ABSTRACT
This chapter overviews the historical foundation of the socialist rural welfare system, and analyses the social problems arising from the institutional developments. For a long time in the Chinese history, rural social policy has been an alien concept despite the preponderance of rural population in the society. To achieve rapid industrialisation, the Chinese government manipulated crop prices by controlling the marketing of agricultural products to extract capital for the development of heavy industry. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched land reforms between 1947 and 1953 as well as agricultural collectivisation in the 1950s in an attempt to promote the socialist ideal of equal land redistribution and rural modernisation. Reform initiatives of recent years focused on resuming the responsibility of local governments and communities. Three policy areas are of particular significance: healthcare, social assistance and old age security. Under the new Xi-Li leadership, urbanisation policy will require more streamlining between social programs of both urban and rural areas.
