(Published on “Science and Technology Review” in May, 1997)
Write by Wen Minneng in Hanish [P. R. China]
Translated by Wen Dongneng [P. R. China]
Emigration Projects for helping poor people is the best way that we have to follow since we understood the ecological relationship between mankind and nature. The project is a shortcut to help the poor prosper. This way is a practical renewal. It is time to research this practical innovation in terms of theory, and to provide further references for decision-make organizations. Combination of emigration projects for the poor with the transfer of surplus labors could contribute to rapid urbanization and other national strategic long-time plans of modernization. Combining emigration projects for the poor with industry transfer, migrants can greatly promote the development of agriculture too.
Key Words: emigration projects; surplus labors；urbanization；industrial transfer
China central government promised to resolve problems of food and clothing for 80 million populations in dire necessity during the latest 7 years in the 20th century in the 8th Five Year-long State Plan to Support the Poor enacted in 1994. 10 years later, however, our government could not reach the initial goal with about 30 million farmers still in poverty. How can governments realize the promise to eliminate all poverty as earlier as better?
1. SUPPORTING THE POOR THROUGH EMIGRATION IS THE BEST WAY THAT WE HAVE TO CHOOSE SINCE WE UNDERSTAND ECOLOGIC ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS ARE SO SEVERE
70 percent of populations in dire necessity are crowded in 592 poor counties, most of which are distributed over remote mountains, stone mountains, deserts, high-cold mountains, Loess Plateau, regions with high incidence of endemic diseases and reservoir regions in the middle and west of China. Because population laws and policies forbid free migration, it is not easy for farmers to get out of poverty by themselves.
Among Qinlin Mountain and DaBashan Mountain with high summits, deep valleys and scarce forests, one of the areas where the rainfall is the hardest and the water and soil erosion is the worst in China’s mainland, there is no a flat crop field larger than 1 acre in most areas of Baihe County, so farmers always seek soil among rocks to grow crops. Although they work hard year in and year out, their lives are still hard. For many years, the central government has invested much capital in both industry and agriculture, but they are still far from warm-full. Tens years ago, an investigation group of the U.N. declared that there was unsuitable to live.
In Southwest China, there are approximately 500,000 square kilometers limestone region with also a weak ecosystem. As the result of water and soil erosion, various ecological hazards such as massive floods have become a great menace to the security and economy along Yangtze River and other rivers. Plants once covered the limestone region long before, while there are only a few original plants, as well as a few man-planted ones at present.
In 1990s, the government in Southwest China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region immigrated 10,000 successfully to other regions to start a new life, most of who can get enough foods in the first year and get warm-full next year. The achievement of these emigration projects is so great that Guangxi government continued to move 100,000 populations. The government called for poor farmers who have no will to migrate to realize that “One will start thinking about migration when he is too poor”. This idea originated from the ancient thought in old China, “Poverty gives rise to a desire for change”. When all means are exhausted, migration becomes necessary; Once migrate, a solution will emerge; When development begins, prosperity is coming. So migration is the best way of rejuvenation for poor rural regions.
The largest project on supporting the poor is the Irrigation Project for the Poor in Ninxia Hui Autonomous Region, which began in 1996. The project planed to invest 3 billion Yuan($242,000,000) to irrigate 2 million mu(133,000ha) by raising water from Huanghe River in order to immigrate 800,000 populations and support 200,000 poor local populations. Until present, governments have invested 1.6 billion Yuan, developing 260,000 mu(17,000ha), emigrating 90,000 poor populations from Xihaigu regions, planting 30,000 mu(2,000ha) forest and 10,000 mu(660ha) grassland. From Xihaigu, one of the poorest regions, 400,000 poor populations has emigrated till today.
Another large project is Hexi Corridor (Shule River) Development Project on Irrigation and Immigration located in Yumen and Anxi, Ganshu Province, planning to immigrate 100,000 poor populations in 10 years and reclaim 54,600 mu(3600ha) wasteland with a investment of $267.3 million, among which $150 million is lent from the World Bank. The mission of the project is to “migrate in the 1st year, resident in the 2nd year, get warm and full in the 3rd year and get rich in the 4th year.”
In Inner Mongolia, there are still 3 million poor populations. Governments planned to migrate 650,000 poor populations with a investment of 6 billion Yuan($725,000,000) during the 10th “five-year”, and migrate 250,000 poor populations during 2004-2006.
In Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province, half of 400,000 populations living on high mountains has moved down into new migrant villages since 1993.
In Pinglu, Shanxi Province, governments planed to invest 1.53 billion Yuan($187,000,000) emigrating 50,000 poor farmers from mountain areas in next 5 years. Such as Guizhou Province and Shaanxi Province, other provinces are planning migration projects for the poor too.
In March 2003, Lv Feijie, Depute Director of the Leading Group of The Development for The Poor by the State Council, said that Chinan governments had migrated 2.7 million poor populations in past tens years, 90 percent of which are satisfied with their migration living. There are still 28.2 million poor populations, among which 7 million populations live in areas with most serious natural condition. Governments will migrate 7 million poor populations in next tens years with 300,000-500,000 poor populations each year at the cost of 5,000-10,000 Yuan per capital.
2. MIGRATION PROJECT FOR THE POOR IS NOT ONLY A PRACTICABLE RENEW BUT ALSO A ECONOMICAL WAY
Some scholars always believe that the vast land and natural resources in West China seem unlimited to be exploited, but from the ecological relationship between nature and the human being, the development of the west is virtually to reconstruct the ecology. West China is less developed and surely need industrialization; however, it is easy to find that governments had enacted all kinds of large-scale development in each dynasty in long history. Great development in vast west regions was also advocated during the 1950's and the 1960's, how about the result? If we develop the west by robbing the resources with the severely growing population in the weak ecosystem once again, we are trying to help the shoots grow by pulling them upward, as adding frost to snow. Once all people rush up in a crowd and do something on too large a scale, the lost must be heavy and could not make up for it by the time passed.
For those cities and towns without sufficient natural resources, we must rehabilitate the natural life-support systems of a civilization, thus we can make west regions sustainable to develop. Free emigration and projects by governments are essential solutions to eliminate the poverty and alleviate the environmental pressure in regions where the economy has not improved, even though the investment and other aids have lasted for numerous years.
The development of “Go west” need a great amount of capital, water and soil for infrastructure and living, and increase heavy pressure to natural environment. Governments prefer to spend the capital for the poor immigrating to East China and South China with sufficient water, soil improved infrastructure.
For the reservoir and also for the poor, the great migration of 1 million populations in Three Gorges areas of the Yangtze River has attracted worldwide attention. The migration obeys the guiding principle of large capital, great development, wide openness and a high-speed, aiming at sustainable development and also at modernization. With vast barren mountains which would be cultivated above the designed water surface in the reservoir areas, the main way of emigration is to settle backward away from people’s former address, and the secondary way is to immigrate to other counties,
Capital is one of the keys for emigration projects. The static amount of capital to construct the Three Gorges hydroelectric station is 90 billion yuan (US$10,900,000), among which the section of emigration and settlement cost 40 billion yuan (US$4,830,000) with an average of 30,000 yuan (US$3,620) per capita, among which 4 billion yuan (US$483,000,000) is development fund to be added later. Central government allocates 900 million yuan (US$109,000,000), all of the farmland occupation tax in Three Gorges Reservoir areas to be invested in the development and migration each year. Moreover, the government will take a part capital from the electricity income of the Three Gorges hydroelectric station to found a long-term development fund to settle emigrants in reservoir areas and to support their productivity.
In 1990s, 100,000 emigrants in Guangxi Province Zhuang Autonomous Region only spent 300 million yuan (US$36,200,000) collected by local governments. Ninxia Hui Autonomous Region had spent nearly 3 billion yuan (US$362,000,000) to migrate 1 million poor people. In comparison with the cost per capita, the migration project over the Three Gorges at a cost of 30,000 yuan (US$3,620) per capita was ten times as much as the project in either Guangxi or Ninxia. Why is the disparity so large? The reason is that main motives and investors of both kinds of migration projects are different. Both central and local governments invest in Three Gorges Reservoir area and try to achieve the modernization as a whole, bringing it into line with the comprehensive development strategic program to link up both economy zones of Chongqing city groups and Wuhan city groups along Yangtze River. However, the capital for emigration in Guangxi and Ninxia relied mainly on local governments, aiming at poverty elimination and getting the migrants a warm-full life. A lack of capital must do harm to the sustainable development of emigration projects, so the central government should invest approximately thousands billion yuan for migration projects for the poor who could immigrate to further regions with better living.
3. MIGRATION PROJECTS FOR THE POOR TO EAST CHINA AND SOUTH CHINA COULD CONTRIBUTE TO REASONABLE INDUSTRIALIZATION AND URBANIZATION
For a long time, China’s urbanization progress has lagged far behind industrialization due to legal limitation and laws and social discrimination to farmers working in cities and towns. The limitation is also the basic reason for the sluggish development of rural economy.
During 26 years after the reform and opening in 1978, the country’s level of urbanization only raised from 12.6 percent to 17.9 percent. Although at present the level reached above 30 percent, the progress of urbanization still lags behind the development of the national economy and industrialization. Compared with countries on the same level of economic development, China’s urbanization rate is 20 percentage point lower.
In recent years, urbanization boom come up all over our country. At the same time, some fatal problems appeared. Governments in Ganshu Province planed to enlarge tens cities in Hexi Corridor including Pingliang, Qingyang, Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan, Linxia, Baiyin, Yongdeng, Anxi, and they believe that urbanization is the best way of revive. However, the corridor of cities is now a lethal corridor for ecological environment. Hexi Corridor was ever an important grain base and a main immigration base accepted 130,000 migrants from poor regions in the latest tens years, but now it is a new source of sand dust storm for increased populations and excessive reclamation. Hexi Corridor cut water sources of lower reaches where was ever a large oasis keeping three large deserts apart. In 1961, West Juyanhai, a thousands kilometers long oasis, disappeared. In 1992, the oasis East Juyanhai disappeared too. Three large deserts are collecting together and many villages are abandoned for water shortage.
In North China, new towns and villages for immigrants scattered all over look like stars in the sky or men on a ches*****oard, but populations use so much water that some of them will turn poor again when the weather is dry, as well as that populations along lower reaches will lack water sources forever. Some people confused: “Where is the real way out of the poor?”
Governments should not call for local urbanization in North China and West China where lack water or soil. However, governments should subsidize poor peoples immigrate to East China and South China to promote the urbanization.
In pace with the economical growth and speedy industrialization, developed regions must accelerate the tempo of urbanization, if they want to raise the proportion of non-agriculture economy and accept most of surplus laborers to release the pressure of unemployment. Developed regions have better natural conditions to absorb surplus laborers from poor regions.
The statistics show that about 80 million farmers, 20 percent of the whole rural labor force, have raveled to cities for jobs over the past 20 years. And these farmer-turned workers are playing an increasing important role in the economic development of both urbane and rural regions.
Coastal regions develop so rapidly that not only the secondary industry and tertiary industry could absorb a great number of surplus labor forces but also the agriculture could. In 1990s, one quarter of the farmlands in East China’s Zejiang Province are subleased for RMB150 yuan (US$18) per hectare and only one-third of farmers hope to grow more and more crops because they have no other income. Some local farmers have to cultivate the farmland that could not be subleased to others in order to avoid fines.
Governments should encourage free migration and abolish hukou, an ancient law to limit free migration, so that some poor farmers can migrate from their poor homeland. Moreover, governments should immigrate poor farmers in a large scale to developed regions, such as the Yangtze River delta, Pearl River delta, Chengdu Plain and Jianghan Plain, where governments should construct about 100 new large cities to accept hundreds million migrations from West China and North China. Shenzhen is the best example. Shenzhen has developed from a small city with 3 million populations in 1980 into a large city with 2,948,900 populations in 1993. Now Shenzhen is an international garden city 5 million populations. How much is the capacity to absorb labor forces when a new city is expanding!
