If farmers-turned-migrant workers are determining the pace of
China's urbanization, those who are left in the countryside will
largely decide the future of the rural areas.
Handicapped by its lower economic and social development level,
the countryside urgently and rightfully needs help from central
finance so that the country can achieve balanced progress
nationwide.
Four central culture and press departments have resolved to
assist the countryside. They will offer books to replenish village
libraries and help farmers learn.
The new initiative will help a third of the country's village
committees to establish libraries by donating books over the coming
five years. Those books cover law and regulation, public
administration, practical agricultural techniques, health and
literature.
It is obviously catering to the country's ongoing drive to build
a new countryside.
One of the crucial aspects of the drive is cultural and social
construction in rural areas. Getting farmers involved in more
cultural activities and giving them more opportunities to learn
agricultural techniques will make a difference that is no less
significant than that created by pouring in more money.
In this sense, at least, the move to establish libraries is
important.
However, the move is important not just because it dovetails
with the paramount national blueprint of building a new
countryside.
In an information era, adequate access to knowledge ensures one
is not left behind in a fast-moving society. It applies also to
regional development. An "information gap" will put a region at a
disadvantage.
If the current impasse of the rural areas is attributable to the
past industry-favoured policies that have taken too much from the
countryside, now it will do little to just reimburse rural China.
Without access to adequate knowledge and information, farmers are
unable to make full use of the favorable policies and money the
central government has given them.
Unfortunately, book publishers do not seem to care much about
the needs of farmers. They tend to target and foster an urban
readership that is able to afford the high price and "high taste"
of their books.
For that reason, the central initiative will be valuable and
more so if they can really take into account the real demand of
farmers.
(China Daily April 19, 2006)