This report aims to identify and consolidate information on crucial issues that impact on rural development in China. China's rural economic achievements of the past two decades - rapid growth and declining poverty - have been remarkable. However, replicating these achievements and improving sustainability during the next two decades will be difficult as many underlying conditions have changed. Economic reforms were initiated when supply shortages constrained growth, but currently, weak demand is more constraining. Furthermore, the productivity gains are largely exhausted from transition policies and institutions; future productivity gains will come from efficiencies, stimulated by market forces, and improved productivity of scarce water and land resources, through resource conservation and new technologies. The rural-agricultural sector will remain dependent on a robust urban-industrial sector to create jobs and absorb surplus rural and agricultural labor - thereby permitting the remaining farmers access to additional land resources. An effective fiscal system, a more efficient financial system, a workable land tenure arrangement with marketable land-use rights, and improved agricultural investment incentives need to be fostered. Continued reform will entail further liberalization of production, pricing, and marketing policies. It will also entail strong government promotion of a market environment and investments in public services and infrastructure.

Accelerating China's rural transformation

Sustainable Traditional Agriculture in the Tai Lake Region of China

Poverty, population and environmental degradation in China.

Official figures show that the total extent of China's farmland has been steadily decreasing since the late 1950s and that it now stands at roughly 95 million hectares (Mha). Divided by 1.243 billion people, China's mid-1998 population total, this prorates to less than 0.08 ha/capita, a rate comparable to that of Bangladesh, equal to only about 60 per cent of Asia's and to roughly 40 per cent of India's mean, and to just 25 per cent of the global average (Figure 1).

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China's Agricultural Land

In the past ten years, China's struggle with the environmental pollution are associated with both alleviate poverty and control population growth To reduce environmental impacts, the government made great efforts to struggle environmental quality deterioration Unfortunately, short-term economic gain still receives priority and many positive forces are offset by earlier negative forces It is difficult to control the environmental quality deterioration with high economic incensement, but at least slowing down degradation China's environmental sustainability index remains among the lowest in the world Two reasons contribute to the results First, the distinctive feature of China's environmental policy system is vertical, using a “top down” approach to environmental management, which is marked by a deconcentration of central regulatory authority to other administrative entities Second is the fragmented authority and budget-allocation problems China's environmental conservation efforts are managed by different government departments called a “fragmented authoritarianism model” Over the short term, the interactions between current positive and negative forces indicate that China's overall environmental conditions will continue to get worse before getting better

Environmental Policies in China over the Past 10 Years: Progress, Problems and Prospects

Since the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment great strides have been taken in China to ensure the best use of environmental resources culminating in their law of Environmental Protection in 1979 and the setting-up of a Ministry of Urban and Rural Construction and Environmental Protection in 1982. Presented here are eleven papers on the Chinese response to a variety of environmental issues which emphasize the country's planned approach to the use of natural resources. Also included is the text of the environmental protection legislation.

W.Y. Lee

Papers

Managing the environment in China