Li Yang, Vice Minister of Transport, introduces the white paper 'China's Rural Roads in the New Era' at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office of China in Beijing on November 29, 2024. Photo: VCG

China's State Council Information Office on Friday released a white paper titled "China's Rural Roads in the New Era" to outline the achievements and vision of rural road development in the new era and to share China's experience.

In terms of general achievement, the white paper said that by the end of 2023, the total length of rural roads reached 4.6 million kilometers, an increase of 21.7 percent over 2013, enough to circle the equator 115 times.

So far, the country has put in place a rural transport infrastructure network in which county roads connect rural and urban areas, township roads crisscross, and village roads facilitate travel between households and farmland, the white paper said.

Paved roads totaled 4.22 million kilometers and accounted for 91.8 percent of total rural roads, representing an increase of 27.2 percentage points over the past decade. The white paper also highlighted increasing accessibility in rural areas, citing the statistic that paved roads have been built in about 30,000 towns and townships and over 500,000 administrative villages.

Since 2014, more than 1.4 million km of rural roads have been built or upgraded in previously poor areas, all towns, townships and administrative villages where conditions allow had been connected to paved roads by 2019, and all such villages had been connected to bus services by 2020, the white paper noted.

Experts said that China's achievements in rural roads and poverty reduction highlight the country's people-centered development philosophy. Meanwhile, China has actively shared its experience with other developing countries and helped them improve their infrastructure, making significant contributions to sustainable development on a global scale.

People-centered approaches

China's people-centered approaches were highlighted in the white paper, with the word "people" appearing more than 50 times in the 39-page English version of the white paper.

Better transport has cleared bottlenecks that had long held back economic and social development in poor areas, and has laid a solid foundation for rural people to realize moderate prosperity in all respects, it said.

Li Guoxiang, a researcher from the Rural Development Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that rural road construction is one of the most outstanding achievements of the government in the development of rural areas, and it is one of the measures that farmers are the most satisfied with.

He said that rural roads have played an irreplaceable role in solving overall poverty in some parts of China. After the construction of unimpeded rural roads, the connection between rural areas and the outside world, and the endogenous driving force of rural development will continue to increase, otherwise, most of the government's poverty alleviation measures will be no more than short-term relief.

"To get rich, build roads first", this is the truth recognized by the central government and farmers, said Su Wei, a professor from the Party School of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee.

Road building is a basic, guiding and backbone project for poverty alleviation. Without rural roads, it would have been difficult for China to achieve its goal of eliminating extreme poverty, said Su. 

In addition to poverty alleviation, Su said road building is also a prerequisite for rural revitalization and integrated urban-rural development.

According to Su, the accessibility of rural roads is one of the most important factors for rural people to get out of isolation and move toward modernization. With the development of the transportation network, various materials, information and funds can enter the countryside more smoothly, and farmers can also have more access to better education, medical care and other social resources, which plays a basic role in their integration into modern society.

In advancing rural revitalization across the board, the government continues to integrate rural roads into the overall economic development of rural areas, by supporting modernization of rural industries, boosting rural tourism and making efficient use of distinctive resources in rural areas, according to the white paper.

According to the white paper, the steady development of transport facilities in rural areas has attracted more capital, projects and talent to the countryside, creating more job opportunities and broadening the avenues for income growth.

China has built paved roads in rural tourist destinations, industrial parks, sources of resources and minerals, and other points of economic growth, which has made travel in remote areas and particularly in mountainous areas more convenient, reads the document.

In May this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for unremitting efforts to upgrade rural roads to facilitate rural development. He ordered that rural roads be built well, managed well, maintained well and used well. For this reason, these roads have become known as "Four-Wells Rural Roads." 

Currently, rural road construction projects provide work for about 80,000 people, enabling an annual average per capita income increase of around 8,500 yuan (about $1,182.57), the white paper noted.

Rural road management and maintenance provide about 850,000 jobs, offering an annual average per capita income of approximately 13,000 yuan, it said.

Shared experience

The white paper also noted that China has shared its development experience and helped construct rural road infrastructure in other developing countries over the years, contributing substantially to poverty reduction, people's wellbeing and sustainable global development. 

These efforts include providing technical standards for highway engineering suited to different national conditions. China's highway standards have been applied in hundreds of projects in dozens of countries around the world, including Indonesia's Surabaya-Madura Bridge Project and Mozambique's Maputo-Katembe Bridge Project, according to the white paper.

China has also played an active role in building new platforms and mechanisms for global transport cooperation and in promoting knowledge and experience sharing. For instance, it has established the Global Sustainable Transport Innovation and Knowledge Center as a platform for cooperation and exchanges and for sharing China's experience in rural road development with the international community, the white paper said.

China has also shared its experience through international training sessions. The country has held 28 such sessions, including a program on road design and management in Botswana, and an advanced training program on highway engineering for countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, the white paper said.

Additionally, China has also provided aid and assistance to several rural road infrastructure projects in other developing countries. Since 2018, China has supported 24 developing countries including Cambodia, Serbia, Rwanda, Namibia, Vanuatu and Niger in highway and bridge construction and maintenance, helping them improve their transport infrastructure, according to the white paper.

"What makes China's approach special is that we have taken rural road construction as a prerequisite for poverty alleviation and rural development," said Li, "and this exemplary role and successful experience was seen by other developing countries." 

China's ability in building and maintaining roads in areas with complex terrain is even stronger than those of some developed countries, Li said, noting that China's concept of community with a shared future for mankind makes it generous in helping other developing countries to step out of poverty by using China's experience. 

In contrast, despite the US and some Western countries offering some low-interest loans for developing countries for development, they lack a mechanism to mobilize funds and organize them to build livelihood projects, which prevents them from contributing much to creating internal and lasting momentum for developing countries' self-development, Su said. 

According to the expert, China's ability to mobilize all kinds of resources at the grassroots level may be its unique advantage, but China's concept of putting people first and forming synergy between the government and the market is something other developing countries can learn from.