Ecological Migration is a Grand Strategy

Author  :  Wang Weiguang     Source  :    CSSN     2013-04-17

At the 18th National Congress, the Communist Party of China set the goal of building China into a well-off society by 2020, which makes the work of ecological migration more urgent, but meanwhile presents new opportunities and calls for planning from the perspective of promoting a conservative culture.
 
After over 30 years of reform and opening-up, China has become the second largest economy in the world. However, the whole nation features an imbalance in its development. The 18th National Congress of CPC has defined various goals. The goal of building a moderately prosperous society by 2020, among others, contains a formidable task to fulfill, that is, “to significantly reduce the number of people living below the poverty line.” According to China’s poverty limit of 2,300 yuan per capita income a year, there are 98.99 million poor people in the country as of 2012, still accounting for 10.2% of the rural population.

In China, most of the rural poor live in a dozen concentrated poverty-stricken areas most of which are arid, extremely gloomy and cold, with high mountains and steep slopes, plagued by water and soil loss, and frequent natural disasters. The most typical areas are the Karst regions in southwestern China, and Xihaigu of Ningxia, Hexi and Dingxi of Gansu in the northwest. Bad natural conditions and backward infrastructure result in grinding poverty in these areas, and poverty in turn aggravates environmental destruction. 

In the past decade, many provinces in western China have carried out programs of ecological migration on varying scales, drawing wide attention at home and abroad. This fact, first of all, indicates an urgent social need. Whether for the purpose of poverty alleviation or for the sake of environmental protection, it is that the poor are moved out of ecologically vulnerable areas. The Western Region is a vast area where there are huge differences in environmental resources. Those living in remote mountainous regions are in such prolonged poverty that development is unlikely to overcome all environmental differences. To improve their living conditions, it is necessary to migrate those especially impoverished people to better places. There is a Chinese saying that “frequent shifts make a tree dead but a person prosperous.” Secondly, the government is also capable of meeting the need. Migration is costly and complex. Without sufficient financial resources and scientific planning, migration will not only fail to lift migrants out of poverty, but might also increase their poverty. In China, decades of rapid economic development have laid a sold economic foundation for migration.

Xihaigu in southern Ningxia is one of the most distressed areas in China. Xihaigu, Hexi and Dingxi of Gansu are collectively called the “Three Xi-affixed Area.” The government has paid high attention to poverty alleviation in Xihaigu since the 1980s. Despite the poverty reduction program for the “Three Xi-affixed Area,” poverty is still serious there. In the new poverty reduction program that started in 2011, Xihaigu remains an important part of the linked areas in the Liupan Mountain area for poverty alleviation.

In order to catch up with other regions to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society, Ningxia regards ecological migration as an important measure for economic and social development. During the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, 350,000 people are expected to be migrated, which is 50% of the total migrants in the past 30 years. The task is unimaginably tough since it will take only 5 years to finish the work of the past 15 years. This means more scientific decision-making with the emphasis on how to stabilize migrants and the aim of keeping up with the development in Yinchuan, the capital of Ningxia.

In fact, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region commenced its migration program as early as the late 20th century. Although the concept of ecological migration was not shaped at that time, to relieve poverty through migration in essence shares the same goal with ecological migration, that is, to ease the demographic pressure on ecologically vulnerable areas and enable the poor to shake off poverty. Ningxia is marked by striking regional differences. Yinchuan in the north, blessed by the Yellow River, is known as “a prosperous place beyond the Great Wall,” while Xihaigu in the south is poor and barren. The huge difference largely lies in water resources, so the Ningxia government proposed the migration strategy of “leading people to go to water, and water to flow with people.” The strategy presents an organic combination of conforming to nature and remaking nature, not only stressing that humankind should adapt themselves to natural conditions, but also highlighting the importance of transforming nature moderately.

With more than 30 years of effort, Ningxia has managed to relocate hundreds of thousands of poor people from central and southern ecologically vulnerable areas to northern areas that are irrigated by the Yellow River. In their new homes, the migrants cast off poverty and enrich themselves, improving their income considerably. The achievement is obvious to all. That Ningxia has made remarkable results in ecological migration is inseparable from innovation by the local government.

However, migration is just a means, by which the purpose of enabling emigrants to rid themselves of poverty and become better off should be achieved. And the key is to change the migrants.

Into a new area, migrants have to face up to many new things and difficulties, which require strong learning skills and adaptability. Some of them, for example, used to engage in dry farming. After migration, they have to accommodate themselves with irrigation farming. It is really a big change. In order to increase their income, they should also learn to plant cash crops and dare to venture out. After a few years, if they have stabilized themselves, they would successfully change themselves.

To realize the change in migrants, the government should transform its functions as well. Migration is driven by the government, so it has to do much work to support migrants to become better off. It should equip infrastructure, organize the training of migrants, provide needed production capital and help connect products to the market. Therefore, the migration work should not focus on migration itself, but on how to coordinate and connect well in immigration areas.

During the process of organizing migration, if the government can do the job fully and soundly, migrants will be more stable. In this regard, migration requires the government to change its working style, to transform itself from a manager to a servant, timely discovering difficulties migrants run into and taking effective measures to address them.

At its 18th National Congress, the Communist Party of China set the goal of building China into a well-off society by 2020, which makes the work of ecological migration more urgent, but meanwhile presents new opportunities and calls for planning from the perspective of promoting a conservative culture.

For the goal of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society, poverty and environment degradation are the two most important constraints, especially in western China. To move the people out of ecologically bad areas can help the environment recover and reduce poverty simultaneously. Meanwhile, a series of poverty-alleviation and environmental-protection programs launched by the state also underpin migrants financially. More importantly, with western development and a new-type of urbanization, migrants have more channels to find jobs. All these are favorable to ecological migration.

Nevertheless, we should be aware that the new situation also imposes higher requirements. In the past, the people in the ecologically vulnerable areas were so destitute that they were satisfied as long as their income improved. As a series of preferential policies for farmers have been implemented, their income, particularly various subsidies, has therewith been increased. Under such circumstances, their expectations are raised, so that only higher standards can meet their needs. Ningxia is still populated by ethnic groups and religious believers, so high importance must be attached to social harmony and stability in the process of ecological migration.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) is a think tank of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, specialized in researching major realistic problems in China’s economic and social development. It has thus established partnerships with provincial, municipal and regional institutions and academies across the country. This in-depth and systematic research into ecological migration in Ningxia is led by the Institute of Sociology, CASS, in collaboration with the Ningxia Academy of Social Sciences and Beifang University of Nationalities, and with the support of the Ningxia Provincial Party Committee and the Ningxia Government. It sums up Ningxia’s experience in migration in the past three decades, analyses achievements and difficulties in current ecological migration, as well as the new situation and new problems in future migration, in particular, provides systematic comparison between the migrated and the un-migrated, and offers some valuable approaches and strategies.

The book hereby dedicated is a good start. I hope more and more, better and better research work conducted by CASS and local partners will be seen in the future to serve local economies and social development.

(This article is the foreword to the book Ecological Migration and Developmental Transformation: A Case Study of Ningxia written by Li Peilin and Wang Xiaoyi that will be published by the Social Sciences Academic Press. The author is the Vice-President of CASS. See the text in Chinese: http://www.cssn.cn/news/697205.htm)

 

 

 

 

 

Translated by Chen Mirong

Editor: Yu Hua

Editor: