Emerging Land Markets in Rural and Urban China: Policies and Practices

China Quarterly

Volumn 175, Issue , 2003, Pages 681-707

  Ho, Samuel P S ^a   Lin, George C S ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRICULTURAL LAND; LAND MARKET; LAND USE CHANGE; TENURE SYSTEM;

CHINA;

EID: 0141919677     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741003000407     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. See, for example, Vaclav Smil, “China's agricultural land,” The China Quarterly, No. 158 (June 1999), pp, 414–429
2. Robert Ash and Richard Edmonds, “China's land resources, environment and agricultural production,” The China Quarterly, No. 156 (December 1998), pp. 836–879.
3. See, for example, Peter Ho, “Who owns China's land? Policies, property rights and deliberate institutional ambiguity,” The China Quarterly, No. 166 (June 2001), pp. 394–421
4. Roy Prosterman, Tim Hanstad, Brian Schwarzwalder and Li Ping, “Rural land reform in China and the 1998 Land Management Law,” RDI Reports on Foreign Aid and Development, No. 98, December 1998.
5. See, for example, Anthony Garon Yeh and Fulong Wu, “The new land development process and urban development in Chinese cities,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 20, No. 2 (1996), pp. 330–353
6. Tim Hanstad and Li Ping, “Land reform in the People's Republic of China: auctioning rights to wasteland,” Loyola of Los Angeles International & Comparative Law Journal, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1997), pp. 545–583.
7. Liu Yucheng, Zhongguo tudi ziyuan diaocha shuju ji (A Compilation of Results from the Survey of China's Land Resources)(Beijing: Quan guo tudi ziyuan diaocha bangongshi, 2000), p. 34. The ownership status of the remaining 1%, comprising mostly pasture, forest and unused land, was not determined and remains a source of considerable conflict between the state and rural collectives.
8. More than three-quarters of China's unused land is state owned and nearly 80% of it is found in Xinjiang, Xizang, Qinghai, Gansu and Inner Mangolia (Liu Yucheng, Compilation, pp. 28–29, 40–41 and 64–65).
9. Since 1953, state units that need land must apply to the local government for permission even when more senior government units have made the land use decisions. See C. W. Kenneth Keng, “China's land disposition system,” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 5, No. 13 (1996), pp. 327–328.
10. However, frequently the land conversion decision was made by the commune or by the county. See Liu Xinhua (ed.), Xin tudi guanli fa quanshu (Encyclopedia of New Land Management Laws) (Beijing: Zhongguo wujia chubanshe, 1998), pp. 150 and 170.
11. “The Constitution of the People's Republic of China,” adopted 20 September 1954, Art. 13.
12. However ambiguities remain in the law. For example, while the Land Management Law clearly states that urban land is owned by the state, it is silent about who represents the state, an ambiguity that has caused many ownership disputes between government agencies and was not removed until 1998 when the law was revised to declare that the State Council exercises state ownership. For an interesting analysis that argues that Chinese policy makers have introduced deliberately “institutional ambiguity [about ownership]” into the law so as to avoid social conflict, see Ho “Who owns China's land?” pp. 403–409.
13. A nation-wide survey found that 68.1% of the contract was between the village and its member households. See Liu Yanping, Cheng Ye and Wang Jun, “Shichang jingji tizhi xia woguo nongcun jiti tudi chanquan zhidu goujian silu” (“Some ideas for the establishment of a rural collective land property system in our country under a market economy”), Zhongguo tudi kexue (China Land Science), Vol. 12, No. 4 (1998), p. 11.
14. By the late 1990s, at least 80% of the villages in China had adjusted land allocation at least once and some five times or more. See Jean C. Oi, “Two decades of rural reform in China: an overview and assessment,” The China Quarterly, No. 159 (September 1999), p.618. Two types of land adjustments have been reported: “big” and “small.” When big adjustments are made, all farmland is taken back and then reallocated so households get different plots of land. Under small adjustments, farm households that have added or lost members since the previous adjustment receive or return land to the village, but those who have not will continue to farm the same land. Big land adjustments have frequently been used to facilitate the conversion of agricultural land to construction land.
15. Prosterman et al., “Rural land reform in China,” p. 12.
16. However, in some areas, the collective restricted such transfers of use rights and sometimes imposed sanctions on those who migrated and left their land uncultivated or not well cultivated. For an analysis of the trade-offs and competing interests that have brought about these regional variations in rural property rights changes, see Shouying Liu, Michael R. Carter and Yang Yao, “Dimensions and diversity of property rights in rural China: dilemmas on the road to further reform,” World Development, Vol. 26, No. 10 (1998), pp. 1789–1806.
17. The Land Management Law, adopted in 1986 and revised in 1988, Art. 2.
18. The 1998 Land Management Law, Art. 15.
19. Interview notes, Jiangsu, 17 October 2000.
20. The information in this paragraph is from the 1998 Land Management Law, Arts. 59, 60, 61 and 62.
21. Interview notes, Jiangsu, 16 October 2000.
22. See Xiangzhen qiye zhengce fagui xuanbian (Selected Laws and Regulations Concerning Township-Village Enterprises), pp. 52–57.
23. The first annual land utilization plan was formulated by the Land Bureau in 1987, and in 1988 the annual land utilization plan was integrated into the annual economic development plan. See Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of Finance and Trade Economics and Institute of Public Administration USA, Urban Land Use and Management in China (Beijing: Jingji kexue chubanshe, 1992), pp. 211–213.
24. However if the land is part of an existing residential site or an empty space within the village, the township government has the authority to approve the land use application. See State Council, “Rules for the implementation of the law of the People's Republic of China on land management,” promulgated 4 January 1991.
25. See Liu Xinhua, Encyclopedia, p. 495.
26. See “Jiben nongtian baohu tiaoli” (“Regulations for the protection of primary farmland”), State Council Order, No. 162, 18 August 1994.
27. The information in this paragraph is from the 1998 Land Management Law, Ch. V.
28. Interview notes, Jiangsu, 17 October 2000. We were told that Zhejiang has also decentralized the approval process in a manner similar to that in Jiangsu.
29. The information in this and the following paragraphs is from Yang Chongguan and Wu Cifang, Zhongguo tudi shiyong zhidu gaige shinian (China's Land Use System, Ten Years of Reform) (Beijing: Zhongguo dadi chubanshe, 1996), pp. 179–182
30. Wang Yunhe (ed.), Wuxi shi tudi zhi (History of Land in Wuxi City) (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1998), pp. 268–270
31. Wang Zhongyi (ed.), Jiangyin shi tudi zhi (History of Land in Jiangyin City) (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1998), pp. 283–286
32. interview notes, Jiangsu, 17 October 2000.
33. Calculated from statistics reported in “Guojia tudi guanli ju guanyu jiaqiang nongcun zhaijidi guanli gongzuo de qingshi” (“State Land Administration Bureau notice on the strengthening of the management of rural residential land”), 15 December 1989.
34. The government reported that about one-third of the loss in cultivated land to construction during 1985–88 was due to rural housing. One third of 208,333 hectares is roughly 68,700 hectares. The figure for the loss of cultivated land to rural housing in 1993 is from Zhongguo tudi nianjian 1994–1995(China Land Yearbook, 1994–1995) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995), p. 149.
35. See, for example, Yang Chongguan and Wu Cifang, Zhongguo tudi shiyong zhidu gaige shinian (China's Land Use System, Ten Years of Reform), pp. 179–182 and 186–190.
36. The following statistics were calculated from data in China Land Yearbook, 1994–1995 (pp. 118, 122, 140 and 144), 1996 (pp. 199 and 201), and 1997 (pp. 173 and 175).
37. Calculated from data in China Land Yearbook, 1997, p. 183.
38. Calculated from data in China Land Yearbook, p. 185.
39. Prosterman et al., “Rural land reform in China,” p. 17.
40. The Ministry of Land and Resources recently announced that after 1 July 2002 the conveyance of rights to use state-owned land for investment purposes would be done either by public auction or by open tender. See Far Eastern Economic Review, 27 June 2002, pp. 28–31.
41. Prosterman et al., “Implementation of 30-year land use rights for farmers,” pp. 14 and 20.