"This study evaluates and discusses the agricultural developments and government policies of pre and post reform era in China, the thrust of which is on the abolition of agricultural taxes and levies in China since 2006. However, underneath such a thrust, various issues as peasant's burden, peasant's protests, and rural-urban divide etc. have been brought to the surface and expose the agrarian challenge faced by China that has so far remained behind the smokescreen of economic success story.

The post agricultural tax levies reform scenario is supplemented by author's 9 month research at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in China, of which 2 months were spent in the field interviewing peasants and grass root cadres in 15 villages involving 36 households in Hebei, Heilongjiang, Anhui, Hubei, Henan, Shaanxi and Sichuan Provinces of China.

The findings reveal that there have been a drasic drop in the peasants' protests and petitions in the post tax reform period. However, the investigations also indicate that there is an increasing dissatisfaction among peasants over ever increasing agricultural input prices. Though the government has adopted various measures to stabilize the agrarian sector, but much more is required to be done in terms of building rural infrastructure, downsizing grass root organizations, rural land management system, rural education and cooperative medical health care system while building Socialist New Countryside in China."
                                                                                                                    [from Blurb]

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

1. Introduction

2. An Overview of Agricultural and Rural Development in China

2.1 Pre-reform (1978) Agrarian Policies and Development

2.2 Post-reform agrarian Policy and Development

2.3 China's Agricultural Development in 2005

2.4 Policy Concerns and Future Challenges

3. Agricultural Tax and Fee Reforms in China

3.1 Evolution of Land Tax in China

3.2 Three Historic Tax Reforms in China

3.3 Three Historic Tax Reform in Retrospective

3.4 Rural Taxation since the Establishment of PRC (1949-2006)

3.5 Gravity of the Situation and Piolt Reforms

3.6 Abolition of Pilot Project, Agriculture Tax and Levies

4. Raison d'etre for Repealing Agricultural Tax and Levies in China

4.1 Peasants' burden

4.2 Peasants' Resistance

4.3 Rural-Urban Divide

4.4 The Way out

4.5 International Competition

5. Post Tax Reform Agricultural Development and Policies in China

5.1 Lightening Peasants' Burden

5.2 New Socialist Countryside

5.3 Reform of Village and Township Organizations

5.4 Rural Compulsory Education

5.5 Rural Cooperative Medical Care System

5.6 Land Use Policy

5.7 Migration of Rural Labour Force

Bibliography

Index