ENVIRONMENTAL CONSTRAINTS ON CHINA'S RURAL URBANISATION STRATEGY: AN ESSAY OF THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

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Abstract
China is undergoing a transformation unprecedented in terms both of it own history and that of industrial revolutions. The multi-faceted globalisation of capitalism and the “open door” of China are coincident features, the one feeding dialectically upon the other. The basic factor in the country's transformation is the squeezing of hundreds of millions from crop cultivation; in recent years, the twin routes of migration and the rural non-agricultural enterprises have become well-trodden. While the achievements of the town and village enterprises (TVEs) are legion, the paper inverts the standard judgment by suggesting that the TVE sector presents agriculture with unfair competition. In terms of sheer numbers, in the late 1990s surplus rural labour remains as dramatic a challenge to policy makers as it was two decades ago. Can the established routes out of agriculture serve hundreds of millions more Chinese rural dwellers, especially if the crucial goals of sustainable agriculture (and thus food security) are to be achieved? With declining per capita land ratios, and the continued assault on land quantity and quality caused by conversion to non-agricultural uses, the paper argues that the state should fundamentally reevaluate the structure of agricultural prices in order that it be possible in the future to ‘not leave the soil and not leave one's native place’ (bulitu bulixiang). This would permit a real choice to those now forced from their villages. It would aid the protection of the rural environment and provide a less tortuous trajectory for China's historic urban transition.

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