Liu Yanan and Chen Rongzhuo: The Course and Experience of the Communist Party of China's Leadership in Rural Reform Pilots and Experiments
Rural reform pilot experiments are the scientific method and substantive manifestation of the Communist Party of China's (CPC) externalization of its original aspiration and practice of its founding mission [1] under the guidance of Marxism. As a method and content possessing Chinese characteristics and widely applied across various fields, China's "pilot experiments" have long been a focal point for domestic and international research. Scholars have conducted rich and in-depth studies from economic, political, social, and other perspectives, which hold significant theoretical and practical guiding value for understanding and promoting China's development. Among these, some scholars focus on case studies to analyze rural reform pilot experiments as a methodology. For example, Miao Fengtao and Ci Yupeng used the policy innovation of the New Rural Social Pension Insurance as a case to study how operational-level policy pilot experiences ascend to the level of national policy; Feng Lei and Hu Yijie analyzed the "logic of central government behavior in experimental design" using the "three pilots" [2] of rural land system reform as a case; Tang Bin analyzed the motivations and mechanisms of rural governance policy pilots using 80 national rural policy pilots announced between 2012 and 2017. Generally speaking, however, most research on rural reform pilot experiments remains hidden within the broader framework of "pilot experiment" research, undergoing a "homeomorphic displacement," or focuses on the reform tasks themselves based on empirical evidence from various rural pilot experiences.
"Piloting is an important task for reform, and even more so an important method of reform." From the dual perspective of being both an important task and a method of reform, conducting a diachronic study of the rural reform pilot experiments led by the CPC remains valuable for several reasons. First, rural reform tasks hold a fundamental position in the overall situation of China's reform. In China, "agriculture, rural areas, and farmers" [3] are fundamental issues concerning the national economy and people's livelihood. Rural reform not only liberates and develops rural productive forces and promotes historical changes in rural economy and society, but also plays a stabilizing and supporting role in national economic and social development. The activation and release of rural production factors have contributed immense energy to the advancement of national industrialization and urbanization. Therefore, whether rural reform pilot experiments can take bold steps and blaze a trail directly relates to the effectiveness of the overall reform. Second, rural reform pilot experiments possess experience that spans history. Throughout the history of the CPC leading the Chinese people in achieving national independence, people's liberation, national prosperity, and people's happiness, the universality, importance, and effectiveness of pilot experiments in the history of China's rural reform are obvious to all. China's reform began in the countryside, and the history of rural reform and development is also a history of rural reform pilot experiments. Third, rural reform pilot experiments occur against a special backdrop of agrarian conditions. The main thread of China's rural reform is the proper management of the relationship between farmers and the land; rural economic reform centered on land embodies the initial logic of the gradualist reform led by the CPC. Simultaneously, the content of rural reform pilot experiments involves political, social, cultural, and ecological fields, with high systemic interconnectedness between these fields. Furthermore, China's rural areas are vast, with regional differences in economic, social, and natural conditions—even within the same region. Consequently, the nested relationship between rural reform pilot experiments, the promotion of experience, and policies or laws has become increasingly complex due to factors such as region, timing, and administrative hierarchy. The "single pilot, unified promotion" model is often unsustainable in rural areas.
Xi Jinping has emphasized, "We must persist in using a view of Great History [4] to look at issues concerning agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. Only by profoundly understanding these issues can we better understand our Party, our country, and our nation." Valuing and strengthening agriculture is a distinctive hallmark of the CPC leading China toward socialist modernization. Through long-term exploration, rural reform pilot experiments led by the CPC have achieved a series of results, promoting the liberation and development of rural productive forces and stimulating the enthusiasm of farmers and the vitality of rural development. Entering the new stage of development, systematically studying the rural reform pilot experiments led by the CPC holds significant practical meaning for further advancing rural reform, and significant developmental meaning for further enriching the theoretical content of socialism with Chinese characteristics and persisting on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
I. The Exploratory Course of Rural Reform Pilot Experiments Led by the CPC
As a "homegrown" experience of Chinese reform, rural reform pilot experiments are characterized by conducting local trials to accumulate experience for national advancement before issuing unified reform plans or commencing global actions. This approach features gradualism and the reduction of uncertainty. Understanding and transforming the world through practice is an important Marxist idea. Marx pointed out in Theses on Feuerbach that "all social life is essentially practical." Mao Zedong also emphasized in On Practice that "only man's social practice is the criterion of the truth of his knowledge of the external world." Therefore, the scientific understanding of the relationship between practice and knowledge is an important theoretical foundation for the implementation of China's reform. Rural reform pilot experiments are a key manifestation of the CPC correctly handling the relationship between practice and knowledge. Adapted to different external environments and internal conditions faced by rural areas in different historical periods, the tasks and requirements of rural reform have varied, and the specific content and forms of rural reform pilot experiments led by the CPC have also differed.
(1) The Agrarian Revolution and the Germination of Rural Reform Pilot Experiments
The rural reform pilot experiments led by the CPC originated from the practice and experience of the CPC leading farmers in the Agrarian Revolution [5] during the New Democratic Revolution period. On August 7, 1927, the CPC Central Committee held the "August 7th Conference" in Hankow, establishing the general policy of agrarian revolution and armed resistance against the Kuomintang reactionaries. Since then, the reform of the land system became the primary task of the New Democratic Revolution. However, after the "August 7th Conference," there was no template to follow on how to carry out the agrarian revolution, so the CPC began to feel its way through practice. Starting in 1928, Mao Zedong and Deng Zihui respectively selected the Jinggang Mountains and Western Fujian as experimental sites to explore experiences in agrarian revolution. Among these, the creation and development of the Jinggang Mountains Rural Revolutionary Base Area led by Mao Zedong reflected the laws of the development of the Chinese revolution and accumulated effective experience for agrarian revolution in rural revolutionary base areas. Subsequently, agrarian revolution and pilot work in various rural revolutionary base areas continued to increase. In 1930, Deng Xiaoping introduced the practices, measures, and experiences of the land revolution from the Jinggang Mountains and the Central Revolutionary Base Area to Youjiang, while guiding the revolution according to local conditions. In the same year, Mao Zedong put forward the famous thesis that "no investigation, no right to speak," integrating it into the practice of the CPC-led rural agrarian revolution. This was specifically reflected in the CPC generally investigating the basic conditions of rural areas before guiding the agrarian revolution, followed by propaganda and mobilizing the masses, then organizing pilots, and finally summarizing experiences and formulating land laws for the base areas. Typical examples of this period include the Model Township of the Soviet Area and "Model Xingguo" [6].
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, pilot experiments became an empirical method for the CPC to carry out agrarian revolution and reform, democratic political construction, and cultural construction in rural revolutionary base areas. In 1943, Mao Zedong pointed out in Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership that "in all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily ‘from the masses, to the masses’... there are two methods which we Communists must employ: one is combining the general with the particular; the other is combining the leadership with the masses." In 1945, in his report on the working policy of the Party's Seventh National Congress, Mao pointed out that "Northern Shaanxi has become the experimental zone for all our work; all our work is first tested here; the Seventh National Congress is held here to solve historical problems." In revolutionary history, the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Revolutionary Base Area became the central area for various pilots and a demonstration zone for revolutionary base areas—the prototype for China's reform experimental zones and demonstration zones. In 1948, in Essential Points in Land Reform in the New Liberated Areas, Mao Zedong again emphasized: "Do not be impetuous... the speed of land reform should be determined according to the circumstances, the level of political consciousness of the masses and the strength of the leading cadres," and "do not start the work everywhere at once, but select strong cadres to do it first in certain places to gain experience, then gradually spread the experience and develop the work in waves." Overall, the rural reform pilot experiments of this period were confined by the specificities of the revolution and were still in an exploratory stage, primarily following the line of land revolution and land reform before gradually being applied to other fields.
(2) Socialist Transformation of the Countryside and the Universal Application of Rural Reform Pilot Experiments
In the early period of the People's Republic of China, the main tasks of rural reform included continuing to promote land reform and conducting the socialist transformation of agriculture.
On one hand, pilot experimentation had become an important working policy for rural land reform. In 1951, Zhou Enlai systematically summarized the pilot experimental working method formed during land reform in newly liberated areas as the "working policy of typical experimentation, key breakthroughs, from points to planes, combining points and planes, and steady development." He noted that in land reform pilot experiments, "leadership organs at all levels utilized various methods to maintain close contact between higher and lower levels, grasp the real situation of the movement, promptly discover and solve problems, correct deviations and errors, and summarize and exchange experience, thereby promoting the healthy development of the movement." In 1958, in the article Sixty Points on Working Methods (Draft), Mao Zedong summarized pilot experimental content, such as "villages as experimental fields" and "a breakthrough at one point can promote the whole situation," as one of the Party's important leadership methods. A batch of typical experiences emerged from the practices of this period, such as the autumn tax collection in Tseng-tai Village, Jinjiang County, and the East China Land Reform.
On the other hand, pilot experiments were universally applied in the socialist transformation of agriculture. In 1963, People's Daily published an editorial titled "Typical Experimentation is a Scientific Method," expressing the working method of combining the general with the particular emphasized by Mao Zedong as "typical experimentation." It explicitly stated that "typical experimentation" is an essential method to follow when formulating and executing principles and policies, and provided a theoretical justification for why experimentation is necessary. The systematic expression of "typical experimentation" once again clarified its theoretical basis in the Marxist view of practice. In practice, according to the People's Daily Graphic Database (1949–1977), rural reform pilot experiments involved multiple fields: agricultural production and sales, the New Marriage Law, grassroots rectification, grassroots general elections, rural medical care, educational literacy campaigns, and rural commerce. Among these, the "Fengqiao Experience," which emerged during socialist educational transformation, occurred during this period. Mao Zedong issued instructions on the "Fengqiao Experience"—which relied on the masses to resolve contradictions locally without escalating them—requesting that "all places emulate this, and after piloting, promote its implementation." In short, during this period, pilot experimentation as a working method began to trigger systematic theoretical reflection and was widely implemented across various fields of rural reform.
(3) Rural Institutional Transition and the Standardized Development of Rural Reform Pilot Experiments
Since the beginning of Reform and Opening-up, with the focus of the whole Party's work shifting toward socialist modernization, both the focus and direction of rural reform changed. The connotations and methods of rural reform pilot experiments were continuously enriched and displayed a trend of standardized development. In 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee deliberated and passed the Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Certain Matters Concerning the Acceleration of Agricultural Development. This served as an important policy basis for rural reform, clarifying two main threads: economically caring for the material interests of farmers and politically safeguarding the democratic rights of farmers. In the same year, Deng Xiaoping proposed in Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth from Facts and Unite as One in Looking to the Future: "Before a unified national plan is produced, we can start with local parts—starting from one region or one industry and gradually spreading out. Central departments should allow and encourage them to conduct such experiments. Various contradictions will emerge during experimentation; we must discover and overcome these contradictions in a timely manner." This important thought became the guiding theory for rural reform pilot experiments during this period.
Because the rural political and economic systems were facing transition, rural reform pilot experiments also faced new developmental propositions. This was specifically reflected in the readjustment of the relationships between farmers and land, farmers and village collectives, and urban and rural areas. The rural household contract responsibility system and the system of villagers' self-governance originated from autonomous explorations at the grassroots; subsequently, the CPC Central Committee and relevant state departments promoted them through national-level piloting. In the process of advancing the household contract responsibility system, Deng Xiaoping repeatedly emphasized the need to proceed from objective rural reality, seek truth from facts, and adapt measures to local conditions. Since the beginning of the new century, basic rural systems have continued to be perfected through reform pilots. Surrounding new issues arising from marketization—such as urban-rural relations and tax and fee reforms—the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued a series of rural reform pilot documents. These involved rural tax and fee reform, rural credit cooperative reform, rural social pension insurance reform, the linking of urban and rural construction land increases and decreases, rural cooperative medical care, the "Universal Nine-Year Compulsory Education" [7] debt in rural areas, and the rural minimum living security and poverty alleviation development. A batch of typical experimental results emerged during this period, such as the policy of "no land increase for increased population, no land decrease for decreased population" in Meitan, Guizhou.
During this period, the substance and methods of rural reform pilot programs continued to diversify and move toward standardization. First, the central government and relevant state departments promoted rural reform pilots through policy initiatives based on specific content. A search of the State Council's official website for titles of opinions or notifications containing "rural pilot" between 1979 and 2012 yields as many as 14 such documents when classified by issuing agency. Second, a pilot mechanism with "Rural Reform Experimental Zones" as the primary carrier was gradually established. In 1987, the CPC Central Committee issued Document No. 5, Taking the Rural Reform Further, which emphasized the "planned establishment of reform experimental zones." Based on this, the State Council approved the first batch of 12 rural reform experimental zones. The 2010 Central No. 1 Document emphasized "strengthening guidance for the work of rural reform experimental zones under the new situation"; in October of the same year, the Ministry of Agriculture issued the Measures for the Operation and Management of National Rural Reform Experimental Zones, which regulated the management of national and provincial-level experimental zones. This persisted in and improved a work system characterized by "central authorization, departmental guidance, multi-party cooperation, and grassroots innovation." It is evident that since the beginning of the reform and opening up, rural reform pilot programs have evolved from the initial "crossing the river by feeling the stones" [8] and spontaneous exploration by peasants toward planned and standardized policy piloting.
(IV) Systematic Optimization of the Comprehensive Implementation of Rural Vitalization and Rural Reform Pilot Programs
On December 29, 2017, the Central Rural Work Conference proposed for the first time the path of rural vitalization with Chinese characteristics. "To implement the rural vitalization strategy, we must first act according to objective laws... the path for China's rural vitalization can only be explored by ourselves." China in the New Era is in a crucial historical period led by a new round of land system reform, comprehensively deepening rural reform, accelerating the pace of agricultural and rural modernization, and speeding up the construction of a strong agricultural country. Xi Jinping has inherited and developed the important thought of CPC members regarding reform pilot programs, noting: "In advancing reform, we must adhere to correct mental methods and dialectics, and properly handle the relationships between emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts, between overall advancement and breakthroughs in key areas, between the global whole and the local part, and between top-level design and crossing the river by feeling the stones." This thought has become an important guiding theory for advancing rural reform pilot programs within the context of rural vitalization in the New Era.
In light of the new background and reform requirements of the era, rural reform pilot programs now place greater emphasis on global positioning and systematic optimization. Specifically: First, there is a greater focus on the systematic deployment of rural reform pilots. To systematically address the "three rural issues" [9], the Comprehensive Implementation Plan for Deepening Rural Reform issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council in November 2015 identified "adhering to gradual progress and piloting first" as a key reform principle. It emphasized that rural reform in the New Era is highly integrated; relying on "isolated charges" [10] is unlikely to succeed. Instead, one must establish systemic thinking, perform overall planning and top-level design, identify key issues and principal contradictions, and further improve the scientific nature of rural reform decision-making as well as the systemic, holistic, and synergistic nature of the reforms. Following the new round of national institutional reform, the Measures for the Operation and Management of National Rural Reform Experimental Zones issued in 2021 changed the leadership of rural reform from being handled solely by the Ministry of Agriculture to being led jointly by the Central Rural Work Leading Group Office and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Judging by the tasks of these pilot programs, the number of reform tasks coordinated and deployed by these two bodies in conjunction with relevant departments has significantly increased in recent years.
Second, there is a greater focus on the integrated advancement of rural reform pilot programs. To adapt to profound changes in the internal and external environments of rural reform and further deepen the agricultural supply-side structural reform, the Ministry of Finance formulated the Implementation Plan for Carrying Out Comprehensive Rural Reform Pilot Programs in June 2017. It pointed out that these pilots primarily examine the effectiveness of years of Central No. 1 Documents through the integrated synthesis of policy measures. Consequently, rural reform experimental zones are continuously undertaking expansionary experimental tasks according to new requirements, and the integration of tasks in local rural reform pilots has been enhanced.
Third, there is a greater focus on the interaction between top-level design and grassroots exploration. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the main framework of rural reform, characterized by its "four beams and eight pillars" [11], has been basically established, and various reform policies are being steadily advanced. Therefore, advancing rural reform pilot programs is not only about exploring new policies but also about "pathfinding" for various reform policies in the new period through prior trial and error. Compared to the past, the interactivity between top-level design and grassroots exploration has become more prominent. The empirical achievements of rural reform pilots in the New Era are significant. Among them, the rural "Three Transformations" [12] reform explored by the Liupanshui Experimental Zone in Guizhou has been written into the Central No. 1 Document multiple times and promoted nationwide, providing a new model for increasing peasant income and promoting poverty reduction and alleviation.
II. Valuable Experience of the CPC in Leading Rural Reform Pilot Programs
In reviewing the Party's developmental journey, Xi Jinping profoundly noted: "An important reason for our Party's step-by-step progress is the continuous summation of experience and the improvement of our skills, constantly increasing our ability to handle risks, meet challenges, and turn danger into safety." A review of the history of rural reform pilot programs reveals that they are embedded within rural reform itself, playing a vital role in different stages such as policy formation and execution. The CPC's leadership of these pilots has not only driven historic changes and achievements in rural reform but has also accumulated valuable experience.
(A) Adhering to the Overall Coordination of the Party and the State is the Fundamental Guarantee for Rural Reform Pilot Programs
China's rural areas are vast, the rural situation is complex, and the tasks of reform and governance are heavy. As a process of seeking relative certainty within uncertainty, rural reform pilot programs require both top-down orderly support and bottom-up space for trial and error. Historical experience shows that the effective advancement of these pilots has possessed both, which is inseparable from the effective exercise of the Party and State's overall coordination functions. On the one hand, this is inseparable from the centralized and unified leadership of the CPC. In a context of long-term, high-intensity, and uncertain reform, the CPC has played a powerful role in steering the direction, managing the overall situation, formulating policies, and coordinating all parties to promote reform. It uses the Party's advanced nature to lead and inspire the enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity of local authorities and the peasant masses. Its organizational and leadership system, which connects the top and bottom with effective execution, provides the organizational foundation for the orderly advancement of rural reform pilots. Furthermore, during the process of rural reform piloting, the CPC has maintained a powerful capacity for error correction, ensuring the continuity of results and the socialist orientation of the reforms. Guided by a "people-centered" objective and value pursuit, the CPC—with the courage for self-revolution—ensured that those reform pilots that deviated from this value in the course of history were ultimately corrected.
On the other hand, this benefits from the effective support and protection of state policies. The diverse bottom-up experiences in rural reform pilots need the support and protection of state policies, and the uncertainties in these pilots can only find viable, certain paths through practice. For example, the household contract responsibility system in the early days of reform and opening up began with the practices of the peasant masses, represented by Xiaogang Village in Anhui; after investigation, piloting, and summation by the Party Central Committee and various levels of government, a series of supporting policies were formed. In the New Era, the coordination functions of the Party and State have become even more apparent. The Party Central Committee and the State Council are responsible for issuing the overall reform plans, while various ministries and commissions (either individually or through joint professional guidance) advance the pilot programs. During execution, various departments and regions then issue specific implementation plans. Within state policy, the setting of rural reform principles has become clearer: "adapting measures to local conditions," "categorized policymaking," "gradual progress," and "piloting first" have become important guiding principles for rural reform policy.
(B) Properly Handling the Relationship Between Peasants and Land is the Main Thread of Rural Reform Pilot Programs
"China's rural reform began with the adjustment of the relationship between peasants and land. In deepening rural reform under the new situation, the main thread remains properly handling the relationship between peasants and land." Maintaining the "main thread" status of the peasant-land relationship and seeking specific ways to develop the agricultural countryside and protect peasants' rights through reform pilots is one of the important experiences of the CPC. On the one hand, respecting the agency of peasants, mobilizing their initiative, and protecting their vital interests and basic rights is the unwavering political stance of the CPC in leading rural reform. On the other hand, China has a large population and limited land; land is the most basic means of production for agriculture and the most fundamental livelihood guarantee for peasants. Rural reform pilots carried out in different historical periods share connections despite their differences. The difference lies in the specific directions and requirements of the pilots around this main thread in different eras; the connection lies in the fact that reforms in all periods reflected, to varying degrees, the adaptation and coordinated development of rural economic and political reforms, ensuring the principal status of the peasants. In the early days of the Party's founding, an important task of leading rural reform pilots was to overthrow feudal land ownership through the land revolution to achieve peasant land ownership, securing rights for the masses through "land to the tiller" and "reduction of rent and interest." Correspondingly, to further mobilize the masses and protect their rights, various regions explored democratic forms of participation, such as township representative assemblies and mass meetings, to activate peasants' awareness of their rights and ensure their orderly participation.
In the early period of reform and opening up, "the development speed of China's agriculture in the past twenty years has not been fast, creating an extremely sharp contradiction between it and the needs of the people and the Four Modernizations." To solve practical difficulties, the peasant masses spontaneously carried out practical explorations; a series of reform innovations, represented by the household contract responsibility system, were typical results. Subsequently, the system of grassroots self-governance and its specific forms were gradually established through rural reform pilots. Forms of villagers' self-governance, including the "Four Democracies" [13], allowed the political rights of the peasant masses to be truly realized and their economic rights to be guaranteed. In the New Era, to resolve the contradiction between the people's growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development, rural reform pilots focus on the rural land system, the rural collective property rights system, the agricultural management system, and the agricultural support and protection system to advance comprehensive rural reform. Meanwhile, to ensure diverse forms and smooth channels for peasant participation and to form a standardized, orderly, and vigorous rural governance mechanism, rural reform also focuses on expanding orderly participation, promoting information disclosure, improving consultation and deliberation, and strengthening power supervision, continuously advancing rural governance pilot reforms from point to surface.
(C) Strengthening the Construction of Organizational and Implementation Mechanisms is the Operational Support for Rural Reform Pilot Programs
Through the accumulation of practical experience, the rural reform pilot projects led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) have become deeply embedded in every link of rural policy formation and implementation, gradually forming a three-dimensional interaction pattern involving the Central Government, local authorities, and farmers. In this framework, the Party and the state are responsible for "steering the course" [14], overall planning, and coordination; local pilot sites are responsible for the specific testing of different policies; and the farming masses, as direct stakeholders, express their opinions and demands and participate in rural reform pilots through grassroots democratic channels. Within this tripartite interaction, the orderly operation of rural reform pilots depends on the construction and refinement of organizational and implementation mechanisms. Currently, rural reform pilots have gradually formed organizational management mechanisms encompassing stages such as organizational leadership, application and approval, evaluation and acceptance, task termination, and task withdrawal, as well as implementation mechanisms covering key links such as pilot selection, scheme design, pilot exploration, performance evaluation, and popularization and application.
Rural reform cannot be accomplished overnight; as old problems are solved, new ones emerge. New problems bring not only changes in the tasks of rural reform but also necessitate the continuous refinement of reform methods. Therefore, while the development of China’s countryside confirms the success of Chinese rural reform, it also demonstrates that rural reform pilots possess characteristics of persevering in pioneering innovation and seeking methodological flexibility and adaptive development. Rural reform pilots are able to continuously adjust, refine, and enrich specific methods based on task requirements and the conditions of the times, opportunely and flexibly setting the content, scope, and level of pilots to advance orderly reform. In the 1980s, as rural reform gradually deepened, it faced issues such as stage transitions, widening differences in regional economic development, and increasing risks in unified decision-making. The Party Central Committee began to systematically advance rural reform pilots, establishing Rural Reform Experimental Zones and corresponding management mechanisms to disperse risks and decompose difficult problems for the overall reform, further strengthening the primary role of local authorities in the pilot process. With the comprehensive deepening of rural reform, the systemic and interconnected nature of reform in the New Era has increased, as has the demand for supporting measures for rural reform pilots. The Central Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform and various reform departments have further established and refined corresponding systems for application, joint conferences, monitoring and evaluation, supervision and guidance, and the transformation of results throughout the process from deployment to acceptance.
(4) The Timely Transformation of Mature Experience and Results is the Practical Goal of Rural Reform Pilots
The CPC’s leadership of rural reform pilots emphasizes the timely synthesis and promotion of practical experience, transforming mature results into policies and regulations. This provides institutional guarantees for comprehensively deepening rural reform and ensures that reform can proceed in depth according to the law and in an orderly manner. By the end of 2018, 144 experimental results from Rural Reform Experimental Zones had been reflected in the formulation of policy documents and the drafting or revision of laws and regulations at or above the provincial and ministerial level, covering almost all key areas of rural reform. The complexity of the rural environment makes reform pilots more reliant on regional experience for the specific interpretation of the policy environment and the pioneering experiments built upon it. Therefore, the process of transforming and applying the results of rural reform pilots possesses both the general characteristics of "pilot-to-popularization" and the deep nesting of links and content.
At the level of procedural links, rural reform follows a progressive path of "grassroots exploration — sufficient piloting — top-level design — tailoring measures to local conditions" [15]. The Party and the state encourage local breakthroughs and innovations, synthesizing, publicizing, and promoting the experiences of individual rural reform pilots to play a typical exemplary and leading role. Simultaneously, they systematically synthesize and elevate pilot experiences based on a certain quantity of data into national policies or legal systems, implementing them nationwide in the form of national policy. During the implementation of national policies, the fulfillment of reform tasks still requires progressive pilot methods to achieve local adaptation, categorized advancement, and synthesis for elevation.
At the level of content, since the Reform and Opening-up began, Chinese rural reform pilots have evolved from establishing the basic rural management system to vitalizing the flow of rural commodities and promoting the flow of urban-rural factors; to the deepening of rural market-oriented reforms; to advancing the reform of rural taxes and fees and initiating urban-rural coordination; and finally, since the 18th CPC National Congress, to comprehensively deepening rural reform, promoting comprehensive rural reform, and advancing urban-rural integration. Although each stage has a different focus, the contents are closely linked, representing a gradual process of exploratory deepening. Taken together, the content of national rural reform pilots mainly includes three categories: blind spots in laws and policies, non-detailed content, and lagging content. Comparatively, in the early period of Reform and Opening-up, many grassroots innovations involved breaking through first, popularizing second, and finally confirming through the "enactment, revision, abolition, and interpretation" (立改废释) of laws and regulations. As the system of laws and regulations has become increasingly sound and reform pilots have entered "deep water" [16], innovations of the first category (breaking through blind spots) have become more difficult. However, the stage-based differences among these three types of content precisely reflect that rural reform has both persisted in long-term piloting and emphasized timely judgment. Only by conducting timely synthesis and evaluation of various reform pilots and ensuring that mature experiences are continuously confirmed and promoted through laws and policies can the system of rural laws and regulations be increasingly perfected.
III. Further Advancing Vitalization of the Countryside by Deepening Rural Reform Pilots
Success in rural reform pilots is of great significance to the overall situation of rural reform. As they enter the period of deepening reform, rural reform pilots are not only a "magic weapon" [17] for the Party Central Committee to advance policy formulation and execution but have also become a common tool for local authorities to advance various rural reform innovations. Standing at a new historical stage, "Three Rural" (三农) work [18] led by the CPC has shifted historically toward the comprehensive implementation of the Strategy for Vitalization of the Countryside, entering the process of accelerating the advancement of Chinese-path agricultural and rural modernization and the construction of a strong agricultural country. In particular, with the advancement of reform tasks in the 2015 Comprehensive Implementation Scheme for Deepening Rural Reform, a series of top-level design reform plans have been issued, a group of in-depth breakthrough reform pilots have been implemented in an orderly manner, and a set of mature and finalized legal systems has been established. The institutional framework and policy system for the vitalization of the countryside have basically taken shape. However, the main tasks facing rural reform pilots in the future remain unchanged; the focus and methods must be adjusted according to the fundamental changes in deeper-level contradictions, expanding toward deeper fields of reform.
(1) Further Grasping the Duality of Tasks and Methods in Rural Reform Pilots
Comprehensively advancing rural reform is a complex systemic project that must adhere to a scientific methodology. Xi Jinping has emphasized that "piloting is an important task of reform, and also an important method of reform." This is also a re-emphasis on the importance of the pilot methodology during the period of comprehensively deepening reform, in light of the actual conditions of reform in the New Era. On the task list for comprehensively advancing rural reform in the New Era, items such as consolidating and improving the basic rural management system, deepening the reform of the rural property rights system, deepening rural financial reform, improving the rural governance system, and refining the institutional mechanisms for integrated urban-rural development can basically be advanced from specific points to broader areas. The reform pilots in these fields not only constitute an important part of rural reform tasks but also create "experimental fields" [19] for rural reform, bearing the important task of strategic breakthroughs.
Therefore, to meet the requirements of the national vision—achieving decisive progress in the vitalization of the countryside and basically realizing agricultural and rural modernization by 2035, and achieving full vitalization of the countryside by 2050—China must further recognize the importance and global significance of pilots as a reform task, while further enhancing its conscious use of pilots as a reform methodology. On the one hand, we must profoundly recognize the importance of the tasks of rural reform pilots. Currently, rural reform still faces a series of risks and challenges in achieving stable and increased agricultural production, steady increases in farmers' income, and stability and tranquility in the countryside. The countryside remains the weakest link in achieving common prosperity. Pilots must continue to firmly grasp the main line—handling the relationship between farmers and land—and innovate agricultural institutional mechanisms to address issues in the land system, management system, and property rights system. Simultaneously, rural reform must focus on agricultural and rural modernization, promoting rural construction and governance, and using the county level as the entry point to advance urban-rural integration, systematically pushing forward the clarification of rural property rights, the marketization of rural factors, and the efficiency of agricultural support.
On the other hand, we must profoundly recognize the importance of rural reform pilots as a method. In a complex and volatile development environment, dealing with an unstable and uncertain internal and external environment through the stability of development and security, and the continuity of reform and innovation, requires the support of a scientific methodology. As a "magic weapon" of the CPC in facing development uncertainty, rural reform pilots have played an indispensable and important role in the history of rural reform. Therefore, we must still persist with pilots in key areas and crucial links of rural reform to stimulate the initiative of local reform and innovation, reduce the resistance and risks of rural reform, and accelerate the promotion of typical experiences, providing beneficial exploration and effective policy ideas for further comprehensively deepening rural reform in the new stage of development.
(2) Further Deepening the Effective Interaction Between Top-level Design and Grassroots Exploration
In the historical process of the unity of knowledge and practice, practice plays a foundational and decisive role, while knowledge plays a forward-looking and guiding role. Rural reform pilots undergo a virtuous cycle of breakthrough, innovation, and refinement, allowing knowledge to achieve a "spiral ascent" through continuous practice, better guiding the formulation and execution of national policies in different periods. In the New Era, many problems have entered the "deep water" of reform, reflecting deeper systematicity, interconnectedness, and complexity, with different difficulties and risk points appearing in different fields. Facing the various problems and risks in rural reform, accurately grasping the direction of rural reform pilots requires highlighting integrity, synergy, and systematicity within the context of comprehensively advancing the vitalization of the countryside. The concept of "top-level design" (顶层设计) originates from systems science; systematicity, integrity, and synergy are its inherent meanings. Therefore, rural reform pilots need to leverage the role of the Central Government in personally taking charge of reform and "holding the flag to set the direction" (举旗定向), systematically guiding rural reform pilots with the rational thinking, macro-construction, and overall design of the Party and the state.
Historical experience shows that the unique political system characteristics of China’s "sub-national experimentation" (分级制试验) determine that the Central Government possesses vertical command authority and leadership advantages, enabling it to conduct overall coordination of the rural reform pilot landscape. Therefore, faced with the high interconnectedness and systematic nature of the new round of rural reform, determining the basic direction, goals, and principles of rural reform pilots according to the macro-layout of top-level design is more conducive to ensuring that rural reform pilots can proceed continuously and methodically under scientific guidance.
At the same time, the further differentiation of rural reform pilots means that the importance of grassroots exploration as "source water" (源头活水) cannot be ignored. Facing the increased density of rural reform content and the "deep water" dilemma, to avoid "one-size-fits-all" (一刀切) policies, local authorities should be allowed to carry out differentiated pilots. According to the principal contradiction of the New Era, the farming masses are more aware of their own aspirations and demands for a better life; it is therefore crucial to seek the entry point for rural reform within the focus of the masses' concerns and the difficulties of their lives. Particularly in the process of conducting pilot work, using grassroots democratic participation mechanisms to listen more to grassroots voices, obtain more first-hand materials, and clarify the "bottom line" of rural reform will be more conducive to enhancing the targeted nature and effectiveness of rural reform pilots. In short, rural reform pilots in the new period need to continue, under the leadership of the Party, to strengthen the effective interaction between "top-level design and grassroots exploration," thereby ensuring they can smoothly and orderly resolve potential conflicts and risks, and effectively promote the replacement of old rural systems with new ones and the stimulation of new kinetic energy.
(3) Further Enhancing the Scientific Nature of the Organization and Implementation of Rural Reform Pilots
The rural reform pilot experiments led by the Communist Party of China are not aimless processes of trial and error or preconceived "trial and success," but rather an ordered, organized process of "policy problem-solving." In the course of rural reform pilot experiments, the distribution of power and responsibility and the degree of rationality in the organizational and implementation stages affect the form and results of the experiment. China’s rural reform pilot projects number in the thousands. From a typological perspective, they can be categorized into: National Comprehensive Reform Pilot Zones, reform pilot zones jointly promoted by multiple departments, pilot zones led by single ministries or commissions for specific items, reform pilot zones established by local governments and local departments, and various pilot projects implemented in the form of specific projects that reach directly down to counties, districts, townships, and villages. If effective organizational implementation is lacking, and high-density, highly correlated reform pilot content enters local spaces, issues such as "isolated advances" [20] or "mere formalities" can easily arise, affecting local reform efficacy. Rural revitalization cannot be achieved overnight. For rural reform pilot experiments that concern the basic rights and interests of farmers and "pull one hair and the whole body moves" [21], it is necessary to have sufficient patience and to further improve organization and implementation mechanisms that feature clear rights and responsibilities, interconnected links, and coverage of the entire process. At present, rural reform pilot experiments already have corresponding organizational implementation mechanisms supporting them before, during, and after the process. Generally speaking, however, coordination and systematicity are somewhat insufficient. To this end, the responsible subjects and social participation subjects should be clarified according to the pre-trial, mid-trial, and post-trial stages. Corresponding target orientations, principle "bottom lines," and layout plans should be established to create a serial, interlocking organizational mechanism, while exploring parallel mechanisms for horizontal cooperation. For pilot projects with high difficulty, unclear directions, overlapping content, and high degrees of correlation, social professional forces can be recruited to participate during the planning and design stages, in addition to repeated investigations and demonstrations by lead units and relevant departments, so as to improve the scientific nature of the top-level design. During the implementation stage, by clarifying target orientations and innovating mobilization methods, different opinions and contradictions should be fully exposed in the pilot, paving the way for subsequent promotion. In periodic evaluations, a relatively independent third-party guidance, measurement, and feedback mechanism should be established and improved to lay a foundation for the next step of policy optimization.
(4) Further enhancing the effectiveness of replicating and promoting rural reform pilot experiments.
Most research summarizes the connotation of the pilot experiment as a set of methodologies comprising two core links: the "pilot" and the transition "from point to plane." Regardless of whether a pilot experiment succeeds or fails, or whether it can be promoted, its result-oriented nature determines that its significance is not limited to the pilot itself, but lies in pursuing larger spillover effects. Based on the historical experience of China’s rural reform pilot experiments, unlike the high activity of horizontal diffusion in the West, the Party and the state play a leading role in the replication and promotion stage of rural reform pilot experiments. The unique institutional arrangement of vertical intergovernmental relations can suppress the obstruction of policy diffusion by local interests. However, in current rural reform pilot experiments, many local practical experiences remain superficial or stuck in repetitive dilemmas. A series of problems exist, such as the difficulty of refining practical experience and the difficulty of promotion and replication, which weakens the sample spillover effect of rural reform pilot experiments. The purpose of rural reform pilot experiments is clearly not to spend "large sums of money" to create a performance "potted landscape" [22], but to find replicable, operable, sustainable, and adaptable empirical laws. Therefore, it is necessary to further improve the scientific evaluation system for rural reform pilot experiments. Some rural reform pilot tasks are "pressure tests" conducted locally for national execution; some are tasks where local breakthroughs are needed due to "policy whitespace"; some involve sensitive interest issues such as land where farmers' reactions are significant; and some involve "soft" governance methods and mechanisms where farmers' attention is relatively low. The nature, content, and degree of difficulty of different rural reform pilot tasks will exert different influences on the intensity and effectiveness of local rural reform itself. Therefore, before formulating pilot tasks, higher-level governments can further distinguish between different situations, implement classified guidance, and establish a pre-evaluation system covering dimensions such as political nature, demand, risk, periodicity, and innovativeness. During the process, evaluation and guidance should be conducted through joint investigations by professional third parties and cross-regional government practitioners to help local authorities grasp key directions and adjust unreasonable reform measures in a timely manner. Afterwards, evaluation methods combining subjectivity and objectivity, and quantitative and qualitative analysis, should be comprehensively used to conduct scientific evaluation and feedback under specific premises, focusing on evaluating the execution, implementation effects, and social impact of the rural reform pilot experiments, objectively summarizing experiences, reflecting problems, and proposing suggestions for improvement. At the same time, it should be recognized that the objective fact of regional imbalance in China's rural development exists. The further down to the grassroots level one goes, the greater the differences become. Consequently, the difficulty of refining general experience from typical practices and transforming results is correspondingly greater. This requires local authorities to have more reform wisdom and patience, to objectively grasp local actual conditions in vertical policy execution and horizontal organizational learning, and to promote the transformation of specific reform and innovation content from "simple transplantation" to "adaptive landing."