Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T03:28:35.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

State-Led Urbanization in China: Skyscrapers, Land Revenue and “Concentrated Villages”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2014

Lynette H. Ong
Lynette H. Ong*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, and Asian Institute, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the rationale behind municipal and local governments' pursuance of urbanization, and the political and socio-economic implications of the policy to move villagers from their farmland into apartment blocks in high-density resettlement areas, or “concentrated villages.” It provides evidence of an increasing reliance by municipal and local governments on land revenues and the financing of urban infrastructure by the governments' land-leasing income. Following their relocation to apartment blocks, villagers complain that their incomes fall but their expenditures rise. Moreover, although they cede rights to the use of their farmland to the government, they are not given access to the state-provided social welfare to which urban residents are entitled. The paltry compensation which they receive for their land is insufficient to sustain them. Displaced or landless peasants are emerging as a distinctly disadvantaged societal group, deprived of the long-term security of either farmland or social welfare. The question of whether or not rural land rights should be freely traded is not as crucial to the future livelihoods of landless peasants as allowing them access to the full range of social welfare afforded to urban residents.

Keywords

Chinaurbanizationinfrastructurelocal government debtlandconcentrated villagespeasant resettlement
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 217 , March 2014 , pp. 162 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anhui Statistics Bureau. 2011. Anhui Statistical Yearbook. Beijing: China Statistics Press.Google Scholar
Batson, Andrew, and Zhang, Janet. 2011. “The magic mountain: China's public debt.” GaveKal Dragonomics research note, 20 April.Google Scholar
Bird, Richard. 2005. “Getting it right: financing urbanization in China.” Asia-Pacific Tax Bulletin March/April, 107–117.Google Scholar
Cai, Yongshun. 2010. Collective Resistance in China: Why Popular Protests Succeed or Fail. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Chang, Hongxiao. 2006. “Jiangsu nongmin jizhong juzhu deshi” (On “concentrated villages” for peasants in Jiangsu), 1 December, http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2006-12-01/201911676290.shtml. Accessed 5 April 2011.Google Scholar
Chen, Wu. 2009. “China's stimulus package: a six-month report card,” Economist Intelligence Unit, http://ftp01.economist.com.hk/090723/Stimulus_new_main_July20.pdf. Accessed 13 January 2014.Google Scholar
Chovanec, Patrick. 2012. “China data, part 2: slowing growth,” 16 January, http://chovanec.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/china-data-part-2-slowing-growth-2. Accessed 1 April 2012.Google Scholar
Han, Jun. 2009. Zhongguo nongcun tudi wenti diaocha (An Investigation of Rural Land Issues in China). Shanghai: Shanghai yuandong chubanshe.Google Scholar
He, X. 2010. The Logic of Land Property Rights: Where Should China's Rural Land System Go? Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press.Google Scholar
Henderson, J. Vernon. 2009. “Urbanization in China: policy issues and options.” In Lim, Edwin, Spence, M. and Yu, J. (eds.), Medium and Long Term Development and Transformation of the Chinese Economy. Beijing: CITIC Press.Google Scholar
Hsing, You-tien. 2010. The Great Urban Transformation: Politics of Land and Property in China. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jiang, Shengsan, Liu, Shouying and Li, Qing. 2010. Zhongguo tudi zhidu gaige (Land Reform in China). Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian shudian.Google Scholar
Johnston, R. A., and Madison, M. E.. 1997. “From landmarks to landscapes – a review of current practices in the transfer of development rights.” Journal of the American Planning Association 63(3), 365–378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Ching Kwan. 2007. Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lin, George C. S. 2007. “Reproducing spaces of Chinese urbanisation: new city-based and land-centred urban transformation.” Urban Studies 44(9), 1827–55.Google Scholar
Lin, George C. S. 2009. Developing China: Land, Politics, and Social Conditions. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development. 2004; 2006–2010. China Urban Construction Statistical Yearbook. Beijing: Zhongguo jihua chubanshe.Google Scholar
Ong, Lynette H. 2012. Prosper or Perish: The Political Economy of Credit and Fiscal Systems in Rural China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Prosterman, Roy, and Zhu, Keliang. 2012. “Preliminary findings from the 2011 17-province survey on farmers' land rights,” http://www.landesa.org/china-survey-6/.Google Scholar
Qin, Hui. 2007. “Tudi yu baozhang yiji tudi huan baozhang” (Land and social security compared with land for social security), 25 November, http://finance.sina.com.cn/review/20071125/13504214183.shtml. Accessed 3 March 2012.Google Scholar
Shih, Victor. 2010. “Local government debt: big rock-candy mountain.” China Economic Quarterly 14(2), 26–32.Google Scholar
Sun, Xiaozhong, and Yang, Fengling. 2010. “Gaochunxian nongmin jizhong juzhu cunzai de wenti yu duice anli fenxi” (Problems and analysis of cases of concentrated villages in Gaochun county). Xiandai nongye keji 15, 398–99.Google Scholar
Unger, Jonathan, and Chung, Him. 2012. “Guangdong: collective land ownership and the making of a new middle class,” 18 May, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2012/05/18/guangdong-collective-land-ownership-and-the-making-of-a-new-middle-class/. Accessed 18 May 2012.Google Scholar
Wang, Hui, Wang, Lanlan, Su, Fubing and Tao, Ran. 2012. “Rural residential properties in China: land use patterns, efficiency and prospects for reform.” Habitat International 36, 201–09.Google Scholar
Wen, T. 2009. “Why should China not privatize land?” Hongqi wengao No. 2.Google Scholar
Wong, Christine. 2012. “Paying for urbanization in China: challenges of municipal finance in the 21st century.” In Bahl, R., Linn, J. and Wetzel, D. (eds.), Metropolitan Government Finances in Developing Countries. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 273–308.Google Scholar
Wu, Weiping. 2011. “Fiscal decentralization, infrastructure financing and regional disparity.” In Man, Joyce and Hong, Yu-Hung (eds.), China's Local Public Finance in Transition. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 45–56.Google Scholar
Yew, Chiew Ping. 2011. “Explaining land use change in a Guangdong county: the supply side of the story.” The China Quarterly 207, 626–648.Google Scholar
Yew, Chiew Ping. 2012. “Pseudo-urbanization? Competitive government behavior and urban sprawl in China.” Journal of Contemporary China 21(74), 281–298.Google Scholar
Yu, Jianrong. 2005. “Tudi wenti yu chengwei nongmin weiquan kangzheng de jiaodian” (Land disputes: the focus of rights-defending activities of peasants). Diaoyan shijie 3, 22–23.Google Scholar
Zheng, Fengtian, and Fu, Jinhua. 2007. “Nongmin jizhong juzhu: xianzhuang, wenti yu duice” (Concentrated villages for peasants: status quo, problems and countermeasures). Nongye jijin wenti 9, 4–7, 110.Google Scholar