A scenic spot in Duanyan Village, Zhoushan Township, Yongkang City, Zhejiang Province Photo: CFP

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Rural areas are a pivotal field for Chinese modernization. In the early 21st century, agricultural and rural areas in east China’s Zhejiang Province faced barriers to modernization, such as a deteriorating ecological environment, while rural residents were living in unsatisfactory living conditions.

In the countryside of Zhejiang, public spaces were subject to substantial negative externalities under desperate need of comprehensive regulation, such as poor roads, polluted land, contaminated rivers, and polluted air. In addition, rural development lacked momentum. Although low-skilled, small-scale, and scattered agricultural production resulted in a brief period of rapid development, this approach consumed substantial natural resources with limited efficiency. Consequently, the provision of environmental resources, facilities, and services in rural public spaces remained stagnant and insufficient, highlighting the urgent need for accelerated construction efforts.

In this context, Zhejiang Province launched the “Thousand Villages Demonstration and Ten Thousand Villages Renovation” Project, or “Qian (Thousand) Wan (Ten Thousand) Project,” in 2003, as a strategic effort to close the development gap in rural modernization. Applying systems thinking, the project took villages — which are public spaces with diverse elements including the rural population, agriculture, and rural areas — as the basic unit of modernization. 

Starting from the improvement and construction of rural living and ecological environments, the project combined overall renovation and demonstrative construction to focus on inadequate governance and poor construction in areas relating to rural people, agriculture, and rural areas. The aim was to comprehensively renovate approximately 10,000 administrative villages across the province and build about 1,000 central villages from those administrative villages into demonstration sites, thereby serving China’s overarching goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

Incorporating rural people, rural areas, and agricultural development into modernization at the provincial level, the Qian Wan Project was intended to address imbalanced and inadequate rural development in China’s modernization drive. It echoed the national push to integrate urban and rural areas into provincial-level modernization.

Through improved governance and accelerated construction of public facilities in rural spaces, the project has radically transformed thousands of villages in the province, providing pioneering practices and valuable experience for Chinese modernization at the provincial level.

Villages as public spaces

The Qian Wan Project represented a systematic undertaking that responded to the complex practice of modernization. Villages, as a basic unit of modernization, serve as public spaces that co-exist and are intricately intertwined with a range of longstanding issues pertaining to rural people, agriculture, and rural areas. Moreover, modernization of the Chinese countryside, with its huge population, is an extremely sophisticated task. In the annals of human history, no other rural modernization feat has been achieved in a region as densely populated as rural China. 

From planning to execution, the project has remained true to its original mission of modernizing rural areas, with its holistic and coordinated nature emphasized. In practice, the complicated and daunting task of rural modernization was divided into stages, as measures were tailored to specific localities, periods, needs, and resources. Participants worked within their capacities and pushed forward with the project holistically, fully exemplifying the dialectic unity of the project’s systematic and progressive nature.

With villages as policy and institutional footholds, the Qian Wan Project integrated subjects, spaces, and industries, progressively coordinating their development. The project also represents an accumulative process that has yielded remarkable transformations in thousands of villages across Zhejiang Province over the past two decades. Statistical data reveals that by the end of 2022, over 90% of the villages in Zhejiang had achieved the prescribed standards for being designated as “Beautiful Villages in the New Era.” 

Notably, the project has facilitated the construction of 70 model counties and 724 model townships, each showcasing beautiful villages. Additionally, 743 scenic spots and 2,170 distinctive quality villages have been established, while more than 3 million households have been recognized as having “beautiful yards.” Throughout the 20-year modernization endeavor, villages have served as crucial public spaces for strategic implementation, policy refinement, and institutional integration.

Measures 

Throughout the two-decade implementation of the Qian Wan Project, certain aspects have undergone changes while others have remained constant. The unwavering elements include the project’s strategic mission to bridge the development gap in rural areas and promote rural modernization, as well as the utilization of villages as the fundamental unit for modernization. These constants have played a pivotal role in the progressive transformation of the Zhejiang countryside. 

It is important to recognize that the modernization of villages encompasses a diverse range of content and represents a highly intricate process. On one hand, the consistent strategic mission and reliance on villages as the basic unit ensure that the project maintains a holistic, comprehensive, and systematic approach. On the other hand, the project embodies the multifaceted, complex, evolutionary, and progressive nature of rural modernization.

A tangible and concrete phenomenon over the past two decades has been the continuous innovation, enhancement, and deepening of policy and institutional provisions. 

In the project’s early stages, focus was placed on the overall renovation and demonstrative construction of the living and ecological environments, as exemplified by revolutionary initiatives to solve water pollution, deal with waste, and improve public toilets. Gradually, the range of improvements extended to constructing cultural spaces, such as cultural auditoriums, and expanded further to the social front, such as enhancing civility. Efforts were then directed towards the economy, such as rural digital development. 

Covering the political, economic, social, cultural, and ecological aspects, rural modernization was progressively deepened in a holistic and systematic fashion amid policy iteration and upgrade and the superimposition of institutions. As such, the overall renovation and demonstrative construction of rural areas expanded across multiple dimensions of content and connotation.

In terms of policy iteration, priority was first given to making the living environment orderly and clean. Then, efforts were concentrated on creating a beautiful and livable ecological environment. Subsequently, digitalization was leveraged to share public facilities, services, and products between urban and rural areas by digital means, thereby narrowing the digital divide. 

By March 2023, the Qian Wan Project was further enriched, as it was endowed with the mission of highlighting the profound implications of rural modernization, namely the pursuit of common prosperity for all and social harmony. With 1,000 villages taking the lead, 10,000 villages striving for common prosperity, and urban and rural areas coexisting in harmony, the project has forged a new rural landscape and ignited fresh aspirations for rural modernization in the new era.

Effects

Over the past two decades, the Qian Wan Project has consistently been committed to intensifying and accelerating rural modernization. The project has cast the light of modernization over the countryside, demonstrating the value and charm of Chinese rural modernization. Together with cities, rural areas are practicing and representing national modernization with Chinese characteristics. 

As the Qian Wan Project advances, villages, which historically lagged behind urban areas in terms of public facilities, services, products, and infrastructure, have witnessed notable advancements across the political, economic, social, cultural, and ecological dimensions. This progress has been achieved through intensified governance efforts and accelerated construction initiatives. 

In the exploratory practices of Chinese modernization, the unique value of villages on the political, economic, social, cultural, and ecological fronts has not been concealed or overshadowed by cities. The modernization of rural areas is also not an imitation or replica of urban modernization. Instead, through the Qian Wan Project, thousands of villages have found their distinct value, paths, and forms of modernization.

In the course of China’s rural modernization, villages have successfully overcome the pressures, influences, and challenges posed by the urban-centric paradigm inherent in traditional modernization theory. They have actively sought and reshaped a distinct model that is comparable to cities, which represents significant, valuable experience for provincial-level rural modernization. 

The metamorphosis of the Qian Wan Project extends beyond guiding villages towards a path of high-quality development. As the seemingly unbridgeable gap between urban and rural areas narrows, these villages have gradually awakened to their own value, unique paths, and forms of modernization, fostering a sense of identity and confidence. It is foreseeable that the pioneering exploration of the Qian Wan project, which has brought about comprehensive and substantial positive changes to thousands of villages in Zhejiang Province, will have a profound influence on practices of Chinese modernization, as well as its underlying value and philosophy.

Wang Haiming is a research fellow from the Institute of Law at Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences. 

Edited by CHEN MIRONG