Du Runsheng, former director of the Rural Development Research Center of the State Council (RDRC) and an important participant in China's rural reforms in the 1980s, died on Friday in Beijing at the age of 102.
Du Runsheng's grandson Du Fan said that Du's death "came as an emergency" and its direct cause is as yet unrevealed by the medical staff, the paper.cn reported.
Domestic news portal ifeng.com on Friday released a commentary, calling Du a "symbol" of his time, a "role model" who researched rural issues with a practical method and a "spokesman" for Chinese farmers as he devoted himself farmers' rights for his entire life.
Du was born in North China's Shanxi Province.
As the former director of the RDRC, Du drafted a document in 1982 that recognized the legitimacy of fixing output quotas on a household basis, which returned to farmers the rights to manage the land they worked. After that, Du was entrusted by the central government to help draft five government policy documents on rural issues.
Until that year, land was usually considered public property and farmers did not have the rights to use it for economic returns.
Du's deepest concerns were how to change the urban-rural dual structure, giving farmers better treatment as Chinese citizens, and the establishment of farmers' association. He also wanted the government to guide farmers to carry out new cooperation based on the current household contract system, and protect their rights to the land legislatively, the commentary said.
