A New Chinese Land Reform?

Extract

On 3 April 2013, the People's Daily published a commentary on the violent death of two protesting farmers in Henan, crushed in two separate incidents by vehicles used to clear their land for development. ‘Besides the open questions about the administrative violations,’ wrote the author, ‘there remain other things to be asked: has the expropriation followed the appropriate procedures? Is it legal to build a hotel or any permanent structure on basic agricultural land? And if there are problems, who is going to evaluate them, who is taking responsibility?’ For people to feel that they have obtained justice, the article argued, ‘the greatest efforts should be made to protect the life of every citizen’. These episodes were followed just a few days later by a major incident in which 300 employees of Bureau No.13 of the Ministry of Railways attacked farmers who were picketing land earmarked for expropriation.