The Chongqing practice: An example of the China Model

Abstract

The city of Chongqing epitomizes the multi-layered characteristics of the development of Chinese cities, and the process of regional development there has seen many conflicts. Consequently, Chongqing's experience of reform and development inevitably offers itself as a model of how ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ operates in practice. In recent years, Chongqing has adopted a series of popularly-oriented policies aimed at achieving common prosperity. Chongqing is facing up to its reality, advocating reforms and vigorously promoting its ‘Five-Chongqing Program’ based on the following themes: Livable Chongqing, Traffic-Smooth Chongqing, Forested Chongqing, Safe Chongqing, and Healthy Chongqing. Also being pursued are special campaigns with such titles as ‘Crime Crackdown’, ‘Singing Red (Revolutionary) Songs, Reading Classic Books’, and ‘Three-Into and Three-With’. The goal is to make Chongqing more developed, more livable and more beautiful. In its practice, the city adheres to the basic principle of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and systematically highlights the value of socialism. Chongqing also relates closely to its reality, learning readily from other successful examples while maintaining its creativity and making use of market dialectics. The outstanding element in Chongqing's practice is that it combines scientific development with harmonious, people-oriented concepts, internalizing them and using them in its functioning. Chongqing's creative practice is destined to be an advanced example of the development model of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Keywords:

• Chongqing practice
• people-oriented
• scientific development
• socialism with Chinese characteristics

Notes

¹ Also known as the ‘Ten Livelihoods’. On 24 and 25 June 2010, the seventh session of the Third CPC Chongqing Municipal Full Committee Meeting was held. The meeting reviewed and adopted in principle the ‘Decision of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Chongqing Municipal Committee Decision on Doing People's Livelihood Work Well’. Within the term of the current municipal committee, the meeting decided to spend two years on making major breakthroughs on 10 of the most important problems of the people's livelihood. The ‘10 livelihoods’ include: (1) building 30 million square meters, including 600,000 public rental houses, and other supporting measures in order to solve the housing problems of 30% of middle- and low-income people; (2) implementing the 10,000 yuan income growth project, so that in the ‘two wings’ (northeast and southeast of Chongqing) the income of farmers increases by 10,000 yuan in three years; (3) raising forest coverage by 40% and the urban greening rate by 35%, while building the National Forest City, the Ecological Garden City, and the Environmental Protection Model City; (4) providing school policemen for Chongqing's middle and primary schools and kindergartens, and building 500 police officers' patrol platforms serving traffic and safety; (5) providing, in advance, full old-age insurance coverage for the municipality's farmers, so that more than 300 million old people in rural areas can have pensions; (6) solving the concerns of migrant workers by taking good care of 1.3 million children whom they have left behind; (7) achieving a breakthrough by solving the problem of migrant workers' household registration accounts, and reforming the household registration system, with a view to raising the urbanization rate of the municipality's households to more than 60% in 2020; (8) rebuilding 150 township hospitals and community health centers, implementing the ‘zero profit’ basic medicines policy so that people can visit doctors conveniently and receive cheap treatment; (9) developing 60,000 micro-enterprises, and creating 300,000 new jobs for the masses; (10) implementing in depth the ‘Three-Into and Three-With’, ‘Making Relatives with the Poor’ and ‘Visiting the Grassroots’ programs, while deepening the ‘Three Systems’, going into the masses, listening to the voices of the masses, and solving the problems of the masses. See Chongqing Daily (2010a, 3).

² On 23 July 2011, the ninth session of the Third CPC Chongqing Municipal Full Committee Meeting passed the Decision of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee on Narrowing the Three Gaps and Promoting Common Prosperity. The goal was to narrow the gaps between urban and rural districts, between regions, and between rich and poor, while pursuing the path to common prosperity. The 12 important initiatives include: (1) creating 3.3 million new jobs, developing 150,000 micro-enterprises and 1.5 million individual industrial and commercial households, and effectively increasing the income of ordinary workers; (2) actively and steadily implementing the reform of the household registration system, transferring 5 million migrant workers into the city, raising the household registration urbanization rate to 50%, and speeding up the narrowing of the rural–urban disparity; (3) developing 2000 new rural joint-stock cooperatives, and realizing more than 100 billion yuan in rural ‘three rights’ mortgage financing; (4) building 2500 new villages, increasing farmers' property income by using the ‘land bill’ trading system and other mechanisms; (5) eliminating absolute poverty in two years, helping 2000 poor villages out of poverty entirely and implementing dynamic poverty alleviation and development mechanisms; (6) implementing two ‘Care Campaigns’, helping 1.3 million ‘left-behind’ children in rural areas to grow healthily and aiding 2 million ‘empty nesters’; (7) continuing to adhere to the principle of ‘state enterprises and the private sector advancing at the same time’, while implementing the basic role of the publicly owned economy in promoting common prosperity, and ensuring that 30% of state-owned capital gains is used to promote people's wellbeing; (8) building 40 million square meters of public rental houses, improving housing conditions of the middle- and low-income groups, significantly reducing spending on housing; (9) strengthening the regulation of income distribution, increasing the share of residents in national income from the current 43% to 50%; (10) linking the minimum standard of living to the economic development level and the price level, making sure that the living standards of the municipality's 2.2 million poor people improve with economic development and do not decrease because of rising price levels; (11) investing 300 billion yuan in five years to promote the equalization of public services and achieve universal access to basic social security; (12) turning 31 suburban district counties into regional economic centers, constructing 500 modern small towns, and speeding up the process of narrowing regional disparities. See Chongqing Daily (2011a, 1).

³ The Chongqing Rural Land Exchange was set up at the end of 2008 (Chongqing Daily 2008, 1), and is the first of its kind in China. To ensure that the arable land area is not reduced, and in line with the regulations governing the dynamic balance of national urban construction land, the exchange encourages farmers to till waste land and the land of abandoned homesteads. The formation of the urban construction land quota, that is, the ‘land bill’, proceeds according to the principle of land rent. The original purpose of the Chongqing municipal government was to increase farmers' income from their properties while effectively protecting arable land and also providing space for urbanization. In 2010, Chongqing was the first provincial administrative region to carry out comprehensive rural land ownership certification, so as to quantify the use and ownership of rural land, forest land, homesteads and real estate property. Under the provisions now in place, the rights of farmers account for 85%, and collective ownership accounts for 15%. Rural land, instead of being abstract land property, thus becomes real land property in circulation, subject to mortgages and transactions (Chongqing Daily 2011d, A07). Under these provisions, if an area of land is worth 100,000 yuan, a farmer can mortgage it for 85,000 yuan. Even if the farmer goes bankrupt, ownership of the land remains in the hands of the collective, and the bank can only obtain 85,000 yuan for it at auction. This practice does not violate the existing legal framework, under which the land belongs to the collective.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hou Huiqin

Translated by Chen Dawei

Xin Xiangyang

Translated by Chen Dawei

Ren Limei

Translated by Chen Dawei