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Urbanisation can be defined as the movement of people from rural to urban areas and
the increase in the proportion of a population living in cities. In China the threshold of
.Then urbanisation in China experienced an excessively rapid pace. By the end of 2005,
compared with 17.9%in 1978, 47% of the total population lived in cities (National
China is the imbalance between urban and rural areas. Inevitably, some negative aspects
have appeared. This essay will analyse three negative effects induced by urbanisation in
China, which are the narrow employment opportunities, the decrement of basic arable
land and the insufficiency of social resources, and then outline and evaluate two
possible solutions, which are the basic arable land protection and more financial
The imbalance of income and infrastructure between urban and rural areas could be
2003, the average income of urban residents was ¥8,472 whereas that of rural residents
was only ¥ 2,622”(NBS,2004),which showed the ratio of urban to rural income was
more than 3:1.Another survey showed “shifting one worker from farm to migratory
work increased family income by 49.1%, whereas adding one farm worker increased
migrant workers from rural areas flow into cities, in order to support their family in
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villages.
With the rapid urbanisation in China, some undesirable consequences have appeared.
Because of excessive migrant people into urban areas, there are not sufficient
employees working in state-owned enterprises fell from the previous record high of 75
both those who were laid off from the state-owned enterprises and the unemployed in
the cities, now seek jobs in the third industry, in direct competition with the migrant
workers that have traditionally pursued these positions. Then it would more difficult for
migrant workers to find jobs in cities. A recent White Book on Social Protection and
Security (NBS, 2008) by the Chinese government indicates that the tension between the
surplus labours in cities and the structural employment problems will continue for a
In addition, quantities of basic arable land are reducing. Currently, per capita arable
land in China is 1173 hectares, which is only 47% of the world average (2500 hectares)
(NBS, 2008). Furthermore, it is predicted that with the rapid urbanisation, per capita
arable land in China will drop to 953 hectares in the year 2010 and 893 hectares in 2030
threat to China’s continued capacity to produce adequate levels of staple cereals. What
is worse, a reduction in cereal production may raise the food price, which could affect
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the stability of economic development in China.
Thirdly, social resources and capacity to provide social services are severely strained in
2003,42.1% of urban households were overcrowded and 6.1% of them were homeless.
This survey also revealed that nearly 90% of these people are migrant workers (Centre
for Development Studies at the State Council, 2003). It can be seen that with the
already intensified people’s concern. In order to minimize the negative effects, two
One possible solution is basic arable land protection. In every village a basic arable land
China there are two kinds of basic arable land protection districts. The first level
comprises high-quality land with high productivity, and the second level consists of
good-quality land with moderate productivity (Rousseau & Chen, 2001). For example,
transportation, the state should approve the conversion of land parcels less than a
mandatory standard, and then the same amount of arable land lost to conversion must be
replaced by new arable land. An official data indicated that due to the policy of basic
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arable land protection, the aimless utilisation of arable land as result of urbanisation
have declined from 43% in 2000 to 27% in 2005( NBS,2005 ). A study by economists
Li and Jacoby (2000) using data from villages in Hebei and Liaoning Provinces found
that 76% of farmers obtained compensative arable land in 2000--2003 whereas the
number was only 27% before. It is obviously that to some extent through the protection
of basic arable land the urban overexpansion could be avoided. However, there are still
some drawbacks. Firstly, the vague definitions of high-quality and good-quality land
easily cause misunderstanding. The government and the farmers may have different
standards. Secondly, the compensative arable land may not as fertilizable as the original
one. For instance, most of the land in Pinghu City was prime agricultural land that could
be cropped two or three times a year. The local government used compensatory land
policy to meet its “no net loss” requirements but the scope of further gains from
compensation was quite limited (Ma & Cui, 2002). From this evidence, one could
assume that the protection of basic arable land is more concerned with quantity of
arable land than with quality and in the long term this just addresses symptoms but not
root causes.
The other possible solution would be more financial investment into towns and villages.
The financial investment involves two aspects: one is the construction of infrastructures
in the countryside; the other is the establishment of new economic centers. Firstly, the
Chinese government should improve rural social services. The National Bureau of
Statistics reported that in 2005, the fund from the central budget for the rural
infrastructures reached 10 billion dollars which was 2 billion dollars more than that in
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2004 and over 5 billion more than that in 2002(NBS,2005 ). Obviously, this would
contribute to diminish the imbalance of resources between the rural and urban areas.
Secondly, new economic centres should be projected for economic boom and job
creation in rural areas. During the past decade, Chinese government established three
rural industry models, which are “Sunan model” in southern Jiangsu, ‘‘Wenzhou
model’’ and ‘‘Pearl River Delta model’’ in southern Guangdong, and the three new
example, the whole town or village has become a specialized production base for one
village one-product.” During the five-year period from 2000 to 2005, the number of
rural private enterprises in Jiangsu almost doubled from 111,792 to 202,253, while the
Meanwhile the total employment increased by 280% reaching 6.74 million, which
accounted for 75% of the total rural non-agricultural labour force in 2001 (Wei, 2002).
As Zhang (2000) claims, in China the crucial factor in minimizing the negative impacts
of urbanisation is the development of small towns and villages, especially the economic
It is obviously that more employment in small towns and villages would decrease the
rural to urban migrations, which would relieve the pressures of citie and promote the
social stability and security. This would favor the contribution of a sustained, rapid and
sound economic development in China. Even though nowadays the financial investment
in rural areas is considered an ideal solution in China by most of the economists and
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socialists, there are still some challenges. On one hand, it would be costly to fund the
budget for the project, especially for a developing country. On the other hand, the
development of economy in small towns and villages may be slow. It is well known that
as a developing country, in China most of towns suffer from poor infrastructure, poor
environment, poor education and less developed social security systems, and these
In conclusion, the imbalance between urban and rural areas leads to the overheating
resources, have arisen. Recently serious concern has been expressed about these
problems. In order to minimize these negative effects two possible solutions has been
mentioned above, which are the protection of basic arable land and the more financial
investment into towns and villages. Through comparison the latter one is a more
suitable solution for the integrated development of economy and society. In the future,
society. In the long term, it is essential to take into full consideration the economic and
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