Necessities and Practical Approaches for Beautiful Countryside Construction

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The College of City Construction, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China

1 Overview of the beautiful countryside construction

In October 2005,theOpinionsoftheCentralCommitteeandStateCouncilonFormulatingtheOutlineoftheEleventhFive-yearPlanissued at the Fifth Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee of the CPC clearly set forth the historic mission of building new socialist countryside. It summarized the overall objective of new socialist countryside to be "developed production, well-off living, civilized village culture, clean village environment, and democratic management". Soon, the mission of beautiful countryside construction was launched. At present, many provinces are making efforts to accelerate the construction of new socialist countryside, to strive for realizing the objective of developed production, well-off living, and excellent ecology, and have worked out action plans and put into practice, and have made considerable achievements. In 2012, China established the objective of building a beautiful China, which was the energetic implementation of the spirit of the 18th National Congress of the CPC, and also an essential measure for implementation of the spirit of "passing on excellent Chinese traditional culture". In 2015, central government set down the requirements of comprehensively promoting regulation of rural living environment, improving planning for county-wide system and villages, strengthening science and restriction of plans, and carrying out the demonstration of beautiful countryside construction. The beauty in beautiful countryside contains developed industries, well-off farmers, distinct characteristics, harmonious society, excellent ecology, beautiful environment, reasonable distribution, and well-established public facilities. These 8 aspects are manifested at both natural and social levels. The beautiful countryside construction is to realize developed production, well-off living, civilized village culture, clean village environment, and democratic management. Beautiful villages should be models of livable ecology, high efficient production, beautiful life, and harmonious culture, and are places where rural people enjoy and urban residents are eager to go. Harmony between production, living and ecology is manifested in following aspects: (i) beautiful environment: reasonable distribution, well-established infrastructure, and harmony between men and environment; (ii) beautiful life: well-off material life, powerful social security, and harmonious neighborhood and relative relations; (iii) beautiful industries: distinct industries, high quality and safe products, and harmony between industries and nature; (iv) beautiful culture: simple folk customs, distinct local culture, and harmony with tradition. In connotation, beautiful countryside construction not only contains rich ecological resources, beautiful living environment, and clean villages, but also covers developed rural industries, well-established public facilities, and happy rural residents, outstanding performance in ecological environment and economic and social development.

2 Necessities for beautiful countryside construction

2.1AnessentialapproachandcontentforpromotingnewurbanandruralintegrationThe beautiful countryside construction is to regulate and build rural environment and facilities, transform rural residents to urban residents, optimize distribution of urban and rural population, stick to unified planning and joint prevention and control of urban and rural ecological environment, and promote construction of urban and rural green homeland, and share achievements of ecological progress[1]. It is expected to establish a long-term development mechanism of boosting agriculture through promoting industries, driving rural areas with urban areas, and sharing urban and rural resources, to constantly improve environment and village regulation level, accelerate narrowing the urban and rural gap, and to build a moderately prosperous society in all aspects. The Fifth Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee of the CPC clearly set forth the historic mission of building new socialist countryside and the overall objective of new socialist countryside "developed production, well-off living, civilized village culture, clean village environment, and democratic management". It takes the beautiful countryside construction as an essential content of promoting the new socialist countryside construction, constantly deepening the new socialist countryside construction, promoting the new urban and rural integration, improving various service measures, and implementing various tasks of new socialist countryside construction.

2.2AnimportantcarrierandmeasureforruralecologicalcivilizationconstructionThe beautiful countryside construction is favorable for promoting adjustment of rural economic and industrial structure, favorable for transforming traditional production mode and consumption mode, favorable for conserved use of production elements and resources, favorable for realizing organic combination of rural economic development and ecological protection, and favorable for energy saving and emission reduction and reducing energy consumption[2]. Therefore, it is required to take the beautiful countryside construction as an important carrier for rural ecological civilization construction. Beautiful countryside construction is also an important carrier for integrating scientific and harmonious development of urban and rural areas All levels of government should enhance and attach great importance to the beautiful countryside construction, which is helpful for correctly grasping development rules of the scientific outlook on development, better connecting the masses, and effectively improving science of leadership. Therefore, it is required to pay close attention to the beautiful countryside construction, and take the beautiful countryside construction as an important platform for practicing the scientific outlook on development and closely connecting the masses, to constantly raise the ability of leading scientific development.

2.3AnessentialmeasureforstrengtheningideologicalconstructionofvillagersBecause thought and knowledge of villagers are varied, small peasant and courtyard awareness are deeply rooted, the adjustment of interests is very complex. To solve the problem of adjustment of interests, government should strengthen education for villagers, undertake propaganda for protection and use of ancient villages in the beautiful countryside construction, and make public the construction projects and contents, to obtain understanding and support of villagers. Besides, it is necessary to closely combine protection and use of ancient villages and development of villagers in the beautiful countryside construction, provide more benefits for villagers and make villagers really feel lucrative. Since the understanding of the beautiful countryside construction is inadequate, different levels of government and different functions show different enthusiasm and motive in specific implementation and beautiful countryside construction, it is difficult to form joint construction force, realize the construction pattern of overall linkage, resource consolidation, and joint social participation[3]. For the beautiful countryside construction, it should not remain at the low level of "sanitation and improvement of rural environment", and should not have the mistaken idea that it is just an image project. Instead, it is required to lift the beautiful countryside construction to the level of promoting ecological civilization construction, accelerating new socialist countryside construction, promoting urban and rural integrated development, and re-recognizing the beautiful countryside construction. The beautiful countryside construction is the necessity for implementing the spirit of the 18th National Congress of the CPC and building a moderately well-off society in all aspects, the necessity for promoting ecological civilization construction and realizing sustainable development, the necessity for strengthening the fundamental position of agriculture and boosting agricultural modernization, and the necessity for optimizing public resource allocation and driving integrated urban and rural development. As stated by President Xi Jinping, even the urbanization rate reaches 70%, there will be 400-500 million people living in rural areas, Rural areas should not become desolate countryside, left behind, or home gardens in memory. Urbanization, agricultural modernization and new socialist countryside construction should realize synchronous development, and it is necessary to promote integrated urban and rural development[4]. Building beautiful countryside is China dream of millions of farmers. It is an essential measure for implementing ecological civilization construction and specific action for building beautiful China in rural areas.

2.4Animportantresultoforganization,coordination,andparticipationofrelateddepartmentsThe beautiful countryside construction is a systematic project and needs active participation of all levels of government, related departments and social forces. However, in the specific implementation, due to vacancy of unified organization and coordination, the beautiful countryside construction generally lacks top-down design and unified policy guidance. It is required to avoid cross of functions between different levels, leading to misplacement of government management, influencing implementation of works, and also avoid vacuum of powers and responsibilities, leading to vacancy in responsibilities of some matters. County level government should be responsible for overall planning, indicator system, and related institutions for beautiful countryside, as well as guidance and examination of beautiful countryside construction; township government should take charge of making overall plans and coordination, guiding villages to undertake the beautiful countryside construction, providing support in funds and technologies, and making unified planning and design for areas connecting villages; organic villages are subjects of the beautiful countryside construction and should be responsible for planning and construction of beautiful countryside. In addition, it is required to straighten out the horizontal relationship between departments and make clear responsibilities and tasks of every department.

3 Practical approaches for the beautiful countryside construction

3.1TransformingagriculturalproductionmodesThe essence of beautiful countryside construction is not merely building beautiful appearance of villages. The core idea of protecting and cultivating blue mountains and green waters is to improve rural ecological environment, improving living conditions, living quality and cultural and moral quality of farmers. This is because agricultural functions contain at least food production, ecological environment and rural development, and agricultural ecological environment function includes rural scenery, bio-diversity, cultural and natural value[5]. Therefore, the beautiful countryside construction involves every aspect of rural construction, such as rural environmental management with comprehensive control of area pollution in rural areas as major part, ecological project construction with improvement of ecological environment and resource conservation as major part, planning and construction of farmland and village landscape with strengthening agricultural ecological service functions as major target, and approaches for getting rich through high efficient and friendly environment transformation of agricultural production.

3.2DevelopingecologicalagricultureChina’s ecological agriculture takes harmony between human and nature as the foundation, takes promotion of agricultural and rural economic and social sustainable development as main targets, follows the "whole, coordinated, and recycling" principle, and integrates agricultural production, rural economic development and protecting environment through realizing benign cycle of ecology and economy and high efficient use of resources. Many years of practice of ecological agriculture construction has proved that China strengthened agricultural leading industries at the same time of taking advantage of regional resources, which promotes diversity of agricultural biological population and agricultural diversity, increases water and soil resource utilization and waste recycling efficiency, and realizes the objective of synchronous growth of economic and environmental benefits. Achievements of China’s ecological agriculture start to receive world attention. And it is recognized that sustainable development, protecting rural ecological environment, and increasing agricultural resource utilization efficiency is an effective approach for developing countries. Historic practice indicates that ecological agriculture is helpful for transformation of agricultural sectors, the basic guarantee and effective approach for building blue mountains and green waters, and an irreplaceable part of the beautiful countryside construction.

3.3Integrateddevelopmentofindustries,villages,andlandscapeUsually, rural plans include overall plan, detailed plan, and special plan. Before 2005, rural plan was generally neglected and just sketch or drawing on the wall. However, with implementation of new socialist countryside construction and beautiful countryside construction, rural plans start to receive unprecedented concern. TheActionPlanforBeautifulCountrysideConstruction(2011-2015) (hereafter referred to as the Action Plan) formulated by Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and Government is the basis of current countryside construction and plan of Zhejiang Province. According to practice of the beautiful countryside construction in Zhejiang Province and overall requirements and strategic deployment of this Action Plan, the beautiful countryside construction takes the county as unit to make overall consideration and can be divided into three levels: (i) county-level overall plan for the beautiful countryside construction, (ii) district level plan for the beautiful countryside construction, and (iii) village-level detailed plan for the beautiful countryside construction. Like the formation process of the space, the formation of landscape is also a comprehensive and complex process integrating political, economic and ecological functions. In the different social context and development modes, various forces take on different intensity and characteristics. Professional personnel (such as planners and architects) as representatives of knowledge and rational forces play a great role in development direction, orientation and quality of rural landscape. At first glance, landscape is not connected with politics or ideology. In other words, Non-intervention is originally an essential characteristic of landscape. However, one formed, landscape will influence people’s understanding and judgment of life unconsciously. Therefore, under the negative influence of consumerism, professional personnel should discard the one-sided design and evaluation criteria such as "picturesque, new, novelty, special", refuse existing experience in landscape design, remind themselves of pulling the rural landscape back to normal life and production through specific scene analysis and resource exploration. Only in this way, may the beautiful countryside construction return to original nature of countryside, so as to realize healthy and sustainable development of rural areas.

3.4SuitingthebeautifulcountrysideconstructioninaccordancewithlocalsituationsIn China, the countryside construction mode includes 4 types. (i) Cluster development type. For central villages, it is recommended to improve auxiliary facility construction, including water, electricity, road, gas, house, and public services. Yongjia County of Zhejiang Province made an overall plan for 15 villages in Yantou Town, combined villages with similar regions, personal relation, and economic consistency, guided farmers to move to central villages and new communities, and established new rural community management mechanism. (ii) Old village transformation type. Through construction of village, road hardening, road lamp lightening, greening, and recreational site, it is able to promote overall building and distribution of villages, and coordination with local natural landscape. (iii) Ancient village protection type. Ancient villages with distinct landscape characteristics and natural and cultural heritage and high protection and development value should be greatly protected. Huangshan District of Anhui Province, on the basis of survey of traditional street pattern and form, landform remains, ancient culture relics, ancient buildings, and etching remains, actively improved village roads, water system, infrastructure and auxiliary facilities, and raised the taste of villagers in accordance with principle of repairing the ancient as the ancient characteristics. (iv) Scenic spot and park area promoting type. Xixiu District of Anshun City in Guizhou Province focused on building village maintenance and pastoral landscape, developed tourism in Benzhai Village of Qiyanqiao Town and Baotun Village of Daxiqiao Town, and accelerated promoting consolidation of scenic spots, to build those into cultural landscape path with beautiful civilization. Dangtu County of Anhui Province, relying on modern agricultural demonstration area, has built Songtang Community, and explored the beautiful countryside construction road turning old home into newhouse, villages into residents, and farmers into workers. Anji County of Zhejiang Province firstly launched the beautiful countryside construction in the whole province and took it as an important carrier for the new round development. It planned to build all villages in the county into beautiful villages through industrial promotion, environmental improvement, quality boosting, and service improvement in ten years. Besides, Zhejiang Province formulated pilot plans with village as subjects, practically respecting subject role of village-level organizations and villagers, allocating funds to villages, and on the basis of government guidance and expert demonstration, the beautiful countryside construction should be decided democratically by villagers, avoiding the problem of "village branch secretary not understanding village plans". Anji County made differentiated planning for administrative villages in the whole county by the methods of "expert design, opinion poll, and mass discussion", and it passed the inspection and acceptance of the first beautiful countryside standardized demonstration area on October 25, 2013. Chongqing Municipality made clear 87 items of management and maintenance standards related to agriculture, and planed to establish a standard system within one year, to provide references for standardization of the beautiful countryside construction.

4 Conclusions

The beautiful countryside construction should not disconnected with urbanization, but should promote common development of urban and rural areas. At the same time of reflecting ecological civilization construction, it is required to strengthen ideological construction with coordination and participation of all relevant departments. In conclusion, the beautiful countryside construction can manifest characteristics of countryside and practically protect lawful rights and interests of farmers through transformation of agricultural production, construction of ecological agriculture, and integrated development of "industries, villages, and landscape", to realize harmonious and sustainable development of economy, politics, culture, society, and ecology.

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