Wei Houkai: The Fundamental Guidance for Solidly Promoting Comprehensive Rural Revitalization
Promoting the all-around revitalization of the countryside is the overall grasp for "agriculture, rural areas, and farmers" work (the San Nong issues [1]) in the New Era and on the new journey, and it constitutes an important part of Xi Jinping's economic thought. In the recently published first volume of Selected Economic Works of Xi Jinping (hereinafter referred to as the Selected Works), many writings provide profound expositions on promoting the all-around revitalization of the countryside. For instance, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in his "Speech at the National Summary and Commendation Conference on the Poverty Alleviation Task" that "Rural revitalization is a major task for achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation"; in "Following the Road of Rural Revitalization with Chinese Characteristics," he pointed out that implementing the rural revitalization strategy requires "following the general requirements of thriving industries, ecological livability, rural civility, effective governance, and a prosperous life," and "promoting the comprehensive upgrading of agriculture, the comprehensive progress of the countryside, and the comprehensive development of farmers"; in "Solidly Promoting Common Prosperity," he pointed out: "We must comprehensively promote rural revitalization, accelerate agricultural industrialization, revitalize rural assets, increase farmers' property income, and enable more rural residents to get rich through industriousness." These important expositions provide the fundamental [theoretical] basis for our solid promotion of the all-around revitalization of the countryside. Only by deeply studying the important expositions on promoting the all-around revitalization of the countryside in the Selected Works, and by scientifically and accurately grasping the connotations, general requirements, target tasks, and policy measures of the all-around revitalization of the countryside, can we effectively promote this cause.
Scientifically Grasping the Connotations of the All-around Revitalization of the Countryside
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in "Implementing the New Development Philosophy and Building a Modern Economic System" that: "We must implement the rural revitalization strategy. The issues of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers are fundamental issues concerning the national economy and people's livelihood; we must always prioritize the resolution of the San Nong issues as the top priority of the whole Party's work." Promoting the all-around revitalization of the countryside signifies that the implementation of China's rural revitalization strategy is continually deepening.
From a practical perspective, since the 19th CPC National Congress proposed the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, under the leadership of the Party, China's grain production has continuously reached new heights, the achievements of the poverty alleviation task have been continuously consolidated and expanded, and we have held the bottom line of ensuring national grain security and preventing a large-scale return to poverty. Key tasks in rural development, rural construction, and rural governance have proceeded in an orderly manner, achieving significant phased results in rural revitalization and giving the vast countryside a brand-new look. This fully demonstrates that the implementation of China's rural revitalization strategy has had a good start. At the same time, we must see that China's agricultural foundation remains generally weak, and there are still shortcomings in rural infrastructure and basic public services, all of which constrain the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy. The 20th CPC National Congress made important arrangements for comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, and the "Decision" of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee emphasized that we "must coordinate new-type industrialization, new-type urbanization, and the all-around revitalization of the countryside."
From a policy perspective, after the complete victory of the poverty alleviation task, the focus of China's San Nong work has shifted to comprehensively promoting rural revitalization. Furthermore, after the goals and tasks of the poverty alleviation task were completed, the Central Committee established a five-year transition period for counties that had shaken off poverty, starting from the day of their exit. During the transition period, main assistance policies must remain generally stable. The Central No. 1 Documents [2] for three consecutive years from 2021 to 2023 were centered on the main theme of comprehensively promoting rural revitalization. 2024 marks the fourth year since China won the battle against poverty and entered the transition period; the 2024 Central No. 1 Document proposed a "roadmap" for effectively promoting the all-around revitalization of the countryside, beginning to treat the promotion of all-around rural revitalization as the main thread of the rural revitalization strategy. The 2025 Central No. 1 Document focuses on further deepening rural reform and making arrangements for solidly promoting the all-around revitalization of the countryside. The shift from "comprehensively promoting rural revitalization" to "promoting the all-around revitalization of the countryside" reflects both the shift in focus of China's San Nong work and the expansion of the connotations of rural revitalization; the former emphasizes the "comprehensive" nature of the push, while the latter places more emphasis on achieving revitalization in "all-around" aspects.
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in "On Constructing the New Development Pattern" that: "Achieving the modernization of agriculture and rural areas is a major task for comprehensively building a modern socialist country and an inevitable requirement for solving the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development." The overall goal of implementing the rural revitalization strategy is the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, and one of the basic principles is adhering to the all-around revitalization of the countryside. The all-around revitalization of the countryside possesses rich connotations and can be understood and analyzed from different perspectives. From the perspective of domains, it involves various aspects of rural economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological civilization construction, as well as Party building. This requires holistic planning and coordinated promotion of construction across all domains to promote the comprehensive upgrading of agriculture, progress of the countryside, and development of farmers. From the perspective of pathways, it is a comprehensive revitalization including industrial revitalization, talent revitalization, cultural revitalization, ecological revitalization, and organizational revitalization. These "five revitalizations" are both the key tasks and the realization pathways of all-around rural revitalization. Promoting all-around rural revitalization means coordinating and synergistically advancing these "five revitalizations" to achieve thriving industries, ecological livability, rural civility, effective governance, and a prosperous life. From the perspective of the process, it involves the entire process of rural industrial development, rural construction, and rural governance, with rural industrial development as the core, driving the overall improvement of rural construction and governance levels to achieve high-quality development in agriculture and rural areas. From the perspective of building a powerful country, the process of all-around rural revitalization is the process of fully realizing "strong agriculture, beautiful countryside, and wealthy farmers." From a spatial perspective, it is a common task for all regions; whether developed or underdeveloped, all must shift the focus of San Nong work to promoting all-around rural revitalization, advancing it in light of local conditions.
Strictly Guarding the Two Bottom Lines of All-around Rural Revitalization
Ensuring national grain security and preventing a large-scale return to poverty are the two bottom lines for promoting the all-around revitalization of the countryside. These two bottom lines are essentially the "foundation-strengthening" tasks of rural revitalization.
We must use a two-pronged approach to guard the bottom line of national grain security. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in "On Constructing the New Development Pattern" that: "We must never lower our guard on the issue of grain security." In recent years, China has comprehensively and strictly implemented the grain security responsibility system, taking action from both the supply and demand sides, adhering to the strategy of stabilizing acreage and increasing yields per unit area. By prioritizing national grain security as the primary task of rural revitalization, total grain output has remained stable at over 1.3 trillion catties (650 million metric tons) for several consecutive years, reaching a new milestone of 1.4 trillion catties in 2024, thereby defending the strategic bottom line of "basic self-sufficiency in cereals and absolute security of food staples." At the same time, it must be noted that currently, grain purchase prices are sluggish, production costs continue to climb, and the difficulty of increasing income for grain-growing farmers has intensified. Facing this new situation, we must coordinate the guarantee of grain security with the promotion of farmers' income growth. We must continue to increase support for agricultural infrastructure, high-standard farmland construction, the breeding and promotion of improved varieties, agricultural machinery and equipment, agricultural products, agricultural material circulation networks, and vocational training for farmers, as well as support for major grain-producing areas and major grain-producing counties. We should further improve the "three-in-one" income guarantee mechanism for grain farmers—comprising prices, subsidies, and insurance—and the compensation mechanism for the interests of major grain-producing areas that combines vertical [central-to-local] and horizontal [inter-regional] transfers. We must quickly establish an inter-provincial horizontal interest compensation mechanism between grain-producing and grain-consuming areas under central coordination, ensuring that farmers have a reasonable guarantee of income from growing grain and that major producing areas have the motivation to focus on grain production. Meanwhile, we must accelerate the transformation of grain production methods, promote the deep integration, whole-chain upgrading, and layout optimization of the grain industry, effectively building the grain industry into a modern grand industry, and allowing the vast number of farmers to share more of the value-added benefits of the entire grain industrial chain.
We must coordinately promote the transformation of the assistance policy system to guard the bottom line of preventing a large-scale return to poverty. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in "Solidly Promoting Common Prosperity" that: "We must consolidate and expand the achievements of the poverty alleviation task. We must strengthen monitoring and provide early intervention for populations at risk of returning to or falling into poverty. For counties that have shaken off poverty, we must 'help them onto the horse and accompany them for a while' [3] to ensure no large-scale return to poverty or new cases of poverty occur." The 2025 Central No. 1 Document combines short-term and long-term goals, coordinately establishing a mechanism for preventing a return to poverty in rural areas and a tiered and categorized assistance system for low-income populations and underdeveloped areas, driving the transition of the assistance policy system toward the all-around revitalization of the countryside. Specifically, we must ensure the overall stability of main assistance policies during the transition period and improve the normalized prevention mechanism covering the rural population; simultaneously, looking beyond the transition period, we must establish a tiered assistance system. For low-income populations, assistance should be differentiated and normalized based on their labor capacity and sources of livelihood. For those with labor capacity, development-oriented assistance measures such as industrial and employment support should be taken, implementing development-based social aid. For those lacking labor capacity or unable to obtain stable income through industry or employment, focus should be placed on improving social assistance policies and implementing guarantee-based social relief. For underdeveloped areas, a tiered assistance system should be established based on the degree and type of underdevelopment to realize differentiated assistance policies.
Improving the Level of Rural Industrial Development, Rural Construction, and Rural Governance
Since the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, the face of China's countryside has undergone tremendous changes. However, compared to cities, rural industrial development, construction, and governance remain in a state of significant lag. Regarding rural industrial development, issues such as small scale, scattered layout, weak market entities, short industrial chains, and homogenization are still prominent. In rural construction, problems like insufficient infrastructure, lagging basic public services, excessive idle resources, and ineffective cultural protection have not been fundamentally resolved. In rural governance, issues include an incomplete governance system, weak governance capacity, insufficient farmer participation, thin talent pools, and heavy burdens at the grassroots level. Addressing these problems, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "We must improve the level of rural industrial development, rural construction, and rural governance." Improving these levels is a vital task in promoting the all-around revitalization of the countryside. Only by completing this task can we quickly shore up the agricultural and rural "short boards" in the construction of Chinese-path modernization.
Improving the level of rural industrial development. Currently, rural industrial development is showing trends toward diversification, integration, clustering, ecologization, and digitalization. By conforming to these trends, fully mining the multi-dimensional functions of agriculture and the multi-faceted values of the countryside, clarifying the functional positioning and development orientation of the countryside, developing new quality productive forces according to local conditions, and actively cultivating new rural industries and business formats, we can promote the deep integration and optimized upgrading of rural industries and accelerate the construction of a modern rural industrial system with distinctive features and competitiveness. Rural industrial development must align with rural functional positioning, focus on enhancing industrial resilience and risk-resistance, continuously optimize industrial layout, and further improve mechanisms for linking industries with farmers to benefit them, thereby stimulating rural vitality and driving farmer employment and income growth through industrial revitalization.
Improving the level of rural construction. Through the "New Socialist Countryside" construction [4] and rural construction actions, China's rural infrastructure and basic public services have achieved a transition from "nothing to something" and are now moving from "something to excellence." Rural construction has entered a new stage of upgrading. Moving forward, we must start from local realities and the needs of farmers, prioritizing the shoring up of urgent shortcomings such as roads reaching every village and household, sewage treatment, pre-school education, convenient medical care, elderly care services, and housing safety. Simultaneously, aiming at the goal of making rural areas meet basic modern living conditions, we must promote the comprehensive upgrading of rural infrastructure, human settlements, and public services.
Improving the level of rural governance. The level of rural governance is a comprehensive manifestation of the governance system, capacity, performance, and public participation, with "effective governance" as its key measure. We must aim at the goal of modernizing rural governance, give full play to the principal role of farmers, stimulate the endogenous motivation of rural governance, and focus on improving the rural governance system that combines autonomy, the rule of law, and the rule of virtue [5] under the leadership of Party organizations. We must strengthen rural culture and the construction of civil rural customs, accelerate the digital transformation of rural governance, and continuously improve governance efficacy to follow a path of Chinese-style "good rural governance" (shanzhi). We must encourage various localities to engage in bold innovation and explore diversified models of rural governance.
Scientifically and effectively promoting the all-around revitalization of the countryside.
As early as 2021, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in his "Speech at the National Summary and Commendation Conference on Poverty Alleviation" that "the depth, breadth, and difficulty of fully implementing the rural revitalization strategy are no less than those of the battle against poverty. We must improve the policy system, work system, and institutional system, adopting more powerful measures and gathering stronger forces to accelerate the pace of agricultural and rural modernization, and promote high-quality and efficient agriculture, rural areas that are livable and conducive to business, and farmers who are prosperous and well-off." Promoting comprehensive rural revitalization is a systemic project; we must be prepared to fight a protracted war, implementing the "Eight Persistences" [6] (persist in and strengthen the Party's overall leadership over "Three Rural" [7] work; persist in prioritizing the development of agriculture and rural areas; persist in integrated urban-rural development; persist in the principal status of farmers; persist in adapting measures to local conditions and implementing categorized policies; persist in the harmonious coexistence of man and nature; persist in deepening reform and innovation; and persist in moving forward step by step and persisting over the long term); and effectively managing the "Three Coordinations" (coordinate different regions; coordinate new-type industrialization, new-type urbanization, and comprehensive rural revitalization; and coordinate the advancement of rural economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological civilization construction alongside Party building). At the same time, based on long-term goals, we must establish and improve a mechanism system capable of normal, long-term operation through legalized, standardized, and regularized institutional arrangements. The 2025 Central Document No. 1 [8] proposed "improving the long-term mechanism for promoting comprehensive rural revitalization." To this end, it is necessary to draw upon and promote effective experiences and practices from the poverty alleviation campaign and local rural revitalization efforts—especially learning from and applying the advancement mechanisms inherent in the "Thousand Villages Demonstration and Ten Thousand Villages Renovation" Project [9]—to improve diversified rural revitalization investment security mechanisms, rural public infrastructure operation and maintenance mechanisms, and land value-added revenue distribution mechanisms. Simultaneously, we must improve long-term management mechanisms for assets formed by national investment during the poverty alleviation campaign and long-term mechanisms for reducing burdens on the grassroots [10]. At the current stage, we must grasp the characteristics of the period, highlight regional features, and promote comprehensive rural revitalization in an orderly, categorized manner.
Grasp the characteristics of the period. Regional development in our country varies significantly; there are economically developed regions such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, as well as some underdeveloped regions with relatively lagging development levels. The process of agricultural and rural modernization in each region is at different developmental stages, exhibiting clear ladder-like characteristics. From a provincial perspective, the modernization process can roughly be divided into three tiers; from the perspective of cities and counties, these differences in development levels are even greater. In the process of promoting comprehensive rural revitalization, we must face these differences in developmental stages. We must encourage developed eastern regions and the suburbs of large and medium-sized cities in the central and western regions with the right conditions to take the lead in basically achieving agricultural and rural modernization, while also increasing support for underdeveloped regions to ensure they can simultaneously achieve basic agricultural and rural modernization by 2035. In the process of promotion, every region must respect objective laws, grasp the characteristics of their specific stage, and reasonably determine revitalization goals and key tasks for each period. They must properly handle the relationship between ultimate goals and phased objectives to prevent impetuous advances that exceed the current stage of development or are unrealistic.
Highlight regional features. Because regional and agricultural conditions differ, whether in rural industrial development, rural construction, or rural governance, every region needs to actively explore rural revitalization paths that fit their actual situation and possess regional characteristics. They must not ignore their own conditions or simply copy the practices of other regions. Currently, a group of excellent cases for promoting comprehensive rural revitalization has emerged across the country. Relevant departments have organized the creation of national rural revitalization demonstration counties and national rural governance demonstration villages and towns, and various localities have successively carried out activities to create rural revitalization demonstration villages. Overall, the villages in these excellent cases mostly focus on integrating regional characteristics into rural revitalization practices and exploring methods and practices that fit their own realities. Such distinctiveness is the key to demonstrating the vitality of rural revitalization.
Promote in an orderly, categorized manner. China’s rural territory is vast, and village types are rich and diverse, categorized into four types: those for agglomeration and elevation, those for urban-rural integration, those for characteristic protection, and those for relocation and consolidation [11]. We must further refine village classifications, implement different functional positioning and development orientations for different types of villages, scientifically determine their development goals, and implement differentiated promotion strategies. It should be recognized that China's urbanization process is not yet complete; new-type urbanization with the county seat as an important carrier will become an important force leading comprehensive rural revitalization. Under the general trend of urbanization, the pattern of urban-rural populations and village development will be in a state of flux. We must adapt to the trends of urban-rural population change, optimize village layouts, allocate public resources according to the permanent resident population, promote the optimization of rural infrastructure and public service layouts, and guard against wasted investment in rural construction. At the same time, we must balance the goals of efficiency and equity—allowing some to lead the way and create demonstrations while increasing support and assistance for economically weak villages. By combining pioneering demonstrations with increased assistance, we will promote the common prosperity and development of all villages.
(The author is a Special Researcher at the CASS Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era)