Abstract
This chapter attempts to better understand UCL development in Beijing by scrutinizing the interests, power, and actions of local governments and the peasantry as suppliers of urban land and examining their interactions under region-specific market circumstances. Beijing’s UCL development is comparatively moderate in growth and well-performed in utilization efficiency, which can be explained to a great extent by the dominance of the formal sphere. The course of formal land development through expropriation is predominated by the local state with strong powers derived from the abundance of local budget, the political pressure from the central state, the effective use of land reservation system, and the active tradition of land management. However, the behavior of the Beijing government is also constrained simultaneously by the central state and peasantry. The peasantry also plays an active role in Beijing’s UCL development through informal approaches as a response to the severe imbalance between increasing market demand for urban spaces and restricted formal UCL supply quotas distributed by the central state. However, the pervasive distrust between individual peasants and rural cadres has profoundly undermined the power of peasantry as a whole. Thus, informal land development in Beijing under the weak power of the peasantry and constant regulation of the government is also moderate in magnitude and has not significantly pared down the relatively high level of land use efficiency. The case study of UCL development in Beijing have verified the hypotheses raised in the chapter on methodology and is conducive to the interpretation of a variety of inconsistences commonly occurring in empirical studies on China’s UCL development. In particular, many seemingly contradicting results in the existing literature could be understood by distinguishing UCLs located in the urban fringes and suburban areas, those developed by formal and informal approaches, and those used for industries and residents.
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Notes
- 1.
“Stand-alone sites” in land classification systems before the second national land survey conducted in 2009 include EDZs in and around cities, towns, and villages.
- 2.
For example, leapfrog growth was reported to contribute to more than half of the total growth of urban built-up area in Hangzhou (Yue et al. 2013). This proportion was even higher for Guangzhou and Dongguan (Schneider and Woodcock 2008).
- 3.
This figure is an underestimation of formal land development. Land transactions in Beijing involving the central government or the military may not have been reported online or included in the total area of land supply in the statistical yearbook (Interview notes, 5 July 2014). For this reason, the real amount of formal land development may be larger than the estimation in this study. This underestimation was supported by evidence from land approval and land expropriation data. Based on the yearly average in the comparable data from 2006 to 2012, 3,054 ha of the total 4,554 ha of UCL growth were estimated by this study to have been developed formally. However, the annual average amounts of expropriated land and approved construction land were 4,195 and 5,153 ha, respectively, in which approximately 2,750 ha were converted from agricultural land (MLRC 2007a, 2008a, 2009b, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013). The discrepancy includes unused land, rural construction land, and urban construction land in or near city centers and new towns. These facts increasingly prove the large contribution of formal land development conducted by local governments to UCL growth in Beijing. Furthermore, an official in BMBLR mentioned during the interview that the bureau had roughly estimated the amount of urban land development and approximately 2,500 ha were supplied by the government, whereas roughly 1,100 ha were developed by peasants and collectives near city and town centers in recent years. This finding is consistent with the above conclusion that formal land development contributes nearly 70% to urban expansion in Beijing (Interview notes, October 10, 2014).
- 4.
This measurement is obviously an underestimation of informally developed urban construction land for three reasons. First, rural residential land inhabited by local peasants is also an important component of informally developed urban construction land because the so-called peasants are also statistically and factually urban residents who are performing non-agricultural work and living a city life. Second, the per capita standard of construction land area is considerably higher than the real living demand of local residents, and a large proportion of houses built on this land is rented by members of the floating population working in the city. Third, many local residents hold non-agricultural hukou without the right to receive house sites from collectives. The last discrepancy is more significant for townships near the central city where the number of local residents with non-agricultural hukou is significantly higher than that in suburban and remote areas.
- 5.
Per capita GDP was calculated based on the total population, including both those with local hukou and floating population.
- 6.
The natural growth rate of population in Beijing was roughly 0.45 to 0.5% over this decade (BMBS 2014), which signifies that the natural growth of hukou population was approximately 0.5 million or half of the hukou population growth.
- 7.
The large and dark patch in north Beijing shown in Fig. 10.32.
- 8.
The construction of affordable housing was initially placed on the agenda by the State Council in Several Advices on Solving the Difficulty of Urban Poor Families in Housing (guanyu jiejue chengshi dishouru jiating zhufang kunnan de ruogan yijian) in 2007. The State Council through its General Office reiterated the necessity and urgency of affordable housing provision three years later in the Circular on Promoting the Stable and Healthy Development of the Real Estate Market (guanyu cujin fangdichan shichang pingwen jiankang fazhan de tongzhi). This housing provision was detailed by the Ministry of Land and Resources in the Circular on Several Issues Related to the Enhancement of the Supply and Supervision of Land Used for Real Estates (guanyu jiaqiang fangdichan yongdi gongying he jianguan youguan wenti de tongzhi). One year later in 2011, the State Council issued the Circular on Further Improving the Work of Real Estate Market Regulation (guanyu jinyibu zuohao fangdichan shichang tiaokong gongzuo youguan wenti de tongzhi) to further boost the construction of affordable housing in Chinese cities.
- 9.
Beijing Municipal Land Consolidation Reserves Center (BMLCRC) was established on 28 April, 2001, which was five years later than Shanghai but one month earlier than the introduction of “Circular on Enhancing the Management of State-owned Land Assets” (guanyu jiaqiang guoyou tudi zichan guanli de tongzhi) which for the first time allow the trail of the land reservation system.
- 10.
Not all types of urban land are being reserved prior to supply. In general, only profit-oriented land, such as residential and commercial land, is developed, with BMLCRC as the intermediary agency. Part of green land is supplied by this agency. However, the development of most land used for transportation, industries, and public services has a rare relation to BMLCRC. In the past years, land supplied by the BMLCRC accounted for 38% of the total land supply. In 2013, the government gained 158 billion yuan from the urban land supplied by BMLCRC, accounting for 88% of the total land revenue (BMBLR 2014c).
- 11.
For example, reserved land in Chaoyang District is sufficient to be supplied in 34.2 years, which is the longest period in all districts and counties, while this period is merely 7 years on average in four remote counties and districts.
- 12.
The government released the “Comment on Works Concerning the Rural-to-urban Transition of 50 Key Villages in the Urban Fringe Area” (guanyu chengxiang jiehebu diqu 50 ge zhongdian cun zhengjianzhi nongzhuanju youguan gongzuo de yijian) in 2011 as a landmark event.
- 13.
According to the report of BMCUP (2015), the total area and number of peasants of these 50 villages are roughly 19,700 ha and 183,000, respectively, indicating that the per capita land area is approximately 1.61 μ. Although the highest standard of cash compensation (180,000 yuan/μ) is used, the estimated per capita cash compensation would be roughly 290,000 yuan only, which is merely 20% of the actual cash compensation given to peasants. Assuming that all of the peasants were paid the 0.55 million yuan for their new apartments, the actual compensation fee would still be more than three times the highest standard.
- 14.
The per capita disposable income of urban residents was 40,321 yuan in Beijing (BMBS 2014). The cash compensation was also calculated based on 1.45 million yuan and 0.90 million yuan.
- 15.
According to “Regulation on Compensations and Resettlement in Land Expropriation for Construction” (Beijing shi jianshe zhengdi buchang anzhi banfa) issued by the municipal government in 2004, the basic compensation standard is equivalent to 60 times the monthly minimum income of the city. This rate will be adjusted according to the age of peasants.
- 16.
In a case village with approximately 400 households, the expropriated area involved farmlands of 50 households. However, the total area accounted to 28 “full” peasants because not all the lands of the 50 households were expropriated. The social security quotas was 28, and the corresponding number of jobs was 20. The distribution of these quotas turned out to be the major source of conflicts among households and the origin of peasants’ complaint about village cadres and the government (Interview notes, 15 July 2014).
- 17.
Ibid. Article 15.
- 18.
Most village cadres are elected by individual peasants. Ideally, the cadres should represent the interest of peasants. However, the official noted that the regular reelection system made village cadres short-sighted and eager to pursue their personal interest before stepping down.
- 19.
A nationwide survey revealed that more than half of suburban peasants in China are willing their land to be expropriated (Ru and Fu 2011). This proportion also concurs with the results of the 12-city survey.
- 20.
This number may be underestimated to some extent. However, the discrepancy may not be too significant because the reported number was only 64 in another independent research (Wang and Sun 2014).
- 21.
For example, in the project of Beiwu, a village in Haidian District, the municipal and district government jointly invested 800 million yuan to help the land developer balance the financial budget without receiving any returns (BMCUP 2015).
- 22.
According to the national land survey conducted in 2009, industrial land accounted for 19.5% of state-owned construction land in Beijing. This share was 24.1% for collective-owned construction land.
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Liu, T. (2020). Urban Construction Land Development in Beijing. In: China’s Urban Construction Land Development. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0565-2_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0565-2_10
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