The Chinese Communist Party’s “land enclosure” movement has been ongoing for more than a decade, with land acquisition expanding in scale. On March 20th, the Zhejiang Provincial Government’s official website released the “Wenzhou City 2025 Land Acquisition and Development Plan for Comprehensive Development Area (Ouhai District)”, involving 21 development zones with a total area of 250.0595 hectares, nearly one-third of which is rural collective land.
On March 26th, the Anshan City Government in Liaoning Province released the “Anshan City Lishan District 2025 First Batch of Land Acquisition and Comprehensive Development Plan (Seeking Opinions)”, acquiring rural collective land for the construction of 3 industrial projects and 1 commercial project.
In addition to large-scale comprehensive land acquisitions, various levels of government are also increasing small-scale land acquisitions.
On April 22nd, the Huangpi District Government in Wuhan, Hubei Province, issued a land acquisition pre-announcement planning to acquire all collective owned land in Longwang Temple Village.
On April 22nd, the Wenling City Government in Zhejiang issued a land acquisition pre-announcement planning to acquire collective owned land of Wanchang Village Economic Cooperation Society, Hengtang Village Economic Cooperation Society, and Shinan Village Economic Cooperation Society.
On April 22nd, the Haizhu District Government in Guangzhou issued a land acquisition pre-announcement planning to acquire collective owned land of Fengyang Street Fenghe Economic Federation, Fenghe Kangle First to Seventh Economic Cooperation Society, and Fenghe Lujiang Second to Third Economic Cooperation Society.
In the Chinese Communist Party’s “land enclosure” movement, the acquired land includes farmland contracted by farmers and their homesteads. Land acquisition has led to a series of problems, including rapid reduction of agricultural land, farmers losing their homesteads, and difficulties in safeguarding their rights to survival and property.
Professor Wen Guanzhong from the Economics Department of Trinity College in the United States recently analyzed several key issues in the Chinese Communist Party’s “land enclosure” movement in an interview with Epoch Times. He emphasized that the issues related to rural land under collective ownership can never be resolved.
The new “Land Management Law” implemented in 2020 added the method of “comprehensive development construction” for land acquisition, allowing local governments to acquire collectively owned land approved for urban construction within the overall land use plan.
The land acquired by the authorities falls into two categories: farmland for cultivation and homesteads for farmers. Wen Guanzhong emphasized the historical importance of clarifying how farmers lost ownership of their homesteads.
“Fundamentally, the homesteads should belong to the farmers themselves. For centuries, their ancestors had a place to live, and this land originally belonged to them. The current situation where it has inexplicably become collective ownership is absurd, unreasonable, and unjust.”
He explained that even the poorest farmers had their own houses and the land beneath which also belonged to them. However, the so-called revolution carried out by the Communist Party to confiscate land from landlords and wealthy farmers ended up collecting the land of the majority of farmers into collective ownership.
He expressed that the situation is highly disgraceful and deceitful, leading to exploitation.
After farmers lose ownership of their homesteads, they also lose the associated value. Wen Guanzhong stated that farmers cannot freely buy or sell their homesteads after they become collective property, and the transaction can only be made within the collective, resulting in low selling prices.
He noted that agricultural banks or other financial institutions refuse to lend to farmers due to the lack of collateral. Under private land ownership, even the poorest farmers can use their homesteads as collateral to obtain loans from banks.
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