http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,1715078,00.html?gusrc=rss

China yesterday unveiled ambitious plans to help the 800 million people living in the countryside catch up economically with people in the cities.

More rural investment and agricultural subsidies and improved social services are the main planks of a policy to create a "new socialist countryside", which the president, Hu Jintao, says is a priority.

According to the World Bank, the policy is a significant shift away from the previous focus on economic development. Greater weight will be given to the redistribution of resources and a rebalancing of income.

The policy was drawn up at the end of December as part of the government's five-year economic plan, but the details were made public only yesterday.

"Constructing a new socialist countryside is an important historic task in the process of China's modernisation," says the policy. "The only way to ensure sustainable development of the national economy and continuous expansion of domestic demand is to develop the rural economy and help farmers to become more affluent."

It aims to modernise the countryside, which has fallen behind in China's race to expand. From this year until 2010, the government promises sustained increases in farmers' incomes, more industrial support for agriculture and faster development of public services.

Several measures are already under way. This year, the agricultural tax will be phased out after hundreds of years, and farm subsidies have been raised.

But millions of peasants still cannot afford basic services, such as education and health. To improve access, the new policy promises that, by 2007, rural students will no longer have to pay for books and heating in schools.

Students from the poorest families will receive free textbooks and boarding subsidies. And the government will also increase subsidies for rural health cooperatives.

But local governments have been warned that they will be held to account. The new measures promise greater protection and improved democracy in rural areas, and local government bureaucracies will be trimmed to cut costs.

In part, the policy is driven by concerns about China's ability to feed itself. The past 25 years of rapid urbanisation have seen swaths of farmland turned into development zones, and more than 200 million farmers have migrated to the cities.

The policy proposes that China should remain "basically self-sufficient" in grain. It promises increased subsidies for farmers growing grain, as well as continued revenue "bonuses" for local governments in the grainbelt, and says the government will continue setting prices for grain purchases.

The shift of focus also reflects the government's alarm at the number of peasant protests. Last month, the ministry of public security said there were 87,000 protests, riots and other "mass incidents" last year, up 6.6% on 2004.

But the ability of central government to implement the policy is unclear. President Hu has been promising "harmonious development" for three years, but many profit-focused local authorities have baulked at the cost of measures to protect the environment and improve industrial safety.