A view of rapeseed flower fields in Congjiang county, Guizhou Province on March 8, 2025. Photo: VCG

Editor's Note:

The two sessions are not only a major political event in China but also a key window for the world to observe the country's democratic politics and development trajectory. This year, as in years past, the event has captured considerable global attention, highlighting China's ongoing development and its implications for the world stage. In the "Unraveling the allure of China" series, the Global Times (GT) invites experts and scholars from around the world to delve into the multifaceted allure of China and explore how the lessons drawn from its unique experiences can provide valuable insights for other nations.

The government work report released during this year's two sessions vowed to make every effort to deliver in work relating to agriculture, rural areas and rural residents, and taking solid steps to advance all-around rural revitalization. In the tenth piece of the series, Robert Lawrence Kuhn (Kuhn), chairman of The Kuhn Foundation and recipient of the China Reform Friendship Medal in 2018, shared his insights with GT reporter Xia Wenxin on how the Chinese government pays great attention to the "three rural issues," also known as "sannong" - that is, agriculture, rural areas and farmers. 

GT: The 2025 two sessions recently ended. What topics were you most interested in?

Kuhn: I have been watching what discussions are held and policies instituted in three areas: rural vitalization, progressing along the long road to common prosperity; national security concerns, in the context of international tensions and technology sanctions; and the role, position, and recognition of private businesses. To focus on the private sector, categories include market entry; market equality; financing equality; stronger legal protection of private property; public messaging from senior leaders and official sources supporting private business; and most important, ensuring continuity and stability, which is most critical for entrepreneurs. 

GT: Both China's "No. 1 central document" for 2025 released last month and the 2025 government work report unveiled last week highlight the significance of rural development. How do you assess the current process of China's rural revitalization strategy? What achievements have been made so far?

Kuhn: In this regard, I prefer to use "rural vitalization" rather than the more common "rural revitalization" - both are used in official contexts - because "revitalize" could imply that rural areas had been "fine" but then they deteriorated and now need to return to what they were. In fact, "rural vitalization" stresses that what is envisioned has not happened before.

China rightly celebrates the success of its "targeted poverty alleviation" campaign, which by the end of 2020 had brought about 100 million of the intractably poor out of extreme poverty. For China to achieve "the Chinese Dream" of national rejuvenation, eliminating extreme poverty was necessary - but it was not sufficient. China must continue to fight poverty by closing the wealth gap, primarily between rural and urban areas. 

Enhancing rural standards of living exemplifies China's long-range vision for the year 2049, to become a "fully modernized socialist country." But while grand visions are formulated by the central leadership, they must be implemented by local, grassroots officials - and this is especially true of rural vitalization.

I've said that when historians of the future write the chronicles of our times, a highlight is sure to be China's remarkable 40 years of reform and opening-up. China has transformed from a backward economy and a closed society to the world's second-largest economy, engaged openly with all countries and regions, and involved in all matters of global importance. Bringing living standards in rural areas up to near living standards in urban areas is essential.

Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn Photo: Courtesy of Kuhn

GT: What do you think is the global significance of China's rural revitalization strategy? What unique features does it possess that could provide valuable lessons for the rest of the world, especially for developing countries?

Kuhn: China's perspective on global development leverages its own developmental experience. It is now focusing on "common prosperity" to rebalance its own imbalances - between ownership and workers, urban and rural, coastal and inland. Once again, China will bring its best practices of common prosperity, which it is learning at home, to the developing world abroad.

China does not claim that its "China model" can be adopted wholesale by other countries, but China wants the world to understand why Chinese President Xi Jinping's principles of governance are optimally suited to China's domestic conditions. Each country is different, with its own history and culture; the nature of different peoples is indeed different. China advocates that each country should decide its own developmental mechanisms.

GT: As a witness to how China's rural areas develop, you have gone into remote villages in China to study the grassroots practice of the "three rural issues." Can you share some of your impressive experiences to help us better understand the actual situation of rural revitalization in China?

Kuhn: As someone trained in science, I appreciate the Chinese leadership's approach to tackling problems from a scientific perspective. This approach includes a rigorous planning process, the development of specific implementation measures, and constant monitoring, feedback and course correction.

As much as I thought I knew China, I was startled to discover that every poor family in China had its own file, each with its "targeted" plan to lift each of them above the line of absolute poverty - that's millions of poor families with customized plans, each checked monthly, recorded on paper, and digitized for central compilation and analysis.

Equally startling, young provincial officials were dispatched to impoverished villages to manage poverty alleviation, away from their families often for two years. I watched a "democratic appraisal meeting" in a remote village in central Hainan's Qiongzhong Li and Miao autonomous county. There, villagers voted into poverty status one young man whose father had cancer and cheered when another man was raised out of poverty.

I watched local officials being held accountable, with their careers at stake. I was most impressed with the government's commitment to prevent fraud and corruption in poverty alleviation. China did not allow falsifying data or misappropriating funds to undermine its poverty alleviation goals.

GT: As we know, you are also interested in China's new quality productive forces. What do you think about the application of such forces in rural revitalization?

Kuhn: New quality productive forces are driven by "indigenous innovation," especially in science and technology. For rural vitalization, the focus is on agritech, biotech, seed technology and irrigation technology - increasing yields, decreasing disease and increasing nutrition.

Initiatives are underway. The share of strategic emerging industries, such as new energy, high-end equipment and biotechnology in China's GDP rose to over 13 percent in 2022 from 7.6 percent in 2014, with the 2025 target being over 17 percent. Such a rise of new quality productive forces is said to signal a transformative shift in China's economic landscape, replacing antiquated growth drivers with more dynamic ones, thus enabling sustained economic development.