Abstract
The Leninist governance model in China gives CCP officials huge discretionary powers. Liberal market reforms are promoted to enhance economic growth and the legitimacy of the ruling regime while retaining the façade of a socialist state. This model hinders the development of a legal system that is at arms length from the political apparatus. I argue that China has largely abandoned its welfare-state principles to promote capital accumulation. This program of economic development has had a devastating impact on the environment, human rights, and the legal system. This essay examines the problem from the perspective of land rights with particular emphasis on reforms carried out in Chongqing. Land reform programs attempt to reconcile socialist values with market efficiency but with mixed impact both in terms of efficiency and social welfare. They have boosted economic growth but have also exacerbated inequality and the gap between rural and urban living standards. The disparity between urban and rural land rights has taken on added urgency in China in recent years, but until the state openly acknowledges “market Leninism,” economic reform in China will remain an instrument of, and for, the state and its Party officials.
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Notes
- 1.
China’s economic growth story in the first few years of the twenty first century has been the stuff of legend. In 2005–2007, China registered year-over-year GDP growth between 11 and 14 %. With the stunning rise in GDP growth, however, have come drastic increases in CO2 emissions, for example. Source: World Bank.
- 2.
These are contained in Articles 6–10 of the Constitution. Article 10 explains terms of land ownership in the cities versus rural and suburban areas.
- 3.
The official language that is used is “socialist market economy” but in recent years there has been greater emphasis on the “decisive role of the market in allocating resources.” This language is contained in the communiqué of the Third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress, a copy of which is available at: http://www.china.org.cn/china/third_plenary_session/2014-01/15/content_31203056.html.
- 4.
Lin Chun discusses the socialist project of the CCP to eradicate poverty and achieve equality in China. She argues these ideals have been side-tracked by the pursuit of capital (Lin 2013, Chaps. 4 and 6).
- 5.
The plenum spelled out a program of “socialist modernization” known as the ‘Four Modernizations.’ The requirements for the ‘Four Modernizations’ were based on “diverse changes in those aspects of the relations of production and the superstructure not in harmony with the growth of the productive forces…” [in Spence (2013, p. 590), citing “Quarterly Documentation,” China Quarterly 77 (March 1979): 168].
- 6.
I use land rights as a starting point. Land is a key form of security in China. The split over urban and rural rights and the pursuit of capital has wreaked havoc over the land in China as developers try to exact more and more surplus value from rural land. For more on the capitalist exploitation of land, see Lin (2013, Chap. 6).
- 7.
Lin Chun explores the relationship between land and wage labor. On the one hand, land is the source of security for many migrant workers. On the other hand, these same migrant workers are paid low wages for their labor. In this essay, I explain how rural land is systematically undervalued by China’s increasingly capitalist economy. In other words, there is more surplus value being squeezed from the value of land. Lin writes that “land right[s] account [sic] for a large share of the cost of labor reproduction in China and ultimately explain[s] the country’s ‘competitive advantage’ in the global labor market” (Lin 2013, p. 119).
- 8.
Li Ping of the Rural Development Institute says the compensation paid to residents for the expropriation of their land is several times less than the actual value of that land. This problem is particularly acute in suburban areas where farmland is especially valuable to developers (James 2007, pp. 482–483, including footnote 117).
- 9.
The public interest refrain is prominent in the constitution and in the PRL. While these documents set terms of property ownership, in both there is reference to the state’s right to reclaim land when there is a public interest to do so. Neither document spells out what constitutes a public interest.
- 10.
Article 13 in the 2004 amendment to the constitution stipulates that “[c]itizens’ lawful private property is inviolable.” However, Article 12 states that “[s]ocialist public property is inviolable.” So the key question here is around the definition of the term “lawful.” The PRL uses similar language to set limits on private property. For instance, Articles 56 and 63 limit private ownership of state and collective land, respectively, while Article 184 limits private mortgaging of collective land.
- 11.
The new law seemingly affords equal legal protection to “state-owned, group-owned and private-owned property” (James 2007, p. 473, PRL Article 4).
- 12.
Chen compares the Chinese concept of a property right, or wuquan, to the German Sachen and Sachenrecht, meaning ‘things’ and the ‘the law of things’ (or property), respectively (Chen 2011, pp. 8–9).
- 13.
Naturally, there are many references to the CCP’s views on bourgeois private property. Spence estimates that shortly after 1949, about 40 % of landlord holdings in central south China were seized and redistributed to the peasant class (p. 462). For more on bourgeois private property, see Zhang (2008, p. 7), Chen (2011, p. 10).
- 14.
The link between the privatization of agricultural production in rural China and soaring grain production is hardly a matter of debate, though Chris Bramall has compiled compelling evidence to downplay the role that HRS played in economic growth. He argues industrialization actually began prior to the dismantling of the collectives (Bramall 2006).
- 15.
Communiqué of the Third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress. (or: See Supra Note 3).
- 16.
Problems defining a ‘public interest’ are not unique to China. In the US, lawmakers grappled with this definition in the 1940s while drafting federal rules pertaining to radio broadcasting (see Pickard 2015).
- 17.
Communiqué of the Third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress. (or: See Supra Note 3).
- 18.
Much of the information in this section was gleaned from meetings and interviews in Chongqing, including with municipal government officials at the urban-rural integration office (I discuss the goals of this office further on in this essay), and with students at the Institute of Urban and Rural Coordinated Development at Chongqing University. Some interviews were also carried out in the countryside.
- 19.
Land transfers were discussed in a special report on China (“Rising Power, Anxious State”) in the June 25 – July 1, 2011 edition of The Economist. A link to the article is here: http://www.economist.com/node/18832092.
- 20.
For an analysis of community-based welfare organizations and their role within China’s social welfare system, please refer to Leslie Shieh’s chapter in this volume.
- 21.
For an empirical look at the role of “corporatism” within China’s legislative bodies, please refer to Jing Qian’s chapter in this volume.
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Razavi, K. (2016). A Chinese Approach to Land Rights: How Bo’s Chongqing Model Exposed an Economic Reform Program in Crisis. In: Cao, H., Paltiel, J. (eds) Facing China as a New Global Superpower. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-823-6_4
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