ABSTRACT
Building a new socialist countryside' (BNSC) reallocates financial resource by means of transfers, raise rural incomes and speed up broad-based rural development, mainly perceived in the context of agricultural modernization and industrialization linked to ecological sustainability, and the provision of public goods, such as social welfare and basic education. BNSC was introduced as a macro political framework comprising all policy efforts to develop the Chinese countryside and improve peasants living conditions, economically as well as socially. The central policy programs were not very specific, since the implementation of measures was supposed to follow the logic of a 'macro policy': implementation was required by all local governments nationwide, while specific targets, prioritization and methods were subject to adaptation according to local circumstances. Study material and Party School education equipped local implementors at all levels with a kind of uniform BNSC knowledge and they spoke, at least with regard to the central level policy, with a 'sense of mission' about rural development.
