Chinas Farmers Without Farms May Threaten Regime
Chinese farmer Yang Youde fires his homemade cannon near his farmland on the outskirts of Wuhan, in central China's Hubei province, to defend his fields against land seizure. (AFP/Getty Images) One can only wonder how many places like Yueqing there are in China, and how many people will still suffer what Qian Yunhui suffered. [Editors note: Qian, a village chief in Yueqing, Zhejiang province, was crushed to death after fighting against forced demolitions. His death was made to look like an accident, but eyewitnesses say they saw men pinning him in place as the giant truck bore down.]
After studying the past ten years of social unrest in China, a strong correlation between the extent of the unrest and Chinas economic growth model can be seen. Since the end of the 1990s, the four big wealth spots on Chinas treasure map are real estate, mining, stock markets, and finance. Local governments fiscal revenue is highly dependent on land transfer fees, property related taxes, and levies (for resource rich provinces, another is mining rights).
After studying the past ten years of social unrest in China, a strong correlation between the extent of the unrest and Chinas economic growth model can be seen. Since the end of the 1990s, the four big wealth spots on Chinas treasure map are real estate, mining, stock markets, and finance. Local governments fiscal revenue is highly dependent on land transfer fees, property related taxes, and levies (for resource rich provinces, another is mining rights).
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Actually, there is hardly any idle land in China, since all farmland and nearly all residential lands in the cities have been sold. Therefore, Chinas rights protection activities, such as farmers resistance to land acquisition at unfair prices, residents resistance to forced demolition and the environmental protection movement, are all related to Chinas economic growth model, and all related to the issue of the collective ownership of the land.
In other words, the regimes method of exploiting resources decides Chinas policies, and those policies constitute Chinas economic growth model. Social unres! t is rif e.
Previously, various excuses were used to expropriate farmland. In 2008, the Minister of Land Resources announced Measures for the Administration Linking the Increase in Land Used in Urban Construction with the Decrease in Land Use for Rural Construction. Since the policy directly links urban land use with rural land, it initiated a new round of nationwide land expropriation. Currently, over 20 Chinese provinces and cities are pushing a massive campaign to relocate farmers to high rises, whose nickname is dismantle the villages movement.
However, moving farmers to high rises only solves their residential problems, but it does not provide them with an income or help them survive. In the past 300 years, China has been troubled by a dense population on limited land, and because there are only a limited number of jobs in the cities, the farmers have no land to farm, no job to work, and nowhere to go, which is called having three nos in China. People like this are now found everywhere.
According to information collected in the past several years, a conservative estimate is that there are over 120 million landless peasants in China.
However, the Chinese people have already become numb to the problem of landless farmers. Since the mid-1990s, the conflict triggered by forced land acquisition has become the main theme of the struggle between the regime and Chinese people, sparking over 100,000 mass incidents every year in China.
If Qian had not died in such a strange way and triggered media attention, the six-year long Leqing land expropriation would be a tiny case attracting barely any public attention. In the four months before Qians death, no one commented on Qians article about Yueqing land expropriation, though it was posted on the well-known BBS Tianya.
The answer is like a coin; on one side of the coin, there is! a solut ion, and it is in the hands of the Chinese regime. The problem will be solved if the regime stops expropriating land resources in the countryside, and lets the farmers govern themselves based on privatization of the land.
Unfortunately, the other side of the coin has no solution, because the regime will not cut its own financial stream. The Development Research Center of Chinas state council has done a survey which shows how, after the land has been acquired, the profit from its appreciation is roughly distributed in the following pattern: to the municipal government, 20-30 percent; to the developer, 40-50 percent, to the village government, 25-30 percent, and the farmers who lost the land receive only 5 to 10 percent.
In the past 10 years, land transfer fees have become a larger and larger part of the revenue for local officials. Statistics show that these fees reached over 910 billion yuan (approximately $137.99 billion) during 2001 to 2003, accounting for 35 percent of the local revenue, and more than 1.5 trillion yuan (approximately US$227.46 billion) in 2009, about 46 percent of the local revenue.
In some places, this accounts for over 50 percent of the local revenue, and in others, it is more than 80 percent. The total amount of all land transactions in 2010 was 2.7 trillion yuan (approximately $409.43 billion), increasing 70.4 percent compared to 2009. The land transfer fees in Beijing, for example, totaled 235.39 billion yuan (approximately $35.695 billion), nearly 70 percent of its total revenue in 2010, and the figure for Shanghai was 287.36 billion yuan (approximately $43.575 billion), 53 percent of its total revenue.
The important position of land finance in Chinas economy can only indicate that Chinas economic growth in the past 30 years is not due to technical progress, but largely depends on the plunder and misuse of land resources. Such an economic model is solid evidence that Chinas economic growth is unsustainable.
The ownership of the land in rural ar! eas is a n issue that Chinas law hasnt resolved. Although the current law stipulates that the rural land belongs collectively to the farmers from counties, towns, and villages, it does not define the element that constitutes the concept of farmers collectively as a group, nor how to use this concept. In all of the Chinese government documents and various research papers (including the reports of the media), collective farmers is not an organization in legal terms, but an abstract without any legal standing.
Such a concept cannot practically represent land property rights. Even the relationship between collective farmers and individual farmers is not clearly defined. As a result, the rural collective land ownership has in fact been replaced with rights of use. The vacuity of the term collective farmers in the law makes the state the real owner of the land.
It provides the government a convenient channel in the system to control farmers lands. It is like putting a giant straw into the land to continue extracting resources. In addition to contributing to local finance, it can also feed a large number of people who live by managing land. That is the reason why the Chinese regime insists on not giving ownership of the land to farmers.
Chinese farmers cannot survive without land, but China's economic development depends on these limited land resources. This is the root of the conflict. The central government faces a serious choice: Who is to survive, the local government or the farmers? Asking the local government to stop looting farmers land is to decrease the local regimes financial resources and cut their economic lifeline. It is the same as the central government taking a knife with its right arm to cut off its left arm.
However, if the central regime keeps quiet about the local governments looting farmers land, the result will be further resistance by farmers who have no land to plant, no job to do, and nowhere to go. It will ultimately endanger the rule of the CCPa slow death after! years o f struggle.
He Qinglian is a prominent Chinese author and economist. Currently based in the U.S., she authored 'China's Pitfalls,' which concerns corruption in Chinas economic reform of the 1990s, and'The Fog of Censorship: Media Control in China,' which addresses the manipulation and restriction of the press. She regularly writes on contemporary Chinese social and economic issues.
chinareports@epochtimes.com
Read the original Chinese article
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Actually, there is hardly any idle land in China, since all farmland and nearly all residential lands in the cities have been sold. Therefore, Chinas rights protection activities, such as farmers resistance to land acquisition at unfair prices, residents resistance to forced demolition and the environmental protection movement, are all related to Chinas economic growth model, and all related to the issue of the collective ownership of the land.
In other words, the regimes method of exploiting resources decides Chinas policies, and those policies constitute Chinas economic growth model. Social unres! t is rif e.
Previously, various excuses were used to expropriate farmland. In 2008, the Minister of Land Resources announced Measures for the Administration Linking the Increase in Land Used in Urban Construction with the Decrease in Land Use for Rural Construction. Since the policy directly links urban land use with rural land, it initiated a new round of nationwide land expropriation. Currently, over 20 Chinese provinces and cities are pushing a massive campaign to relocate farmers to high rises, whose nickname is dismantle the villages movement.
However, moving farmers to high rises only solves their residential problems, but it does not provide them with an income or help them survive. In the past 300 years, China has been troubled by a dense population on limited land, and because there are only a limited number of jobs in the cities, the farmers have no land to farm, no job to work, and nowhere to go, which is called having three nos in China. People like this are now found everywhere.
According to information collected in the past several years, a conservative estimate is that there are over 120 million landless peasants in China.
However, the Chinese people have already become numb to the problem of landless farmers. Since the mid-1990s, the conflict triggered by forced land acquisition has become the main theme of the struggle between the regime and Chinese people, sparking over 100,000 mass incidents every year in China.
If Qian had not died in such a strange way and triggered media attention, the six-year long Leqing land expropriation would be a tiny case attracting barely any public attention. In the four months before Qians death, no one commented on Qians article about Yueqing land expropriation, though it was posted on the well-known BBS Tianya.
Why the Need for Land?
Is there a solution to the root cause of the tragedy in Leqing, the issue of land expropriation by the government?The answer is like a coin; on one side of the coin, there is! a solut ion, and it is in the hands of the Chinese regime. The problem will be solved if the regime stops expropriating land resources in the countryside, and lets the farmers govern themselves based on privatization of the land.
Unfortunately, the other side of the coin has no solution, because the regime will not cut its own financial stream. The Development Research Center of Chinas state council has done a survey which shows how, after the land has been acquired, the profit from its appreciation is roughly distributed in the following pattern: to the municipal government, 20-30 percent; to the developer, 40-50 percent, to the village government, 25-30 percent, and the farmers who lost the land receive only 5 to 10 percent.
In the past 10 years, land transfer fees have become a larger and larger part of the revenue for local officials. Statistics show that these fees reached over 910 billion yuan (approximately $137.99 billion) during 2001 to 2003, accounting for 35 percent of the local revenue, and more than 1.5 trillion yuan (approximately US$227.46 billion) in 2009, about 46 percent of the local revenue.
In some places, this accounts for over 50 percent of the local revenue, and in others, it is more than 80 percent. The total amount of all land transactions in 2010 was 2.7 trillion yuan (approximately $409.43 billion), increasing 70.4 percent compared to 2009. The land transfer fees in Beijing, for example, totaled 235.39 billion yuan (approximately $35.695 billion), nearly 70 percent of its total revenue in 2010, and the figure for Shanghai was 287.36 billion yuan (approximately $43.575 billion), 53 percent of its total revenue.
The important position of land finance in Chinas economy can only indicate that Chinas economic growth in the past 30 years is not due to technical progress, but largely depends on the plunder and misuse of land resources. Such an economic model is solid evidence that Chinas economic growth is unsustainable.
The ownership of the land in rural ar! eas is a n issue that Chinas law hasnt resolved. Although the current law stipulates that the rural land belongs collectively to the farmers from counties, towns, and villages, it does not define the element that constitutes the concept of farmers collectively as a group, nor how to use this concept. In all of the Chinese government documents and various research papers (including the reports of the media), collective farmers is not an organization in legal terms, but an abstract without any legal standing.
Such a concept cannot practically represent land property rights. Even the relationship between collective farmers and individual farmers is not clearly defined. As a result, the rural collective land ownership has in fact been replaced with rights of use. The vacuity of the term collective farmers in the law makes the state the real owner of the land.
It provides the government a convenient channel in the system to control farmers lands. It is like putting a giant straw into the land to continue extracting resources. In addition to contributing to local finance, it can also feed a large number of people who live by managing land. That is the reason why the Chinese regime insists on not giving ownership of the land to farmers.
Chinese farmers cannot survive without land, but China's economic development depends on these limited land resources. This is the root of the conflict. The central government faces a serious choice: Who is to survive, the local government or the farmers? Asking the local government to stop looting farmers land is to decrease the local regimes financial resources and cut their economic lifeline. It is the same as the central government taking a knife with its right arm to cut off its left arm.
However, if the central regime keeps quiet about the local governments looting farmers land, the result will be further resistance by farmers who have no land to plant, no job to do, and nowhere to go. It will ultimately endanger the rule of the CCPa slow death after! years o f struggle.
He Qinglian is a prominent Chinese author and economist. Currently based in the U.S., she authored 'China's Pitfalls,' which concerns corruption in Chinas economic reform of the 1990s, and'The Fog of Censorship: Media Control in China,' which addresses the manipulation and restriction of the press. She regularly writes on contemporary Chinese social and economic issues.
chinareports@epochtimes.com
Read the original Chinese article
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