In a recent essay, Lu Dewen (吕德文, Lǚ Déwén)—a sometimes controversial Wuhan University sociologist whose research focuses on rural governance—argues that bureaucratic formalism, meaningless busywork, and technological hegemony...
Local government seizure of farmland is a major cause of social unrest in the Chinese countryside,...
China Green, a multimedia venture of the Asia Society that focuses on China’s environmental challenges, has posted a new video about Guanzhou Island, off of Guangzhou: Guanzhou Modernized explores the development of...
The desire to stimulate China’s economy has forced the Chinese government to choose between preserving land or preserving economic growth. From the Asia Times: When a leading mainland economist suggested recently that...
This article briefly traces several historical moments of land reform in China, particularly the implementation of the household contract system, the emergence of township enterprises, and the use of forestland. From Beijing...
Farmers in China are waiting for land reform so that they can have greater ownership over their land. A story from the Economist: Their main hope now appears to rest with the Communist party’s leadership. After a meeting in...
From Xinhua: China has published a statute, “Methods for Punishing Violations of Regulations on Land Management”, that replaces the “Provisional Methods for Punishing Violations of Regulations on Land...
With food crisis alarms sounding around the world, Guangdongers may stop thinking “I can buy whatever as long as I have the bucks.” A CCTV report translated by CDT from sina.com: Guangdong is well known as the...
More on the increasingly heated debate over land use in China, from AP: China stressed Thursday that farmland should be used for cultivation, not gobbled up by construction as the country’s rapid development pushes further into the countryside. In a front-page article in the People’s Daily newspaper, the Communist Party mouthpiece, said the State Council […]
Caijing Magazine carries a detailed report on one of the biggest scandals to emerge from the Chinese government’s year-long investigation into land distribution abuses–and it’s a whopper: A report released by the National Audit Office (NAO) and submitted in December to the State Council, China’s cabinet, cited [Harbin land resource] officials for illegally issuing fake […]
If you don’t have a multimillion bank account but still want to afford a villa near some major Chinese city, you still have a shot in Chongqing. Read about a real estate rush into nearby rural neighborhoods, translated by CDT from the Beijing News: Wei Erxu (韦尔旭), a tangerine and fish farmer at Jiulongpo District […]
From Caijing.com.cn: Property developers in China face tougher regulations aimed at strengthening control over industrial land and payment procedures for buying land-use rights. The State Land Resources Ministry released the updated rules October 9. According to the new regulations, a property developer may not obtain a land-use certificate before clearing all payments for the targeted […]
From China Daily: Illegal land acquisition is posing a grave threat to the country’s diminishing arable land, a senior land official warned Monday. Improper land use also hurts farmers’ interests and threatens social stability, Gan Zangchun, deputy State land inspector-general of the Ministry of Land and Resources, said. “Violations of land laws and regulations have […]
From Financial Times: When China’s new property law was announced this spring, it was the ideological and political implications that drew the most commentary, both domestically and abroad. The implications on the ground for China’s multi-billion-dollar property industry were largely overlooked. Undeniably, China’s property market has been in need of a clear legal framework since […]
From Yahoo.com: Eighty percent of illegal land use in China is due to corrupt local officials flouting regulations, state media said on Friday. China’s land ministry offered that figure in a plea to local governments to rein in rampant illegal development, saying it was contributing to a dwindling of the nation’s arable land, the China […]
From China Daily: Erosion could wipe away more than 61,600 square kilometers of land by 2010 as China gears up economic development, said Vice Water Resources Minister E Jingping on Friday. The figure represents an increase of 11.5 percent from the amount lost from 2001 to 2005, he added. E said the situation had deteriorated […]
From Asia Pulse, via Asia Times: Experts have warned that China’s arable land might drop below the “red line” of 120 million hectares in six years’ time because of rampant illegal use. The Ministry of Land and Resources recently announced the land-use plan for this year, saying the area of cultivated land to be used […]
From xinhua via People’s Daily Online: China urgently needs a new rural land ownership mechanism to guarantee farmers’ legal rights and security, according to a UN-China project inked in Beijing on Dec. 20. Jointly launched by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Chinese government, the four-year project aims to revitalize rural China by […]
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