Study On The Reform Of “Province Directly Governing County” Based On The Coordinated Development Of Urban And Rural Areas

The coordinated development of urban and rural areas is not only the core content of Marx's theory about urban and rural relations but also an important part of China's Scientific Outlook on Development.Counties are junctions not only between cities and rural areas but also between traditional and modern life.County economy is the basis of our national economy;County politics is the cornerstone of China's political stability.“Counties governance well,the world is stable”.However,China's urban-rural dual structure for a long time leads to the expansion of urban-rural gap and uncoordinated development of urban and rural areas,which has restricted the sustainable development of economy and influenced the social harmony and stability.Therefore,Under the guidance of Marxist theory about urban-rural development,it has been an important development strategy for our country to promote the coordinated development of urban-rural in politics,economy and society by breaking the urban-rural dual structure and promoting the county economy since the 16 th Party Congress.To realize the objective of national development strategy,we should not only abide by the objective laws of social development,but also rely on a series of institutional reform and policy supply.As a system reform designed to strengthen the county economy and promote the coordinated development of urban and rural areas,the reform of “Province Directly Governing County” has been carried out in more than 20 provinces in different degrees since the beginning of “Expanding the Strong County's Power” in 1992.With the reform being carried forward,it becomes more and more difficult for the interest relations being more and more complex.At present,the pilot reforms in many provinces have got into “dilemma”.It is time for us to point out the direction and provide power and intellectual support for the reform that is in the “dilemma”,which has important practical significance.Based on the analysis of the basic theories and related literature,out of all kinds of objective expressions and interest demands,the author founds that the objective about the reform of “Province Directly Governing County” is connotated in the framework of “promoting coordinated development of urban and rural areas” although it has more kind of expressions.In return,the “Province Directly Governing County”system contains the mechanism of promoting coordinated development of urban and rural areas.The essence of the reform is to change the distribution pattern of power and resources on the government hierarchies by reducing the number of hierarchy,which can achieve the purpose of promoting the county development and balancing the urban and rural development through the power of overall planning public service moving up and the power of public resource allocation moving down.This paper takes Zhejiang province,Henan province and Guizhou province as the typical samples to analyze the reform of “Province Directly Governing County” independently and comparatively.The analysis proves that the direction of reform is correct although they are very different in process from each other.There are such main problems which do great influence on the achievements and progress of reform as Personal administration,the division of financial power and government responsibilities,regional cooperation and sharing-type mechanism of public resource.These problems are not the derivatives of the reform but precisely the essence of the reform.The reform will be less effective or just a mere formality if the problems can't be resolved.However,if we choose to resolve them,the reform may get into a “dilemma” or “stagnation” for the pattern of interests being touched.Therefore,under the guidance of Marxist theory about urban-rural development,pushing the reform forward with adhering to the direction and original purpose needs more courage than wisdom.The courage comes from the central authorization,the enthusiasm of local institutional innovation and academic consensus.As can be seen from the comparison and analysis on the reform effectiveness of the three provinces,“Province Directly Governing County” system effectiveness playing relies on the conditons of economic,social,and geographical features,so it is not all of the provinces or counties that are suitable to carry out “Province Directly Governing County”system.We should do discretional choice according to the differences and interrelated degree of urban and rural areas.The essence of urban-rural relations is the relationship between national development strategy and county development.The strategy of coordinated development of Urban and rural areas is an important opportunity for the development of the county economy.The reform of “Province Directly Governing County” is a difficult,complex and systematic project to adjust the power and interests of the local governments below the province hierarchy.It is not a temporary reform so that its efficiency can't be measured for the moment.Seizing the essence of the reform,based on the principle of “Pareto Optimality” in the coordinated development of urban and rural areas,taking the theoretical clues as a consistent,to improve and promote the reform of “Province Directly Governing County”,its system framework about main problems can be summarized as keeping “Province-governing-county” and “city-governing-county” coexistence,running “Province Directly Governing county in the fiscal sector” and “Province Directly Governing County in the Administrative System” neck to neck,moving the power of overall planning public service up to province hierarchy gradually and moving the more power of public resource allocation down to county hierarchy,dividing the financial power and government responsibility scientifically among local governments,and establishing the relations both independent and cooperative among local governments.