China: On privatization of rural land · Global Voices
Andrea Fenn

For those not quite interested in fireworks and dumplings, the Spring Festival mainly becomes a yearly pretext for reflecting upon the condition of Chinese peasants and the state of China’s countryside.
During the week of hearty celebrations for the new year, millions of temporary workers return from the cities where they are employed in manual, low-level occupations to their hometown in the countryside, where their family still lives and owns usage rights over a piece of land. Chinese migrants keep their family in the country for two main reasons: the first is that, under the current land use regulations, each rural household has the right to use a portion of the collective land of a village, and this right can be withdrawn if the land is left idle, or if no one is actually occupying the grounds. Having a member of the family still residing in the countryside, thus, becomes a feeble guarantee of not being deprived of the the land. The other reason, of course, is that migrants in cities do not have access to the basic social services –education, primary health- they could enjoy in their home village, so they prefer keeping parents and children in the country even though cultivating the land is often not a profitable activity for many Chinese farmers. And yet, all this is about to undergo profound transformations.
On October 12, the Plenary Assembly of the CCP approved the “Resolutions concerning the many important problems in the development of reform in the countryside”, a law draft aiming at boosting development of the rural areas in the country. Among the bold targets listed in the draft, the text pledges the duplication of the current average income of peasants by 2020, together with a generalized improvement of the living standards, consumption power, and cultural level of rural population in the countryside. For those used to look through the boasting and overly ceremonious texts of Chinese laws, there seems to be nothing to be excited about. And yet, disguised among the 20 and more pages of vacuous legalisms, a line has given the jitters to many Chinese, farmers and not: the Government plans to promote new forms of management of the rural land, which include transfer, sale, sublet, and shareholding.
In sum, a cryptic sentence seems to finally give the green light to privatization of land. As a matter of fact, rural privatization is already widely practiced by local governments, which confiscate land from farmers, and then sell it to private investors at high prices. Nonetheless, in case the draft were to be transformed into effective law, trading and privatization of land would be given a steep and unprecedented acceleration. Comprehensibly, this perspective has generated fervent debates among the Chinese Internet community, and since October forums and weblogs have been invaded by discussions and judgments about rural privatization. What is ultimately the prevalent opinion of webnauts towards land reform?
On one hand, many web users recognize the positive intentions behind the law framework and, at least on the paper, support privatization of rural land. In the forum of www.sohu.com, an anonymous reader so reassumes the position of supporters:
你们看懂了国家政策没:_国家这个决定是必须下的。土地向少数人手中集中便于生产规模化，学过经济的都知道只有规模到达一定大的时候才会产生效益，同时农民是转让土地不是无偿的交出土地，失去土地的农民可以去乡镇企业打工，可以离开土地但不离开家乡。中国有九亿农民是游离在市场经济以外的。国家让他们失去土地就是想把他们拉进市场经济体系里面来
On the same lines, China’s Future General adds from his blog:
还有个情况可能知道的人不多，那就是现在农村里的很多地是荒废着的。因为青壮年基本上都进城打工了，老人家没力气种地，更何况种了也是亏，于是地就荒在那儿了，老人家身体还好的，也就随便点上些小菜，自给自足而已。那租给别人种行不？可以，但是本来种自家的地就不赚钱了，谁还愿意花钱租人家的地来种呢？除非碰上有农业资本家下乡来了，租上你家的地用一用，但那种情况并不多。
那么农民们在一起搞合作经营集体经营行不行？还是不行。这固然比现在的单干好得多，但赚来的钱仍然是“僧多粥少”。比方说，外国十个人经营一百公顷的土地，赚了钱十个人分；中国一百个人经营一百公顷的土地，赚了钱一百个人分。就算中国和外国的这一百亩地赚到的钱是一样多的，但中国是一百个人分，那就太少了。所以“僧多粥少”的原因不是“粥少”，而是“僧多”，中国仍然需要把从事农业的人口数量降下来。
Despite being generally in favor, many Internet users do not hide perplexities about the envisaged privatization plan. In a popular sohu.com forum, some users suggest:
中央的政策是好,就是从省,市,区,镇一级级传下来的执行力度比政策的优惠力度更待加强啊（广州）
问题在于如何保证农民自愿出让土地使用权，如何确保农民得到合理补偿，否则，就是新的土地兼并的开始。工业原始资本积累已经实现，现在开始农业了！！！
国家的政策每次都很好，数据都很漂亮，可是这些数据里面的水分太多。全国经济普查、粮食普查、土地普查甚至人口普查都是假的，浪费了纳税人的钱却什么也没有得到，只是一些假的东西，这岂不是太可悲了！
In spite of these voices of approval, it seems that the majority of Chinese web users still keeps a very skeptical look towards the perspective of abolishing the collective ownership of rural land, and so losing the last bastion of socialism in a country torn between a hasty transition to the market economy, and resisting elements of a fading past. On the pages of Baidu Answers, hgf168 so answers to the question “why can't Chinese land be privatized”:
因为这是社会主义国家最后一个标志。其它东西都可以私有化，唯有土地不能私有化，否则就是实行资本主义制度。
In the past years, Chinese websites have conducted surveys to sound off the opinion of peasants towards land privatization; the results have always been of strong opposition to reforming the current system. In regard, Chinese web users seem to have the same unconvinced attitude: in fact, roaming forums and blogs, the voices that oppose the plan largely outnumber those favorable to privatization.
Among the skeptical voices that have risen against rural reform, the one of Li Changping’s emerges. Mr. Li, a renowned rural governmental officer who keeps a much-frequented blog about rural issues, wrote a famous article right at the time of the Plenary Assembly, in which he urges China not to follow the example of the Philippines, which abruptly privatized their land causing great social turmoil and the impoverishment of the population:
笔者认为中国错误的农业和农村现代化政策已经产生了严重的后果。
首先，第一个后果是：小农依赖农民工工资维持小农家庭经营，如果长期这样下去，农民工在城市安居乐业就不可能，减少农民也不可能，城市化就会彻底失败；如果没有农民工工资维持小农家庭经营，小农就会大面积破产，“五个转变 。
第二个后果：中国农村经济占GDP总量的12%弱，其中种植业和养殖业大约占5%左右，只有这5%是农民的，其余都被非农民占有了。5%的GDP，要养活60%多的人口，是不可能的。两极分化是必然的，全面小康是不可能的。
后果之三：中国农民正在失去国内和国外“两个市场”，国内的土地密集型农产品市场正在逐步被跨国农业集团占领；国外的劳动密集型农产品市场正在被进入中国的日韩等“高科技农业园”抢占 。
毫无疑问，中国应该学习的是日韩和我国台湾农业和农村现代化模式，而应该避免走菲律宾失败的老路。
On the pages of his blog Wen Tiejun, a prominent journalist and economist, uses even sharper tones to attack the idea of land privatization:
近年来理论界很关注“三农”问题，但不少学者却继续以西方的理论逻辑来套用于国情不同的本土问题。[。。。] 但把这种理论逻辑直接套用在发展中国家的“三农”问题上，则显然缺乏经验依据。反而是几乎所有人口过亿的大型发展中国家，在继承或采行西方制度之后，普遍受制于耕者无其田和城市贫民窟化，并由此造成社会动乱。[。。。] 　　事实上，西方发达国家得以顺利实现（请注意这里突出的是“顺利”）工业化、城市化和农业规模化、产业化的前提，本质是殖民主义和帝国主义。离开西方中心主义派生的这两个主流，西方模式的现代化就无从谈起。
The positions of these two analysts have received warm praise by Chinese web users, especially as they stir the nationalist feelings that are strongly diffused in the young population. An anonymous mobile phone user posted an inflamed comment on the sohu.com forum platform:
想快富就卖地，出生的人还能分到地吗？到时把地都卖给外国人，那不就成了汉奸，我要搬家到城里，把地一卖出，一大片的好地就在中间有一个大楼盘在开发。在官商勾结一下，我们下辈子吃什么？做在办公室白吃，怎知粒粒都辛苦。
Besides, a large part of the web community is concerned with the conditions of peasants, and with the consequences that land privatization could have on the life of poor farmers. Here is a comment posted by a farmer about the privatization plan on sohu.com:
我是一个农民,为了生计。我只能出卖土地了。卖了好大一 笔钱,生活过得还不锖。二十年后,土地钱吃完了,穷的叮叮响,于是到土地家做长工,十年后还是一样,更穷了,为了生存权,于是只能揭杆起义了
From his blog, Yu Ran describes his investigation in the countryside and a conversation with some peasants:
到过的几个省份都有这么一些农民弃房舍、弃承包地，携子拖女的举家外出打工了，可当如今工作无着时再回到农村，他们发现自己已经失去了最最基本的生存保障——土地了（尽管有后来颁布的土地承包法，可是这些失地、失业农民大多都是在二次稳定土地承包权之前就放弃了承包，尽管他们放弃了承包土地，可他们的身份依然是农民，土地依然是他们的一切社会保障和生存最后防线）
如今失地又失业的农民工现象已经不容忽视，目前多数还是一种隐性状态，还没有完全被人们所知晓所重视，一旦这些失业又失地的农民长期处在无业可就、无地可种、没有任何社会保障的境况下，他们将面临着严峻的生存危机，而不是收入高低的问题、城乡收入差距问题了。有些专家、学者还站在那里大谈“刺激农村消费，拉动内需……”之类的话，殊不知农村、农民连一个最为基本的社会保障体系还都没有时，你一味的只想着让农民怎么去花钱，刺激一时的经济增长，不知这样短视的经济增长方式对整个和谐社会的发展是利还是害？
In sum, for most Chinese web users a reform of rural land only risks to give way to an even more ferocious impoverishment of the countryside and of its farmers. In order to obtain the favors of an increasingly conscious Internet public opinion, the government will have to give convincing explaination on how to fight land expropriation, and on how to improve the conditions of farmers and migrant workers. Although inhabitants of a virtual world, Chinese bloggers seem to have a clear idea of the tangible needs of the rural population.