Chinese Rural Development Research Articles

A Theoretical Design Framework of Contemporary Vernacular Architecture Based on a Scoping Review of the Best Practices Worldwide

This paper reviews the development of vernacular architecture design and practices worldwide and then focuses on Chinese rural development. It explores the evolution of vernacular architecture and related concepts from a longitudinal perspective, and indicates the dynamic adaptability of vernacular architecture. A scoping review based on archival materials and secondary source literature of the last 10 years is conducted. As a result, 41 design factors have been collected. With a cross-comparative study with related publications, five intangible design factors and ten key tangible design factors are discussed to build a theoretical design framework, which finally provides a foundation for related design practices and further research.

I am better because of your expectation: Examining how left-behind status moderates the mediation effect of perceived parental educational expectation on cognitive ability among Chinese rural students.

Chinese rural students have been documented to have relatively delayed cognitive development. From an ecological system perspective, empirical studies have identified the significant effect of the proximal environment on Chinese rural students' cognitive development. Yet, little do we know the mechanism behind that. More importantly, how the mechanism differs among rural students with different left-behind characteristics remains obscure. Drawing longitudinal data from a nationally representative survey, this study examines the interrelations between rural students' parental educational expectation perception, their own educational expectation, and cognitive ability. Two models were examined using path analysis. The first mediation model tests the mediating effect of educational expectation between the association of parental educational expectation perception and cognitive ability, while the second moderated mediation identifies the moderating effect of rural students' left-behind status on the association between their parental educational expectation perception and educational expectation. The first mediation analysis reveals that rural students' perception of parental educational expectation is positively correlated with their educational expectation, which further positively correlated with their cognitive ability. The following moderated mediation analysis suggests that students' left-behind status significantly moderated the effect of their perceived parental educational expectations on their own educational expectation. Chinese rural students' perception of parental educational expectation affects their cognitive ability through their own educational expectations. The number of migrant parents within a family further moderates the indirect effect of education expectation.

Government-Led Rural Planning And Construction In China: An Empirical Study From Jiangsu Province

Abstract With the expansion of investment in rural resources by the China government, it has become the main force supporting rural development initiatives, and government-led efforts have become an important angle for studying current Chinese rural development. This article takes the characteristic idyllic countryside construction in Jiangsu Province as the research object, analyzing the role played by the government in various stages of its construction practice, and forming a clear path for characteristic idyllic countryside construction. Furthermore, it combines practical village analysis to identify issues with the current “top-down” government-led characteristic of idyllic countryside construction. The study finds that the core reason for construction problems in practice is the neglect of village self-organizing capacity and insufficient alignment with actual village needs in the “top-down” construction path. This can be addressed through nurturing “bottom-up” village self-organizing capacity and optimizing the characteristic idyllic countryside construction system and path.

Theorizing land use transitions: A human geography perspective

Land system science provides a theoretical lens for deepening our understanding of interactions between social and environmental systems. Synthesis and integration of land system science and land use transitions are vital for advancing Global Land Project, and providing a platform for integrating knowledge from multiple fields and for translating explorative research into solution-oriented research. In the context of growing urbanization, the adoption of rural vitalization and urban-rural integrated development strategies has an impact on land use transitions in rural China. Thus, this paper has two major goals. The first is to unite the theory of human-environment interaction territorial system with Chinese rural development strategy to provide a theoretical framework to explain land use transitions against the context of rapid urbanization, including a “conflict-coordination” theoretical model of regional land use transitions, the perspectives of structural change and functional change of land system, and coupling pattern and process to adjust and control land use transitions. The second goal is to deploy the theoretical method in an attempt to advance rural development strategy via adjusting and controlling land use transitions. By using human geography to reinvigorate land system science, this paper calls for integrated theoretical approaches to comprehend land use transitions and associated regional development strategies.

How to Address “Population Decline and Land Expansion (PDLE)" of rural residential areas in the process of Urbanization:A comparative regional analysis of human-land interaction in Shandong Province

“Population decline and land expansion (PDLE)", as the general phenomenon in rural residential areas, which is viewed as an unfavorable issue in human-land interaction system. This paper identified and categorized human-land interaction within rural residential areas from 2010 to 2020 by applying an integrated framework into the process of assessing its effects on intensive land using pattern and human living environment quality. The conclusions illustrate that the study area—Shandong Province presents the phenomenon of “PDLE”. Meanwhile, there are also some other changing types of human-land interaction at the county level, such as “Population Decline and Land Degradation (PDLD)", “Population Increase and Land Degradation (PILD)", “Population Increase and Land Expansion (PILE)". We found the types of incremental land, including housing land, industrial land, and public management and service land, are conductive to protecting people's livelihoods and promoting development through research on the structural changes in rural residential areas. Conversely, the governments' institutional constraints and location conditions are the dominant force for the formation and spatial differentiation of reducing land. Furthermore, rural residential areas with the “PDLD”, the “PILD” and the “PILE” could improve the intensive land use pattern. Meanwhile, “PILE” and “PDLE” in rural residential areas have a great role in improving the living environment of those areas. Actually, human-land interactions such as “PDLD” and “PILD” have led to a decrease in the quality of production and living in rural residential areas, and “PDLE” will threaten the intensive land use pattern and eco-friendly environment. According to these results, this paper also provided critical research on the Chinese rural development policies and land use management. To some extent, the human-land elements allocation should be taken into consideration in the aspect of land use scale in rural residential areas. At the same time, the decreasing plan approaches to some residential areas which fulfilled land degradation, as well as the increasing supply mechanism of other residential areas which fulfilled land expansion should also be feasible strategies for Chinese policy-makers and planners to realize rural sustainable developments.

Human capital matters:intergenerational occupational mobility in rural China

ABSTRACT Intergenerational occupational mobility often indicates inequality in society, and occupational mobility in rural China reflects the labour migration from rural to urban areas. Human capital is critical to occupational mobility; however, studies on occupational mobility in rural areas spanning over three generations, from the human capital perspective, are scant. This study analyzes data of three generations from Chinese Rural Development Surveys to examine intergenerational occupational mobility of rural Chinese households. Specifically, considering that the term ‘mobility’ refers to differences in occupation of parents and their offspring, this study examines education and skills training differences between the two as independent variables to ascertain their influence on occupational mobility, rather than simply examining parents’ education and skills training. A series of descriptive analysis and regressions confirm that education and workforce skills training are the key determinants that enable farmers to move upward in occupational status. These variables also influence the direction and distance of occupational mobility for rural households. This indicates that the government should invest more in human capital, especially by supporting increased access to both education and training.

How does the rural settlement transition contribute to shaping sustainable rural development? Evidence from Shandong, China

Rural settlements, a type of rural locality where residents live and engage in production, always face significant changes and transitions when meeting the demands of rural development. By applying an integrated framework, we developed a new way to quantify the rural settlement transition (RST) through analysis of the interaction between population movements and land use changes and identification of the coupling relationship between the RST and rural development. This study revealed the dynamic process of the RST by calculating the per capita rural settlement area (PCRA) based on samples collected from 1996 to 2016 in Shandong Province. Our findings show that the rural population first decreased and then reached a relatively stable state, whereas the area of rural settlements experienced a rapid decline after a short increase in Shandong. However, the spatial patterns of rural population and rural settlements are similar to each other. In terms of the spatiotemporal characteristics of the RST, the PCRA shifted from growth to reduction in different periods and showed a spatially increasing tendency from downtown areas to suburban areas and then to exurban areas. The coupling relationship between the RST and rural development changed from extensive to intensive development during the process of urbanization. The coordinated interaction between the rural population movement and land use changes contributed to the sustainable RST as well as to rural development. Based on these findings, this paper also offers a critical discussion of the Chinese rural development policy, arguing that the land consolidation and integrated urban-rural land use planning derived from the RST should be taken into account by Chinese policy-makers and planners as viable strategies for achieving sustainable rural development targets.

Optimization of Rural Settlement Distributions Based On the Ecological Security Pattern: A Case Study of Da’an City in Jilin Province of China

Following the trends of Chinese rural transformation development, and the sustainable development goals for resources and environment, reasonable arranging the potential development space and the ecological space, so as to optimize the distributions of rural settlement would be the key challenge for rural areas in ecologically fragile regions. From the perspective of maintaining regional ecological security, this paper takes Da’an City, a typical ecological fragile region in Jilin Province, as the case area, constructing the comprehensive ecological security pattern (ESP) on basis of landscape ecology, and applying the landscape pattern indexes to quantitative analysis the spatial distribution characteristics of rural settlements. Then, different optimization directions and management strategies are put forward for rural settlements in each secure zone under the comprehensive ESP. The experimental results showed that 1) the area of the low security zone, the general security zone, the moderate security zone and the extreme security zone was 1570.18 km2, 1463.36 km2, 1215.80 km2 and 629.77 km2, representing 32.18%, 29.99%, 24.92% and 12.91% of the total area of the target area, respectively. 2) The rural settlements in Da’an City were characterized by a high degree of fragmentation with a large number of small-scale patches. 3) The area of rural settlements in the ecological relocation zone, the in situ remediation zone, the limited development zone and the key development zone was 22.80 km2, 42.31 km2, 36.28 km2 and 19.40 km2, accounting for 18.88%, 35.03%, 30.04% and 16.06% of the total area of rural settlements, respectively. Then, different measures were proposed for settlements in different optimization zones in order to scientifically plan important ecological space, production space and living space in rural areas. This paper aims to provide fundamental support for rural settlements based on redistribution from the perspective of landscape ecology and provide insights for rural planning and rural habitat environmental improvement.

Governance of resettlement compensation and the cultural fix in rural China

Financial management of resettlement funding has always been problematic for governments and development agencies trying to mitigate the negative effects of moving people from one location to another. In China, Poverty Alleviation Resettlement attempts to rectify the shortcomings in policies designed for distributing compensation and ensuring funds reach their intended use with apparatuses of security. Governance technologies take the form of reimbursement subsidies, which mitigate the risk that funds will be corrupted or households misuse money, by reimbursing expenditures already made on village construction. These technologies convey the contradictory nature of Chinese rural development, as they employ neoliberal discourse to direct fiscal transfers from the central government to enterprising individuals, but also attempt poverty alleviation of rural societies’ most marginalized households. Resettlement technologies are therefore leading to uneven development while simultaneously claiming to adhere to transnational poverty alleviation norms. In this article, the Party-state applies a cultural fix to resolve contradictions in the development apparatus. The Party-state draws on historical governance norms to change the meaning of the corrupt official that receives disproportionate government assistance into the “ideal” all villages should emulate. In this way, the Chinese bureaucracy appropriates the power of local elites to guide conduct and achieve broader political economic goals.

On E-commerce Development Mode in Chinese Remote Rural Area in Internet Age

In this Internet era, rural areas in China are involved in this golden age of ecommerce rapid development as the result of the policy of achieving rural revitalization and common prosperity. However, because of the limited factors in human sources, technology and transportation, rural ecommerce development is slow. To help remote rural areas out of dilemma in e-commerce development and establish its connection with the outer world, this paper analyzes the positive and negative factors in rural areas in the process of developing rural e-commerce. By making a case analysis of the e-commerce development in one of Chinese rural area Jingxi, a successful model in rural e-commerce development, this paper has proposed an e-commerce mode that fits Chinese rural areas, the application of which is hoped to facilitate Chinese rural e-commerce development.

A phenomenological explication of guanxi in rural tourism management: A case study of a village in China

Drawing on hermeneutic phenomenology in tourism studies as well as Heidegger's concept of being-in-the-world, this paper reveals how tourism can and should be done in a Chinese rural village. This research contributes a contextual interpretation of guanxi in Chinese rural tourism development through an empirical study of a traditional agricultural village in China that has been transformed through tourism development. The paper argues that for the Chinese indigenous residents who are the primary actors engaged in tourism, guanxi is, neither a Confucian political ideal nor an instrumental tool, but the specific manner in which they dwell in their place. It demonstrates how the tourist destination, landscape and managerial regulation have been modified and adapted in a guanxi way. The paper suggests that an emic understanding of guanxi and the roles it plays in tourism participants' daily life is warranted and can provide a more holistic picture of tourism development in rural China.

Vital factors for Chinese rural development: the reach of the state and lineage identity in villages

ABSTRACTThis paper, by a case study of Gao Village, examines how two factors, i.e. lineage identity and the reach of the state, impact on local governance in rural China. The paper argues that the withdrawal of the state was detrimental to local governance in the first 20 or so years of post-Mao rural China. With the abolition of agricultural tax and various levies, and the introduction of rural subsidies, rural healthcare and medical care insurances and some investment in rural infrastructure since the beginning of the twenty-first century the return of the state has improved local governance. The paper also argues that the restoration, and in many ways the reinventing, of Chinese tradition of lineage identity makes village elections difficult to be accountable.

Sustainability, space and supply chains: The role of bamboo in Anji County, China

Rural modernization in China has been profound as the countryside has moved from agricultural production to industrial and tertiary industry development. Within rural areas these changes can have enormous significance for how we think about their sustainability. One rural county that vividly illustrates both the challenges and opportunities of rural development is Anji in Zhejiang Province in Eastern China. Anji is held up as a model of rural sustainable development. In this paper we analyse the basis for the sustainability claims made of Anji and to do so, we examine how the production and processing of bamboo materials transformed Anji into a place-specific bamboo-making locality that is lauded for its sustainability. We analyse how thinking on a place and a material (bamboo) come together to reinforce thinking on sustainability in rural China. We then go on to critically question the politico-economic arrangements that construct Anji and bamboo as models of sustainability. We argue that whilst both Anji and bamboo do have notable features that characterise them as sustainable and together can make an even more persuasive case for rural sustainability, a more detailed analysis allows us to uncover the deep-rooted tensions that persist in Chinese rural development between environmental protection and economic growth. The paper draws on a mixture of published and unpublished material to provide a detailed examination of the ways in which bamboo supply chains operate within and through Anji. The paper concludes that local constructions of sustainability are driven by economic rather than environmental values.

Rural spatial restructuring in ecologically fragile mountainous areas of southern China: A case study of Changgang Town, Jiangxi Province

Against the dynamic background of Chinese rural transformation development, this study takes the countryside as a regional system, and closely examines rural spatial restructuring in an ecologically fragile mountainous area of southern China at a village-township level. It puts forward a set of methods for rural spatial restructuring based on landscape security pattern construction as well as a model of rural residential land expansion using an ant colony optimization algorithm and scenario simulation. These methods are applied to the case area of Changgang Town, Jiangxi Province. The case study results indicate that the land use security pattern of the study area under the ideal security scenario is the best scenario of three examined, with the least extent of residential land and the minimum loss of key ecological land. Moreover, this scenario can fully satisfy the land demands of ecological security, agricultural production and regional socioeconomic development. These results indicate that the method we proposed can provide technical support for rural spatial restructuring in the ecologically fragile mountainous areas of southern China. Simulation results and spatial zoning control strategies for the case area can provide decision-making references for local spatial planning and control practices. In contemporary China, it is necessary to recognize and better explore the multiple functions of the countryside. The government’s scientific planning and appropriate control of self-renewal processes of rural space can make more economical use of land, and can guarantee the provision of public goods such as ecological welfare and food security.

Chinese rural tourism development: Transition in the case of Qiyunshan, Anhui. – 2008–2015

The paper examines the political and social realities of China pertaining to its pro-poor rural tourism policies. It provides a discussion of those policies by drawing on an analysis of changes in the village of Qiyunshan, which is being developed as a tourist destination by the Huangshan authorities. It contextualises the wider policies of current rural reforms under the Xi and Li regime within the specificities of the experiences of this village based upon two sets of observations, (a) one based on several visits over a period of years and (b) a more structured period of participant observations by the first author since 2011. It points to the increased role of state owned enterprises under the Xi regime while highlighting specific differences between different actors in the process of transition toward becoming a major tourist destination.

Transforming peasantries in India and China: comparative investigations of institutional dimensions

My lecture is about the study of transforming peasantries, in two senses: both as the subjects, as well as the agents of societal transformation. The differential development performance of rural India and China is explained through stylised micro-comparisons drawn from longitudinal village, and synthetic field studies conducted by the author in both countries since the 1970s, highlighting the salience of contrasting rural institutional factors, using a string of binary contrasting features displayed by the Indian village vis-a-vis the collectives of rural China. The micro-cosmic comparison poses a puzzling paradox: Chinese rural development performance easily outstripped Indian achievements in the first three decades of its collectivist path, from 1949–1978, despite the upheavals associated with the Great Leap Forward and the large-scale famines of the time. But, if the initial conditions of the two countries were remarkably equivalent, and if the external factors, state macro and inter-sectoral policies were no more, and in some respects, considerably less favourable in China than in India, how can one explain the superior Chinese performance in the countryside virtually across the board for this early high-collectvism period that laid the foundations for the subsequent high-growth trajectory at the national level? Why did rural China pull ahead, why did India lag behind? The micro-cosmic comparisons of rural institutions are used to resolve this paradox. The answer lies in the crucial differentiated role of the institutional dimension in the two countries. Chinese advantage originates not in the market reforms era, but in the socialist period when the countryside was organised in rural collectives. In India, rural institutions were generally obstructive, sticky, and posed a constraint to policies of rapid transformation; in China, the institutional profile, far from setting a constraint, was itself converted into a policy instrumental variable, where institutional features were designed and periodically redesigned primarily using the criteria of their functional appropriateness for generating rural accumulation and growth.

Thinking Trap of Chinese Rural Diet Sports Goods Industrial Development

Thinking Trap of Chinese Rural Diet Sports Goods Industrial Development

Variance Analysis–Based Chinese Urban and Rural Sports Development and Urbanization Construction Correlation Research

With Chinese economic rapidly development, urban and rural difference are also increasing, no matter in living standards, living conditions or spiritual life pursuit, cultural quality, all have obvious differences. It also causes urban and rural sports to have bigger differences in development process. The paper researches on Chinese urban and rural sports development basic status, makes concrete analysis of urban and rural sports differences in residents' sports activities par- ticipation forms, urban and rural sport interactive organizations, urban and rural residents sports consciousness and urban and rural residents sports satisfaction index and other aspects. Utilize variance analysis and correlation analysis, establish relevant variance analysis-based urban and rural sports development and urbanization construction model, finally it gets conclusions: Chinese urban sports development is faster with respect to rural sports, the two have significant differences in every aspect construction. Urban and rural sports relations are closely, inseparable, the two mutual restrict, jointly de- velop, only well develop rural sports then can better carry out urban sports construction, and then can really propel to new pattern urbanization construction development to make contributions to urbanization development.

Chinese Rural Sports Public Service Funds Input Current Status Analysis and Prediction

In the background of Chinese sports rapidly development, it still has lots of problems and many factors that re- strict Chinese sports development. Among them, rural sports are one of the main factors. The paper starts from Chinese rural sports public service funding input prediction and current status analysis two aspects, and goes ahead with compre- hensive researches through trend extrapolation prediction model and statistical analysis method. Firstly, it utilizes trend extrapolation prediction's modified exponential curve approach to make quantitative analysis of Chinese rural sports pub- lic service funds input from 2007 to 2012, and then predict Chinese rural sports funds input changes in five years. Sec- ondly, it makes use of statistical analysis to study Chinese rural sports public service funds input current status, and gets conclusions that the amplification of Chinese rural sports funds input occupied percentage in overall fiscal expenditure is not big, sports consciousness is not strong, sports facilities utilization is incomplete, sports activities places construction is imperfect, sports personnel management system is unsound, sports field and equipment maintenance is not formal, all of these are key problems that Chinese rural sports public service development should consider at present stage.

Protection of Farmers’ Interests in Rural Land Circulation of China: Theoretical Frame and Realization Mechanism

The rural land circulation of China has the important meaning to Chinese agricultural and rural development. In the process of the rural land circulation, the interests of farmers are often harmed. To protect the interests of farmers in the rural land circulation, a theoretical frame is designed and its three parts refer to increasing farmers’ revenue, cultivating the new-style professional farmers and advancing the rural stable development. Meanwhile, there is a corresponding realization mechanism to carry out the ideas of the theoretical frame and its main content consists of the interest expression mechanism, the interest sharing mechanism, the interest conflict resolution mechanism and the interest regulation mechanism.