China Land Reformation Impact, Essay Example

Land reform has always played a large role in China’s political milieu.  In pre-modern China, an individual’s land holdings often times determined his political rank; as time progressed, land ownership played a key role  in not only deciding who was able to assume and maintain political power, but also how those in power used land as a bounty to reward political support.  Indeed, one could argue that after the long civil war and revolution in 1949, the importance of land holding and land reform accelerated as Mao Zedong (and the Chinese Communist Party) assumed power.  Indeed, building off the back of the CCP’s base in rural China, Mao Zedong used land reform as a strategic political chip to reward political supporters and punish political opponents.  At the same time, Mao introduced the “hukou” (or registration system) in order to regulate how the state distributed benefits and the mobility of citizens under the new regimes. With Deng Xiaoping’s assumption of power in 1979, massive reforms were introduced that not only furthered nascent land reform efforts and dented the hukou system proposed by Mao Zedong. Overall, Hu Jintao’s land reform initiative, introduced in 2009, builds on Deng’s reforms to encourage greater economic activity in rural areas and eliminate inequalities introduced by the separation of rural and urban residents.

Mao Zedong, and his CCP policy advisors, was the main architects of the China’s modern land reform system.  After winning a long, draining civil war, Mao knew that the CCP’s rise to power was not achieved in a vacuum: Indeed, the CCP was only victorious due to strong support from rural peasants that had believed in Mao’s eclectic mixture of Marxism-Leninism and utopian philosophy.  This meant Mao put forth a series of thorough land redistribution reforms that would reward the peasants and punish other large landowners who had supported the Kuomintang (opposing party in the Chinese civil war): thus, land reform was intricately tied to political interests.  As a result, Mao unveiled a number of measures in the early 1950s that took away land from the wealthy gentry’ class and distributed to it to peasants (Naughton, 2007).  In many ways, Mao’s radical land reform was also tied to his economic strategy and the party’s overall self-interest: The CCP wanted to push mass industrialization (particularly in the countryside), and giving peasants land was the easiest way to pursue these measures without needing to gain permission from existing land owners.

After enacting land reform, Mao had to deal with a different problem: the traditional social and economic imbalance between rural and urban areas.  Due to the significant wealth and opportunity disparities between urban and rural areas, numerous peasants were migrating to urban areas (such as Beijing and Shanghai) after the revolution in order to seek a new life. Indeed, the number of peasants migrating was so numerous that dangerous scarcities (in both food and housing) became endemic throughout urban areas (Naughton, 2007).  After a period of contemplation, Mao decided to implement a new philosophy to stem the flow between the two areas: the new “hukou”, or household registration system, regulated that all citizens would receive a household registration permit based on where they were born.The “hukou” would entail certain benefits to individuals such as the right to schooling, housing, and other public services. The hukou would be based off the parent’s residential permit. The “hukou” would also entail certain benefits to individuals such as the right to schooling, housing, and other public services. This was an important addition to the existing “danwei”[1] system which was the main social system established in China during the 1950’s.  There was another, perhaps more sinister, motive in establishing the hukou system: Balkanizing urban and rural area to stop the flow of rural residents to urban areas.

Overall, Mao’s introduction of the hukou system was a function of the country’s emerging political economy; the system aimed to exploit rural excess labor and production as the driving engine of the Chinese economy.  This didn’t work, however, largely due to Mao’s obsession with fantastical economic planning and inability to focus on one main development plan.

With the rise of Deng Xiaoping to power in 1979, the Maoist system of land reform and control came to a gradual end. Overall, Deng posited that in order to boost economic growth, the old system needed to be dismantled in order to increase movement, in particular leveraging off China’s main asset: labor.  In 1979, Deng Xiaoping announced a number of reforms to reach this goal.  In particular, he developed a number of special economic zones on the east coast of China that would implement new policies such as allowing foreign investors to establish corporation and allowing Chinese resident to move into these areas without explicit permission from municipal authorities. Deng’s ultimate plan was to draw China’s rural laborers to city centers in order to provide cheap labor for foreign firms and attempt to revitalize the rural area through developing the entire country.

As a result, a number of foreign firms would move to China in order to take advantage of the special tax incentives and low labor costs available in cities such as Shenzhen. While Deng’s reforms signaled a radical change from the past, particularly regarding the mobility of Chinese citizens, it did not effectively abolish the household registration system.  Indeed, numerous workers left rural China in order to seek fame and fortune in the new boom towns on the country’s east coast; when they got there, however, they were not welcomed, but often times made to live in “migrant worker camps” with poor hygiene and limited freedom.  Although workers labor was in high demand, there was no accompanying legal reform in order to give migrant workers access to basic necessities; in addition, most children of migrant workers were not able to attend local schools, receive health care, or access other state-based social resources (Naughton, 2007).

Over time, the pressure migrant workers placed on the already over stressed urban system was palpable: big cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou developed huge migrant worker camps on the edge of the city that attracted disease and crime.  Not only did these camps put a huge strain on cities’ resources, but also served as a pressure cooker for political pressure- migrant workers became restless and some in cases violent in cities causing instability and leading to greater political unrest.  Indeed, at least one Chinese think tank posited that the increase in migrant workers, and attendant problems, posed one of the greatest threats to China’s stability (Buckley, 2011).  In addition to economic reform, Deng Xiaoping also undertook land reform that allowed peasants greater rights in leasing land (although they still were leasing land from the government)and allowing a spin-off of local enterprises; however, he was not able to end the system created by Mao Zedong.

Hu Jintao’s recent land reforms must be understood in this greater context of political economy; that is, as a further reform effort aimed at the abolition of the reforms originally proposed by Mao Zedong.  Hu Jintao’s main land reforms are to enhanceChinese farmers’ land-use rights and redistribute rural land to encourage the inflow of capital to the agricultural sector and reduce the income gap between the rich and the poor (Li, 2009).  Through improving existing land-use rights, Hu hopes to improve the incentives for land-owners to find the best value of the land through sub-contracting and exchange.  Although this would not be equal to complete land privatization, that is, allowing farmers to own their own land, it would improve the ability of farmers to receive income for land and encourage a greater entrepreneurial spirit in rural areas.  In addition, through this reform, the government aims at “reviving” the countryside that has fallen behind urban areas not only in their level of income, but also in the ability to attract new residents.  With a number of individuals willing to leave rural areas and never come back, urban areas have become overpopulated at the expense of other areas.  Li (2009) posits that while the land reforms sound good in theory, they will inevitably face difficulties at the local level: the specter of local monopolistic landlords (not accountable to local government officials) and landless peasants migrating in masse to cities may prevent wide-spread support for the plan.

In addition, Hu Jintao may have another impetus behind pushing land reform: end the hukou system.  Although, the hukou system has been dismantled in certain areas since 1979, the system still exists legally and in practice.  Indeed, the hukou system is currently in a legal “grey area”:  while rural hukou holders are able to go to urban areas, an abolition of the system would not necessarily change the status quo.  This is because migrant workers in urban areas often times do not have access to social services and legal protection due to insufficient municipal legal infrastructure- this has and will serve as a key obstacle to further migration.

Although Deng had essentially retracted some elements of the system through allowing rural individuals to migrate to urban areas, there was no reciprocity or incentives for urban individuals and capital to seek residency and investment in rural areas.  This skewed incentives, in part, have contribute to increasing inequality across the country.  Thus, by leveling the playing field, and eliminating the household registration system that gave rise to much of the inequality and prejudice that exists today, Hu Jintao hopes to eliminate possible sources of dissent and increase overall political stability (Li, 2009). Overall, Hu’s proposed abolishment of the hukou system could lead to a reinvigorated rural investment climate as investors seek new projects in secondary and tertiary areas that are less developed than China’s urban centers.

WhileHu Jintao’s reforms are not as comprehensive as Mao’s original reforms in 1949, they are arguably more important for China’s future.  Indeed, as the Chinese economy has continued to experience high growth with more political problems, the inability to develop the rural areas has emerged as a key concern for the CCP (Breslim, 2007).  Although Hu Jintao’s reforms will not necessarily solve all the problems associated with rural areas, they are certainly a step in the right direction.

However, these reforms will not solve some of the fundamental problems still lingering over from Mao’s political economy.  Indeed such problems as a poor education system (inequality between rural and urban systems), an underdeveloped rule of law, and existing discrimination against rural residents are the main triggers of inequality in the Chinese political system.  In addition, Hu is unable to force municipal governments to provide basic rights for migrant workers in urban areas- the central government can only mandate compliance, but not ensure it at the local level.  So while the hukou system may ultimately be abolished in name, and allow greater mobility for citizens, its latent effects will still permeate Chinese society for years to come.

References

Breslim, S. (2007). The political econo0my of development in China: political agendas and economic realities. Development, 50(3), 3-10.

Buckley, C. (2011, June 14).  Unhappy rural migrants threaten China stability: State think tank.  Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/14/us-china-labour-migrant-idUSTRE75D0ZK20110614.

Li, C. (2009).  Hu Jintao’s Land Reform: Ambition, Ambiguity, Anxiety: China Leadership Monitor (Brookings Institute).  Available at:

Naughton, B. (2007).  The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth.   Cambridge: MIT Press.

[1] Every citizen over 18 was assigned to a “danwei” or “unit”.  The unit essentially served as the employer, political educator, and social provider for the employee.