Land and territorial politics in Urban China

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 187, 2006, Pages 575-591

  Hsing, You Tien ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

LAND TENURE; TERRITORIAL MANAGEMENT; URBAN DEVELOPMENT; URBAN POLITICS;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST;

EID: 33749074279     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: 14682648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741006000385     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. Between 1980 and 2002 the urban population grew from 18-20% to 36-40% of the total population, or about 500 million in total were added to the urban population. See George C. S. Lin, "The growth and structural change of Chinese cities: A contextual and geographic analysis," Cities, Vol. 19, No. 5 (2002), pp. 299-316
2. and Yixing Zhou and Laurence J. C. Ma, "China's urbanization levels: reconstructing a baseline from the fifth population census," The China Quarterly, No. 173 (2003), pp. 176-196.
3. PRC Constitution, art. 10. PRC Land Management Law (first adopted in 1986, amended in 1988, 1998, 2004), art. 2. The other half of article 10 stipulates that land in the countryside and in suburban areas is under collective ownership. In this article I choose to focus on urban instead of rural collective land. For my treatment of rural land see Youtien Hsing, "Brokering power and property in China's townships," Journal of Pacific Review, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2005), pp. 102-124.
4. My data is collected from fieldwork in Beijing in 2003 and 2004, and more generally, in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu (Sichuan), Zhengzhou (Henan), and Changsha (Hunan) from 1997 to 2004.
5. Most of the recent works on China's changing regime of land rights have been focused on rural farmland and resource land, but not urban land. See, for example, Sally Sargeson, "Full circle? Rural land reforms in globalizing China," Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2004), pp. 637-656
6. Peter Ho, "Who owns China's land? Policies, property rights and deliberate institutional ambiguity," The China Quarterly, No. 166 (2001), pp. 394-421
7. Xiaolin Guo, "Land expropriation and rural conflicts in China," The China Quarterly, No. 166 (2001), pp. 422-439.
8. In the studies of the changing land rights regimes in Eastern Europe, most works also dealt with rural agricultural land. See, for example, Katherine Verdery, "The elasticity of land: Problems of property restitution in Transylvania," Slavic Review, Vol. 53, No. 4 (1994), pp. 1071-1109.
9. In the urban studies of China, works on urban land are mainly about the evolution of China's land institutions but not urban politics. See Samuel Ho and George Lin, "Emerging land markets in rural and urban China: Policies and practices," The China Quarterly, No. 175 (2003), pp. 681-707
10. and Fulong Wu, "China's changing urban governance in the transition towards a more market-oriented economy," Urban Studies, Vol. 39, No. 7 (2002), pp. 1071-93.
11. Each municipality is divided into districts. For example, in the beginning of 2003, Beijing municipality had 18 districts, four of which are in the city core
12. Shanghai municipality has 23 districts, ten of which are in the city core.
13. See Xiaobo Lu and Elizabeth Perry (eds.), Danwei: The Changing Chinese Workplace in Historical and Comparative Perspective (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997).
14. Here I follow scholars in the social-legal studies of landed property rights, such as those in Harvey Jacobs (ed.), Who Owns America? Social Conflicts over Property Rights (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1998).
15. Third World-focused research is represented by de Sousa Santos, "The law of the oppressed: The construction and reproduction of legality in Pasargada," Law and Society Review, Vol. 12, No. 1 (1977), pp. 5-126.
16. Here "territorial" refers to a physical and political space, and the people and resources within it. Territorial power is understood as an open, endless strategic game aiming at controlling and influencing the people and resources in the space. See David Delaney, Territory: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005)
17. and Michel Foucault, "The subject and power," in Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow (eds.), Michel Foucault, Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Brighton, 1982), pp. 221-22.
18. See John Logan and Harvey Molotch, Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Growth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).
19. Interview CS0002, Changsha, June 2000.
20. See Ho and Lin, "Emerging land markets."
21. In 2002 the central government demanded that 40% of the land appreciation tax should be incorporated into the state budgetary system and be shared with the state treasury. But a municipal land management official claimed that he "did not know any city that had followed the new rule," and he felt it would be difficult for the central government to enforce it. Interview TJU0301 (a high ranking official of Tianjin municipal land management and planning bureau), May 2003.
22. Samuel Ho and George Lin, "Non-agricultural land use in post-reform China," The China Quarterly, No. 179 (2004), pp. 758-781, at p. 765.
23. Yixing Zhou and Meng Yenchuen, Beijingde jiaoquhua jiqi duice (Suburbanization and Policies in Beijing) (Beijing: Science Publisher, 2000), p. 141.
24. Shanghai chengshi guihua (Shanghai's City Planning) (Shanghai: Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Urban Planning, 1998).
25. Chiling Huang, "Gaige kaifang zhong Shanghai dushi duti fazhanyu dushi kongjian zaijiegou" ("Urban land development and urban space restructuring in Shanghai during economic reforms"), Master's thesis, Department of Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, 1997.
26. According to a 1998 survey of 17 major cities in China, industrial land still occupied 22% of total urban land; 25% of Shanghai, 17% of Beijing and 28% of Suzhou's urban core was still occupied by industries. See Jianhai Cao, Zhongguo tudi gaoxiao liyung yenjiu (Studies of Efficient Use of Urban Land in China) (Beijing: Jingji guanli chubanshe, 2002), pp. 105-107.
27. For land squandering by urban industries during early socialist industrialization, see Kai-yu Fung, "Urban sprawl in China: Some causative factors," in Laurence Ma and Edward Hanten (eds.), Urban Development in Modern China (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1981), pp. 194-220.
28. For a recount of the construction activities of urban danwei, see Duanfang Lu, "Building the Chinese work unit: Modernity, scarcity, and space, 1949-2000," Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Architecture, University of California at Berkeley, 2003.
29. Art. 10, clause 4, the "Provisional regulations on the conveyance, granting and transferring of the state land's use rights in cities and towns," enacted by the State Council in May 1991.
30. Wenhao Zhang, "Beijing tudiye chushi" ("Land masters in Beijing"), Caijing, No. 61 (2002), p. 41.
31. Interviews BJ0301 (a real estate development consultant), Beijing, June 2003
32. BJ0309 (general manager of a large development company with a SOE background), Beijing, July 2003.
33. One of the largest development group companies in Beijing, Capital Land, has seven listed companies. One of them is listed in Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The general manager of Capital Land, Liu Xiaoguang, a guru in Beijing's real estate circle, is the former vice-chair of Beijing's economic planning committee, which had the authority to approve land development projects. Capital Land claimed to have a land reserve of 450,000 square kilometres in 2003. Interview BJ0320 (general manager of one of Capital Land's subsidiaries), July 2003. Also see Ju Xie, "Shouchuang sanwen" ("Three questions about Capital Land"), Xincaijing, No. 41 (2003), pp. 34-37.
34. In 2003, the land management system was restructured. The ministry of land and resource and its provincial branches took back from local governments much of the authority in approving land lease sales and farmland conversion. It is too early to tell how effective the reinstallation of the "vertical management" system is. Interview BJ0319 (a high ranking official of ministry of land and resource), Beijing, August 2003.
35. See Fulong Wu, "The new structure of building provision and the transformation of the urban landscape in metropolitan Guangzhou, China," Urban Studies, Vol. 35, No. 2 (1998), pp. 259-272.
36. See William Alonso, Location and Land Use (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964).
37. I received more than half a dozen such delegations while teaching at the planning school in University of British Columbia from 1992 to 1996.
38. George Lin, "Towards a post-socialist city? Economic tertiarization and urban reformation in the Guangzhou metropolis, China," Eurasia Geography and Economics, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2004), pp. 18-44.
39. Jianhai Cao, Studies of Efficient Use of Urban Land, p. 108.
40. Interviews BJ0302 (an urban planning professor and consultant)
41. BJ0303 (a senior official in Beijing's urban planning committee), both in Beijing, August 2003.
42. Interview BJ0303 (a senior official of urban planning committee), Beijing, August 2003. The surcharge amounted to 5 to 10% of total construction costs.
43. Chengshun Mo, "Hainan fangdichan paomo" ("Property bubbles in Hainan"), Caijing, 31 May 2004.
44. Interview BJ0311 (a high-ranking official in Beijing's centre of land reserves), August 2003.
45. See Po Ren, "Beijing yuhui zhilu" ("The winding path that Beijing took"), and "Chengshi tudi zhimi" ("Secrets of urban land"), Caijing, No. 76 (2003).
46. "Reinforcement of state landed assets management," State Council, April 2001.
47. Interview BJ0309 (general manager of a large development company with SOE background), August 2003.
48. Interview BJ0311 (a high-ranking official in Beijing's centre of land reserves), August 2003. While land use right transfer fees through individual negotiations can be paid in instalments scheduled for many years, auctioned land parcels require a much larger initial investment (35% of the total amount) at the time of lease signing.
49. Zheng Tang, "8-31 da-xian" ("The deadline of 31 August"), Caijing, No. 110 (2004), pp. 96-99.
50. Interviews BJ0301 (a real estate development consultant), Beijing, August 2003
51. SH0401 (a planning professor and consultant), Shanghai, December 2004. It was estimated that by 2000, as much as 95% of land transaction cases in China still used individual negotiation rather than public tender or open auction; see Hongqiao Jiang, "Tudi shichanghua: Zai liyi jiujie zhong jiannan tuijin" ("Pushing ahead land marketization against vested interests"), The Economic Observer, 13 September 2003.
52. Zongli Wong et al. (eds.), Beijing fangdichan (Beijing Real Estate) (Beijing: Hangkonggongye chubanshe, 1996), p. 147.
53. Interviews GZ0402 (a planning professor and consultant), Guangzhou, June 2004; SC0302 (a high ranking official in the urban planning bureau of a prefecture level city), Sichuan, January 2003; BJ0302 (an urban planning professor and consultant), August 2003.
54. Interviews SZ9701 (a high ranking official in Shenzhen's planning and land use bureau), Shenzhen, July 1997; TJU0401 (a high-ranking Tianjin municipal official), November 2004.
55. Interviews CD9701 (a high-ranking planning official in the institute of urban design and planning), Chengdu, July 1997; GZ0301 (a high-ranking official in a district urban planning bureau), Guangzhou, January 2003, June 2004.
56. Interview BJ0309 (general manager of a large development company with SOE background), August 2003.
57. Zhiling Huang, "Gaige kaifenghou Shanghai chengshi tudi kaifa yu chengshi kongjian zaijiegou," p. 72.
58. Shengjie Cao and Shangchun Lu, "Hepingli beijie erhao: Nanyi kaizhang de chaoshi?" ("No. 2 Hepingli North Street: A 'land supermarket' that could not open for business"), Economic Observer, 12 September 2004.
59. Mei Yuan and Xiang Zhang, "Shanghai tudi tunji zhimi" ("The puzzle of land hoarding in Shanghai"), Caijing, No. 127 (2005), pp. 28-34.
60. Here legitimacy is understood as contested processes of justifying political authority claims. For a review of legitimacy issue in China's transformation see Introduction and Vivienne Shue, "Legitimacy crisis in China?" in Peter Gries and Stanley Rosen (eds.), State and Society in 21st Century China (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), pp. 1-49.
61. Interviews BJ0401 and BJ0402 (relocatees and protestors), Beijing, August 2004.
62. Interview BJ0601 (one of the organizers of this lawsuit), June 2004
63. Zhao, Lin, "Chaiqian shinien beixiju" ("Ten years of relocation drama"), Southern Weekend, 4 September 2003.
64. This is generated mainly by the abolition of danwei housing and the new schemes of home mortgage in the early 2000s. For a study of home owner associations, see Benjamin Read, "Democratizing the neighborhood? New private housing and home-owner self organization in urban China," The China Journal, No. 49 (2003).
65. China interviews BJ0403 (a home owner association activist), Beijing, July 2004
66. BJ0301 (a real estate development consultant), Beijing, August 2004.
67. China interview BJ0404 (former general manager of one of China's largest development companies, now running his own development company in Beijing), Beijing, August 2004.
68. For a review of the studies on China's state, decentralization, and local state in post reform China, see Richard Baum and Alexei Shevchenko, "The state of the state," in Merle Goldman and Roderick Macfarquhar (eds.), The Paradox of China's Post-Mao Reforms (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 333-360.