Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Perhaps the most intractable problem standing in the way of a rights-based approach to
resettlement policy in China relates to the changing political economy of rural land. During
theMaoistperiod,agriculturalproductionwascontrolledbythestateviaanetworkofcom-
munes, production brigades, and production teams overseen by party cadres. This system
became the basis for economic and social life in rural China for nearly three decades. The
HouseholdResponsibilitySystem,introducedinthe1980s,grantedfarminghouseholdsthe
right to make their own production decisions and earn residual income from their land by
selling crops on the market, which was subject to fewer and fewer government restrictions.
This effectively reestablished China as the world's largest smallholder farming system.
But the property-rights regime governing access to rural land remains one of the greatest
headaches for political officials and villagers alike. Property rights are ultimately grounded
in socially recognized claims, whether through custom and tradition or through formal, co-
dified law. Far from homogenous, property rights may encompass a wide variety of entitle-
ments, from resource access and use to formal ownership and transferability to a third party
(Ribot and Peluso 2003). In China, the rural land-rights regime exhibits considerable vari-
ability in different regions but is commonly seen to contain four fundamental dimensions:
the right to residual income generated from agricultural activity on land; the right to use
land in relative freedom from state regulation and other encumbrances; security of tenure
rights into the future; and land-transfer rights (Liu, Carter, and Yao 1998).
The Household Responsibility System, arguably the backbone of the reform-era eco-
nomy, gives farming households access to cash income through agricultural sales. De-
cisions regarding crop selection, cultivation, and market distribution are made at the house-
hold level, and economic risk within China's rapidly changing market economy is also as-
sumed at the household level. Both security of future tenure rights and transferability to a
third party are major issues of concern in rural China. In contrast to urban land, which is
owned by the central government (
quanmin suoyou zhi
), rural land rights are vested in rural
collectives (
jiti suoyou zhi
) at the level of township, village, or production cooperative—an
arrangement that is codified in the PRC Constitution. Individual farming households are
typically granted certificates that give them use rights, along with the right to sublet land
within the term of their lease, but not full ownership rights over two types of land leased
from the rural collective: “responsibility land” (
zeren tian
) and “contract land” (
chengbao
tian
). The length of rural land leases has increased dramatically since the 1980s and now
spans seventy years for responsibility land, although the collective retains the right to ap-
propriate land within its jurisdiction when necessary. On contract land leased from their
collectives, farmers now enjoy “indefinite” lease periods; government planners hope that
this relative sense of long-term security will help to promote specialization, increased land
transfers, and economies of scale in the agricultural sector.
Villagers face other encumbrances on their land rights, including limited knowledge of
how the complex and ever-changing land-tenure system works. Rural land cannot be used
