The fertile fields in Zhucheng city of Eastern China's Shandong province are an unlikely microcosm of the national economy. There is not a power plant or factory in sight. Yet the area encapsulates as well as any industrial city some of the forces that are reshaping the country.

The virtual absence of any farmers under 40 speaks to China's urbanization. Youngsters decamp as soon as they can to work in towns near and far, leaving their aging parents to till the soil. With the rural labor pool shrinking, wages are rising.

Nationwide, per capita rural incomes after inflation rose 14.3 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, double the increase in urban disposable income, thanks to higher farm prices and bigger remittances by migrant workers.

In short, China's vast rural economy, home to over 700 million people, seems to be doing well. But urban China is doing much better, and the resulting inequality is a nagging concern for the government.

"In some regions, we have seen encouraging signs that farmers' incomes are rising quickly, but that doesn't mean the nationwide urban-rural wealth gap is narrowing," said Su Hainan with the China Association for Labour Studies, a government think tank.

Incomes in China's cities are three to four times higher than in the countryside, and Su said achieving a noticeably fairer distribution could take one or two decades.