The First Academic Symposium on "Marxism and Agricultural and Rural Modernization" Successfully Held
As specified in the program, on July 5, 2025, the inaugural academic symposium on "Marxism and Agricultural and Rural Modernization," jointly organized by the New Collective Economy Research Branch of the Chinese Society of Political Economy, the Marxism Research Branch of the China Association of Higher Education, and Sichuan Agricultural University, was held in Chengdu. The symposium was hosted by the School of Marxism at Sichuan Agricultural University and the Sichuan Provincial Society of Political Economy, with co-sponsorship from the Western Rural Revitalization Research Center and the Sichuan Provincial Rural Development Research Center. The theme of the conference was "Further Deepening Rural Reform and Promoting Comprehensive Rural Revitalization." Experts and scholars from various institutions, including the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Peking University, Tsinghua University, the Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China Agricultural University, the Sichuan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, and Sichuan Agricultural University, attended the meeting for exchange and discussion.
The opening ceremony was presided over by Professor Jiang Yuansheng, Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee, Head of the Propaganda Department, and Secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Marxism at Sichuan Agricultural University. Opening remarks were delivered by Professor Liu Dengcai, Secretary of the Party Committee of Sichuan Agricultural University; Professor An Yufeng, Chairman of the Marxism Research Branch of the China Association of Higher Education, Deputy Director and Secretary-General of the Peking University Council, and Chairman of the Peking University Labor Union; Research Fellow Luo Wendong, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Institute of Marxism Studies at CASS; and Research Fellow Gong Yun, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Institute of Economics at CASS and President of the New Collective Economy Research Branch of the Chinese Society of Political Economy.
Liu Dengcai first expressed warm congratulations on the convening of the meeting and extended a sincere welcome and heartfelt thanks to the attending leaders, experts, and scholars. He pointed out that advancing agricultural and rural modernization is currently not only a requirement of national strategy and the well-being of the people but also places new and higher demands on theoretical research and talent cultivation in universities. He emphasized that this conference is a concrete manifestation of the university's implementation of the mission to "cultivate talent for the Party and the state" and serves as an important opportunity to promote the deep integration of Marxist theory with agricultural and rural modernization. The convening of the conference will undoubtedly provide a powerful platform for promoting theoretical innovation, serving national strategies, and fostering the integration of industry, academia, and research. He expressed hope that the university would use this symposium as an opportunity to deepen cooperation and exchange with other universities and research institutions, working together to push forward the integrated innovation of Marxist theory and agricultural and rural modernization, contributing more theoretical results and intellectual strength to Chinese-path modernization and national rejuvenation.
An Yufeng noted that General Secretary Xi Jinping’s discourses on "becoming a global power in agriculture" highlight the importance of agricultural and rural modernization. He emphasized that from a historical and strategic perspective, deepening rural reform is fundamental to solving agricultural and rural issues and is key to promoting comprehensive rural revitalization. Faced with the current international situation, it is essential to prioritize agricultural and rural development, strictly guard the "red line" of arable land [1], and effectively resolve "sannong" (agriculture, rural areas, and farmers) issues [2]. He put forward three major expectations for the symposium: first, to deepen the research and interpretation of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourses on agricultural and rural modernization; second, to apply Marxist positions, viewpoints, and methods to analyze "sannong" issues; and third, to construct an academic system for "sannong" research with Chinese characteristics. He called on the participating scholars to immerse themselves in the practice of rural revitalization and "write their papers on the soil of the motherland" [3], providing solid theoretical support for advancing agricultural and rural modernization.
Luo Wendong, representing the Institute of Marxism Studies at CASS—the managerial unit of the Chinese Society of Political Economy—extended warm congratulations. He pointed out that agricultural and rural modernization is not only a major theoretical issue in the "sannong" field but also a significant practical issue for comprehensively advancing the cause of building a strong country and national rejuvenation through Chinese-path modernization. General Secretary Xi Jinping has clearly stated that without agricultural and rural modernization, there can be no national modernization. Correctly handling the relationship between industry and agriculture, and between urban and rural areas, is the key to the success or failure of modernization. It is necessary to prioritize agricultural and rural development, improve the policy system for strengthening, benefiting, and enriching farmers, promote the formation of a diversified food supply system, expand county-level industries that enrich the people, cultivate new industries and business formats, and promote comprehensive rural revitalization. The theme of this symposium focuses on deepening rural reform and promoting comprehensive rural revitalization, covering a series of major issues of significant value. He expressed hope that the symposium would adhere to the correct direction and principles, implement relevant ideas and spirit, remain grounded in practice, use Marxist positions, viewpoints, and methods, draw on international experience, and deeply study the issues of China’s agricultural and rural modernization. This will contribute greater wisdom and strength to the rapid construction of an independent Chinese theoretical system for agricultural and rural modernization—with Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as its banner and soul—and to the comprehensive advancement of building a powerful nation and the cause of national rejuvenation.
Gong Yun offered several reflections and suggestions regarding Marxism and China’s agricultural and rural modernization. First, it is necessary to enhance the awareness of using Marxist theory to guide China’s agricultural and rural modernization. Marxist "sannong" theory is the fundamental weapon for performing related work; only by adhering to Marxist guidance can the direction of the modernization path be clarified and rural revitalization be aided. Second, great importance must be attached to the development of the collective economy. The collective economy is the foundation for farmers to achieve prosperity and an important guarantee for farmers to follow the path of common prosperity. Third, it is necessary to persist in Marxism, especially contemporary Chinese Marxism and 21st-century Marxism—namely, Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. Scholars must adhere to a problem-oriented approach, face "sannong" issues head-on, go deep into the countryside to understand the situation, fully mobilize the initiative of farmers, and strengthen the education of the peasantry.
The keynote report session was presided over by Professor Zeng Weizhong, Member of the Party Committee of Sichuan Agricultural University, Dean of the School of Economics, and Director of the Western Rural Revitalization Research Center. Speakers included Research Fellow Jin Wencheng, former Director of the Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs; Professor Yang Jirui, Honorary Chairman of the Chengdu Federation of Social Science Circles; Research Fellow Yang Ying, President of the Sichuan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences; Research Fellow Zheng Yougui, former Director of the Second Research Office of the Institute of Contemporary China Studies at CASS; Professor Zhang Hui, Dean of the School of Marxism at China Agricultural University; Professor Ji Zhigeng of the School of Marxism at Sichuan University and Vice President of the Sichuan Provincial Society of Political Economy; and Professor Yan Hairong of the Department of Sociology at the Tsinghua University Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Jin Wencheng focused on analyzing five original contributions of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s theory on food security. First, establishing food security as a "top priority of the state" (guo zhi da zhe) [4] and the primary task of national security; second, proposing the situational judgment that China’s food supply and demand will remain in a "tight balance" for a long time; third, establishing the 20-character strategic deployment of "relying on ourselves, basing efforts domestically, ensuring production capacity, moderate imports, and technological support"; fourth, clarifying seven major measures for China’s food security and constructing a systematic and comprehensive theoretical and policy system for food security; and fifth, emphasizing the methodology of adhering to scientific ways of thinking, such as strategic thinking and dialectical thinking.
Starting from both historical and realistic dimensions, Yang Jirui systematically expounded on the inheritance, innovation, and development of the "Eight-Point Charter for Agriculture" [5] in the New Era. He argued that the "Eight-Point Charter for Agriculture" was proposed after the completion of socialist transformation and represents the concentrated expression of Mao Zedong Thought in the agricultural field. Entering the New Era, General Secretary Xi Jinping has inherited and innovatively developed the spirit of the "Eight-Point Charter for Agriculture," proposing agricultural development goals of "high yield, high quality, high efficiency, ecology, and safety," and implementing them in agricultural modernization practices such as arable land protection, high-standard farmland construction, and water conservancy projects. The inheritance of the "Eight-Point Charter" in the New Era is not only a continuation of traditional experience but also an integrated development of institutional innovation, technological leadership, and industrial integration, with the fundamental goal of achieving high-quality development in agriculture and ensuring national food security.
Yang Ying systematically explained the generative logic, realistic obstacles, and key breakthroughs for promoting Chinese-path modernization through integrated urban-rural development. He argued that integrated urban-rural development is both an instance of upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground in the Marxist theory of urban-rural relations and a theoretical sublimation of the Communist Party of China’s century-long experience in urban-rural practice. Furthermore, it is the practical unfolding of the New Development Philosophy [6] in the field of urban-rural relations and an inherent requirement and important path for achieving Chinese-path modernization. Currently, urban-rural integration faces realistic constraints such as weak county-level economies, uneven factor allocation, broken industrial chains, and imbalanced public services. To this end, he proposed "four key breakthroughs": first, using high-quality development of the county economy as a lead to strengthen the linkage between new-type urbanization and rural revitalization; second, deepening the market-oriented reform of factors and improving the mechanism for equal exchange of urban and rural factors; third, focusing on the cultivation of industrial integration carriers to enhance the synergy and added value of the urban-rural industrial system; and fourth, guided by the actual needs of residents, building an efficient, balanced, and intelligent public service delivery system.
Zheng Yougui systematically explored the core issue of how to prevent the 400 million rural residents from being marginalized and ensure they move toward modernization together during the process of Chinese-path modernization. He emphasized that General Secretary Xi Jinping revealed "two laws" of industrial-agricultural and urban-rural development: namely, the objective law that the proportion of the urban population rises while the rural falls during modernization; and the objective law that, given China’s national condition of nearly 1.4 billion people, no matter how far industrialization and urbanization progress, agriculture must develop and the countryside will not vanish—urban and rural areas will coexist for a long time. On this basis, even if the urbanization rate reaches 70% in the future, hundreds of millions of people will still live in the countryside. These people must not be left behind by modernization; otherwise, a situation of "urban prosperity and rural decay" would violate the essential requirements of socialism. Therefore, farmers must be allowed to participate equally in and share the fruits of modernization, ensuring their status as principal actors. He pointed out that the persistence and plight of "left-behind" farmers is a pain point in current urban-rural integration and advocated for a multi-dimensional path, especially emphasizing the important responsibility of the collective economy in the New Era regarding rural public services, elderly care security, and agricultural support. Furthermore, he explored the issue of collective action, noting that traditional Chinese villages possess historical wisdom regarding mutual aid and cooperation. Currently, it is necessary to establish the status of the collective economy as a market entity through institutional innovation, and by combining practices such as the "Green Rural Revival Program" [7], construct a theory of collective action for rural communities to aid rural revitalization and the modernization of farmers.
Zhang Hui systematically expounded on "common prosperity for farmers and the countryside" as the theoretical logic and realistic path at the core of agricultural and rural modernization. She argued that common prosperity for farmers and the countryside not only reflects the socialist essence of Chinese-path modernization but is also an important component of the goal of common prosperity for all people, encompassing the simultaneous enrichment of both material and spiritual life. Agricultural and rural modernization is the fundamental means to achieve this goal, and it is necessary to persist in the coordinated advancement of both to avoid the structural imbalance of "urban prosperity and rural decay." At the specific practical level, she proposed three points of focus: first, strengthening the leadership of rural primary-level Party organizations, enhancing rural governance capabilities, and promoting the development of the collective economy; second, highlighting the subjectivity and endogenous driving force of farmers, and building long-term mechanisms to consolidate poverty alleviation results and link them with rural revitalization; and third, accelerating the modernization of the agricultural management system, improving the rural land system and the agricultural socialized service system, promoting the effective connection between small households and modern agriculture, and facilitating the two-way flow of urban-rural factors and value-added across the entire agricultural industrial chain, so that farmers can truly share in modernization and development dividends.
Ji Zhigeng analyzed the ideological foundation and theoretical construction of Chinese-path agricultural and rural modernization from multiple dimensions, including tracing the origins of civilization, searching for theoretical roots, and grasping the direction of development. He argued that the Chinese countryside is not only a production space but also a "living community" carrying Chinese civilization, possessing deep cultural value and spiritual connotations. Compared to Western center-pericenter modernization focused on cities, Chinese-path agricultural and rural modernization should be rooted in farming civilization, achieving the organic unity of "farming affairs, farmers, and the village." Advancing agricultural and rural modernization must adhere to the Party’s overall leadership. Starting from a "Big View of History" [8], a "Big View of Politics," and a "Big View of People’s Livelihood," it must grasp the fundamental direction of the strategy to become a global power in agriculture, guard the bottom line of food security, strengthen cultural confidence, and achieve the creative transformation and sustainable development of farming civilization.
Yan Hairong focused on "holistic productive forces," analyzing the contemporary limitations of the "smallholder" or "small-scale herder" economic model based on the family unit, which has been exposed in terms of resource fragmentation, ecological degradation, and the lack of division of labor and cooperation. She argued that capital-led agriculture, due to its tendency toward biological and economic "simplification," damages ecological, cultural, and social functions, making it difficult to realize the multifunctional value of agriculture. A village-based collective economy can effectively integrate natural and human resources, reconstruct community cooperation mechanisms, and form a "holistic productive force" in which "ecology, production, distribution, and governance" are highly embedded, thereby breaking through the predicament of individualized agriculture.
The keynote speech session was presided over by Professor Yang Shaolei, Secretary-General of the Sichuan Provincial Society of Political Economy and Professor at the School of Marxism at Sichuan University. Presenters included research fellows from the Institute of Marxism Studies at CASS...
The sub-forum featured presentations from: Peng Haihong, Vice President and Secretary-General of the New Collective Economy Research Branch of the Association; Professor Yang Peng, Dean of the School of Marxism at Northwest A&F University; Professor Wang Feng, Vice Dean of the School of Marxism at Southwest University; Professor Song Chaolong, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Vice Dean of the School of Marxism at Peking University, and Vice President and Secretary-General of the Marxism Research Branch of the China Association of Higher Education; and Professor He Siyu, Dean of the School of Marxism at Sichuan Agricultural University.
Peng Haihong pointed out that the new rural collective economy is a new form of rural collective economy formed during the reform of the rural collective property rights system since the 18th CPC National Congress. Its "newness" is manifested in five aspects: first, it possesses the characteristics of the New Era; second, it develops on the institutional foundation of the "separation of three rights" [9]; third, it breaks egalitarianism by determining member status through shareholding; fourth, the scope of its subjects is more flexible, breaking through the boundaries of villages and small groups; and fifth, its operating mechanism emphasizes economic attributes to stimulate endogenous motivation. It has three major characteristics: prominent leadership by primary-level Party organizations, clear property rights, and diverse forms of realization. Developing the new rural collective economy requires adhering to the overall leadership of the Party, deepening the reform of the property rights system, and innovating the factor supply mechanism.
Yang Peng noted that General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on "agriculture, rural areas, and farmers" [10] are a profound response to the foundation of the Party’s governance, the overall national development situation, and the general trend of social stability against the backdrop of the "changes unseen in a century" [11] in the New Era. They reflect the top-level design and strategic deployment for Chinese-path modernization in agriculture and rural areas. This discourse is people-centered, emphasizes a problem-oriented approach, clarifies the realization of common prosperity as the fundamental goal, stresses that work related to "agriculture, rural areas, and farmers" is the top priority of the whole Party's work, and proposes targeted poverty alleviation [12] and the rural revitalization strategy as the core focal points. It systematically addresses realistic challenges such as China's weak agricultural foundation, unbalanced urban-rural development, and low rural incomes. General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on work related to "agriculture, rural areas, and farmers" provide the fundamental compliance and action guide for advancing this work in the New Era, and must be profoundly understood, systematically grasped, and comprehensively implemented.
Wang Feng pointed out that the key to promoting the modernization of rural governance lies in solving the problems of "micro-governance," and the path to realization is the deep embedding of Party building work into the rural primary-level governance system, constructing a "one core, multi-dimensional co-governance" model. In this model, rural primary-level Party organizations serve as the core force of governance. Through four dimensions—ideological and political leadership, mass organization leadership, social behavior leadership, and institutional and technical leadership—they coordinate complex micro-affairs and achieve the effective integration of self-governance, the rule of law, and the rule of virtue. He argued that the concept of "soft governance" helps build consensus and activate the vitality of diverse subjects, while "smart Party building" and big data serve as important supports for improving the precision and efficiency of governance. Through political leadership, organizational embedding, and technical empowerment, rural Party building alliances can effectively activate micro-governance units and promote the formation of a modern rural governance pattern featuring co-construction, co-governance, and sharing.
Song Chaolong pointed out that the theoretical guidance for agricultural and rural modernization should be rooted in the fundamental positions, worldview, and methodology of Marxist political economy. He emphasized that Western economics is based on empirical positivism and ignores class attributes and the holistic view of history, whereas Marxist political economy proceeds from the dialectical unity of nature-society-man, valuing the metabolic process [13] between humans and nature, the socialization of labor, and its historicity. On this basis, agriculture cannot be simply classified as the traditional primary industry but should be incorporated into a more comprehensive system of social production for analysis. He argued that although the market has an organizational role, its status should be subordinate to the organized socialist market economy system, where planning and organization should play a higher-level commanding role. Constructing an autonomous knowledge system is crucial; the fundamental problem with current rural modernization is the lack of a Chinese autonomous knowledge system based on Marxism that possesses guiding and integrating power. Resolving rural issues requires stepping outside the rural areas themselves to conduct reconstruction and provide leadership at macro levels such as the theoretical system, methodology, practical logic, and value orientation.
He Siyu pointed out that the key to promoting the integration of new quality productive forces in agriculture with specialized rural industries lies in achieving digital transformation. She noted that traditional specialized rural industries face problems such as organizational fragmentation, strong spatial dependence, and single-value attributes. It is necessary to break through these bottlenecks via digital technology to achieve cross-regional integration, industrial chain extension, and brand value enhancement. To this end, a fusion mechanism centered on subject synergy, factor optimization, and value innovation should be constructed. This involves strengthening platform-based organization, intelligent decision-making, and institutional innovation to improve resource allocation efficiency, activate the diverse values of the countryside, and promote a "three-in-one" digital transformation path of "delegation–opening–consolidation," "lowering–integration–stabilization," and "activation–connection–foundation-building."
The seminar featured eight sub-forums. Participating experts and scholars held heated discussions on topics such as: "Research on General Secretary Xi Jinping’s Important Expositions on Agricultural and Rural Modernization," "Research on Marxism and Agricultural and Rural Modernization," "Research on Agricultural and Rural Modernization and Chinese-path Modernization," "Research on the Achievements and Experience of China's Socialist Agricultural and Rural Modernization," "Research on Theoretical and Practical Issues of the New Rural Collective Economy," "Research on Further Deepening Agricultural and Rural Reform," "Research on the Innovation of Rural Governance Systems Led by Party Building," and "Research on Collectivism Education and Strengthening Rural Spiritual Civilization Construction."
The closing ceremony was presided over by Xia Shaoguang, Assistant Professor at the School of Marxism, Peking University, and Deputy Secretary-General of the Marxism Research Branch. Representatives from each sub-forum gave reports on their respective sessions, and Professor Song Chaolong delivered the concluding remarks on behalf of the organizers.
(Contributed by Gan Tingting and Peng Haihong, School of Marxism, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)