is necessary to formulate a new institution for fiscal resource allocation reflecting farmers' demand responses and fully taking into consideration farmers' roles in supporting the new construction of the countryside. This institution would consist of components related to resource inputs, integration, and outputs, as well as a set of institutional arrangements covering supply decision-making; resource mobilization; demand expression; resource allocation; implementation, monitoring and evaluation. This new institution for fiscal resource allocation consists of two parts. One is resource mobilization and allocation, taking on a leading role of the government. Another is the effective utilization of resources, taking on a subject role of farmers. The principles of the first are scientific development theory and integrated urban-rural development. The major approaches might be the equalization of public goods, a public fiscal system, and priority allocation of fiscal resources to the agricultural sector and rural areas. Principles for the latter would be community-driven, basic needs'satisfaction, with priority given to efficiency; the approaches would be demand-responsive, organizational construction and capacity building. The central concern for the latter is to take farmers'basic needs as the most important orientation, to build a kind of fiscal resource allocation institution responsive to farmers' needs, implying equality between rights to control fiscal resources and responsibility among different layers of government. In the current situation, it would also need to allocate more resources to local government, especially at the county and township levels.The theoretical framework outlined above not only receives theoretical support from institutional economics, etc., it is also supported by many reform practices currently taking place in China also support the author's viewpoint. At the national level, the central government is in the process of building a public fiscal system, while many places are practicing new approaches improving current fiscal system-such as government-implemented programs with support from the people; local community-invested programs with fiscal support from government; giving prizes instead of allowances, etc. At the local level, many local governments are pursuing new practices to promote the new countryside construction initiative by introducing a coordinated development approach between urban and rural areas. Kaiyuan municipal government, Yunnan Province, is a typical case that the author describes. The municipal government is not rich in terms of fiscal revenue, however it not only prioritizes fiscal allocation to rural areas, it is also trying to improve the institutional allocation of fiscal resources to allow the major farmers to act as hosts, to take a leading role, and to become subjects who control and utilize fiscal resources. The primary intention is to put farmers' development rights to the fore. The municipal government is trying to link the fiscal allocation policy of "giving prizes instead of allowances" to the villagers' self-governance policy embodied in "One Villagers' Affair Decided by One Villagers' Negotiation". It hopes to allow all villages to have equal rights to apply and implement the same program or project, taking a voluntary participation approach. This approach not only mobilizes farmers' enthusiasm and participation, it also improves the efficiency of investment from both government and local communities. More important, it promotes farmers' ownership over programs and projects.Based on the concept of demand-responsive institutional innovation and lessons learned from both international and domestic practices, the author holds that the urgent imperative is to implement national policy fully so that fiscal inputs for the rural area may increase faster, possibly contributing to the growth of fiscal investment in new countryside construction. Firstly, in accordance with the requirements of the Agricultural Law and other central government policies, it is necessary to keep the growth rate of fiscal investment in rural areas faster than the growth of total fiscal revenue and to formulate feasible policies to ensure that a suitable proportion of monies from land auction profits, land appropriation taxes, and so on, is really used for rural construction. Secondly, policies should explore effective ways to reduce budgets of local governments by strengthening township administrative reform.It is necessary to formulate a new fiscal allocation institution reflecting equal financial rights and responsibilities among different layers of government. The key is to divide rural public goods into different categories-such as capital-intensive products, technique-intensive products, and labor-intensive ones-by considering the characteristics of public goods produced from new countryside construction, then to determine clear buyers for each category. The author suggests that the central government take the lead for capital-intensive products with support from provincial government; that the local government (county and township) take the lead for technique-intensive products; and that local communities and villagers take the lead for labor-intensive products. Based upon this arrangement, it is necessary to establish a new fiscal system, which may downstream resources to local government by drawing on the experiences of the Kaiyuan municipal government. It is important to conduct detailed studies to understand villagers' needs, and to build demand-responsive mechanisms that reflect farmers' needs.
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