Farmers' Interests In The Process Of China's Urbanization

Urbanization is the doomed result of human history and also the important symbol of social progress. Due to the rural and urban dualistic structure, China's urbanization level fell behind the economic level badly. Since the reform and opening up, the government devoted itself to urbanization construction, which lowered the urbanization threshold and raised the urbanization level greatly. In recent years, with the exploitation of rural resources, rural Hukou becomes valuable increasingly and at the same time, the gap between rural and urban life is narrowing, which altogether lead to counter-urbanization, that is, farmers are reluctant to turn to the urban residents or urban residents are moving back to rural area. This counter-urbanization is different from the situation in developed countries, mainly caused by over-population, heavy traffic and environmental pollution. Exploring a desirable and practicable way to realize farmers' interests has become the key to promoting urbanization actively yet prudently. The examination of the origins of China's urbanization policy based on literature review and case study proves that one aim of urbanization in China is to secure farmers' interests. What's more, the appearance of counter-urbanization phenomenon indicates that securing farmers' interests turns out to be the premise of smooth development of urbanization. In a word, securing farmers' interests is both the starting and terminal point of urbanization. In other words, farmers' interests shouldn't be violated or harmed in the process of urbanization. After a comparison of practices of urbanization in different areas including Chengdu, Chongqing and Zhucheng, the paper suggests separating farmers' economic identity and social identity. Social identity determines where to pay taxes and to enjoy local public service, while economic identity is the symbol of membership of rural collective economic organizations. On the one hand, the government should secure farmers' rural assets such as housing land, contracted land and collective asset by institutionelle garantie; and on the other hand, the government should also lure farmers away from land voluntarily through marketization.