Video #23 - China: Rural Land Grab
Wednesday, January 11, 2006BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Farmers in China do not own the land. All rural land legally belongs to the farmers' collective organizations. This means that they are controlled by the State. In the 1980s, China's Household Responsibility System allocated farms to families rather than communities. Along with this method came the land readjustment system which was meant to provide for egalitarian distribution but created problems.
To address these issues, in August of 1998 the Chinese government implemented the Land Management Law, which provided written contracts to farmers for the period of the land use rights. This land-contract system means that farmers have the right to use the land (typically for 30 years). Experts say that both land reform and government support are necessary for China's farmers to improve their economic status as their country develops.
China Business Weekly reports one proposal under consideration would have the Chinese government establish a "free land-transaction system," so the farmers could sell the land and start businesses in the cities. In theory, this should eventually lead to more efficient farming, since the best farmers would remain. (There is skepticism that this would work, since there are over 900 million farmers compared with 400 million urban residents. How could so many farmers find jobs in the cities?)
Perhaps because of growing pressure to increase land for non-agricultural uses, the Chinese government has been trying to persuade farmers to abandon farming. In some cases, it has done more than persuade-actually forcing farmers off their land and seizing the property. A case in point took place in Sanchawan, a village in the northern province of Shaanxi. Over the past two years, government officials took land that belonged to the village since imperial times. Farmers were offered $60 for each parcel of land. In a desperate attempt to voice their frustration and discontent, farmers seized the Communist Party's headquarters in the village in May. On the fourth of October, officials from the neighboring city of Yulin attacked the villagers with tear gas, rubber bullets and cattle prods.
It seems that the government can take rural land to turn into lucrative real estate developments because it ultimately belongs to the government, not the village. Jim Yardley, reporting for The New York Times, states: "Experts estimate that as many as 70 million farmers have lost their land in the past decade - a number expected to rise above 100 million."
Many Chinese farmers have been resisting this trend-some violently. The unrest reported throughout China during the past year is said to have prompted the government to freeze the growth of "economic development zones" in fear of endangering the nation's food supply. In order to stop rebellion in rural areas, a 2003 law gave farmers greater flexibility to use their land. Jayanthy Iyengar reported that under the law, "...local authorities can neither revise the contract nor reclaim the land awarded during the course of the contract. Further, it empowers farmers to transfer, re-contract, enter into share-holding ventures, and exchange the rights of land use with each other. Also, women, whether married or unmarried, enjoy equal rights with respect to land distribution." However, local authorities don't always abide by changes from the Central government-so the tension over land use continues.
SOURCES
"Land reform for efficiency." China Business Weekly. November 18, 2003. Retrieved from www.chinagate.com.cn "Reform of Land Management System," Chinagate.com.cn, 2002
Iyengar Jayanthi, "Beijing unveils land reform policy." Asia Times, 2003 Retrieved from www.atimes.com
Loussouarn, Anne, "Rage against the exodus: the crisis in China's land reform." The Courier UNESCO, January, 2001
Yardley, Jim, "Farmers Being Moved Aside by China's Real Estate Boom." The New York Times, December 8, 2004. Retrieved from www.NYTimes.com
LESSON PLAN
GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT:
10-12 grade Economics, International Relations, World History, Geography, International Baccalaureate Programs (IB), Current Events.
PURPOSE:
To present activities to be used in a variety of classroom situations in order to enhance student understanding of the Asian economy and its significance globally.
OBJECTIVES:
Students will be able to:
- Describe the history of land reform in China.
- Illustrate current land reform policy in China.
- Evaluate the effect of land reform on the Chinese economy.
- Compare and contrast the standard of living of rural and urban Chinese workers.
MATERIALS:
- Background information provided.
- Resources on The People's Republic of China available at your school's Media Center and the Public Library System in your area.
- Background information available through Internet "search engines."
- Chen, Fu, "Land reform in rural China since the mid-1980's, Part 1 and 2." Posted September 1999. Sustainable Development Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
ACTIVITIES:
May be assigned as group activities or as individual tasks. They may also be designed as preparation for related presentations either by individuals or groups.
- Develop a timeline of events depicting land reform in China.
- Use charts and graphs to illustrate the effects of recent land reform on the Chinese economy.
- Contrast the system of "eminent domain" in the U.S. with government expropriation of land for private uses in China.
- Conduct a mock court, where Chinese farmers try to argue against expropriation of their land on the basis of the 2003 national law.
EVALUATION:
Individual assignments should be graded by the teacher using established criteria.
Group activities, presentations and projects may be evaluated by teachers and students using the following criteria and scale: Content 1 = Superior (A) Creativity 2 = Excellent (B) Clarity 3 = Good (C) 4 = Fair (D) 5 = Poor (F)
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