China Land Seizures

Three thousand villagers protested the government, demanding proper compensation for

their seize land as the government begins its construction of electrical power lines.

According to Gu, the problem of land seizures is due to manipulation by municipal

government, who sent its workers or cadres to solve the disputes. However, rather than solving

the problem, local government workers or cadres tend to persuade the villagers to cooperate with

the government. In fact, China is facing a growing deadly social unrest, violent, and unalarmed

from the Communist Party concerning national security (Keidel, 2006).

Large-scale conflicts have been happening since the government began its construction of

electric power plan in several villages such as in Shanwei or Dongzhou. One of the reasons of

social unrests and violence is that villagers are unhappy about the amount of compensation they

receive.

The incident becomes violent because the government uses contract gangsters to guard

the workers while they are building the power plant line along the communities’ properties.

Although they are gangsters, they seem to work together with the police and go against the

community. In addition, government has invested approximately $2.70 billion on national project

in the Chaozhou Sanbaimen power station.

In the village of Shawei, Electric power plant was constructed without official approval,

says Qinger (2007) from the Epoch Times. This construction has resulted in damaged national

resources, damaged eco system, and people’s mean of living is destroyed. The compensation

received by each villager is minimal, which is about 250 Yuan or $34.

While the villagers are given such a minimal compensation, “local politicians seemed to

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keep getting richer (Schiller, 2007), the community’s life is becoming miserable as their

properties or lands are disappearing and are being replaced by commercial projects. Villagers

find their lives are being threatened. They have become targets of intimidation by the people who

are in support of government with its project.

As government is using its power to meet the demand of its market partners, Hu Jia, a

human rights activist, describes that China is full of fears, injustice, torture, blood, and

imprisonment without any proof of criminal acts.

The commercial development is being constructed to meet the deadline construction

agenda for the Olympic stadiums.

Human rights violations seem to be chronic in China. Villagers who appeal for their lands

are detained or sent back with an instilled thought that their sacrifice is for the good image of the

cities. Freedom of speech is being suppressed because Chinese are no longer required to tell the

truth. In fact, human rights violation by killing one person is to warn others about the

consequences of rebelling against the government.

According to Hu Jia, for the outsiders, China is a harmonious country. It is peaceful,

democratic, and free, but inside, it is full of violence, social restriction, and undemocratic.

Brutality and social oppression of government’s agents or gangsters contracted by the

government all have created the country as a violent garden. The country’s image, says Hu Jia, is

to cover up what is under math, which is to design, “a big plot to cheat the whole world.”

A citizen of Dongzhou claims that government officials are working with or colluding

with developers in this scheme. the administrative is that private land would be used to construct

major roads but after obtaining government approval, developers build villas along the road

instead.

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 In rural areas, social instability is mounting. As of 2004, New York Times published its

findings that “as many as 70 million peasants have lost their land” (Heurlin, 2006, 2). The social

instability even has erupted into incidence of violence, brutality, and murder of the peasants.

Although the government intents to use legal system to solve the disputes between the

government and the peasants; many peasants prefer attacking the government because they do

not have faith in China’s judicial system. Some even use bombs to force the government to stop

the construction projects.

In practice and theory, solving the disputes between government and the villagers would

be very effective. However, the villagers tend to shun this process because they are being driven

by, says Heurlin, social activists and human right activists in the villages, who implant a degree

of freedom they could have had as independent body of human being and are conscious of rights

and their privileges. The absence of activists in the village indicates weak indication that the

system is free of government and local courts. They tend to collude and cause the court to issue

judgment in favor of the government.

Such as in the case of Indonesia human rights abuse and the religious war in early 2000,

the presence of social activists often fuels the cause of disputes. Their presence is “crucial in

organizing peasants for collective action,” says Heurlin.

Majority peasants do understand the portion of their rights to ownership and they are

willing to negotiate with the government, according to the constitution, to expropriate their lands

to make room for development because it involves their well-being. With the presence of social

activists, who organize the collective action, peasants are informed to take greater importance of

their rights. By increasing the peasants’ level of understanding about individual rights and

freedoms, they can be mobile to spark up violence. Although it seems that activists are in favor

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of China’s peasants and their rights to properties and helping them to conceptualize their rights to

properties, peasants can be mobilized to violate government’s effort.

When it comes to social activists, Jim Chin, a previous health officer of the World Health

Organization and Paul Koistinen (2004) claim that such activism and their claims, which are

often exaggerated, are solely for funding effectiveness.

Peasants, who are at 30-year contract, tend to be the ones organized by social activists to

proceed to the street for demonstration collectively, especially when the judge fails to produce

solution that is in favor of the government.

My assumption is that peasants should not engage in violence against land seizures but

should negotiate with the government to offer them better compensation directly without third

party involvement.

The problem in this scenario is that government is represented by the market when it

compensates them for their land. Like in the retail industry, the price of a good is getting more

expensive when it reaches the retailer. In this scenario, the price of compensation is getting

smaller when it reaches the hand of the villagers.

Peasants not only are being forced by the activist groups to engage in such violence act

but are also organized by political groups, who operate in the form of nonprofit organization and

represent the government, against the market groups that also represent the government, and tend

to place “profit” or “surplus” in every transaction.

Either the nonprofit or the for-profit organizations, by sparking political and social

instability, they are able to create themselves as political entrepreneurs who are able to bear the

cost of mobilizing the peasants collectively (Heurlin, 2006; Lichbach, 1997 & Javelin, 2003) and

to generate “revolutionary surplus” to their selective purposes.

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 The sad thing about this incident of land seizures is that many peasants do not exist until

the grievance was brought to light by these activists. As “political entrepreneurs,” they are able

to facilitate the peasants to put the blame on the state. In other word, “political entrepreneur” are

exploiting the peasants through this property rights in order to further their agenda in the country.

Traditionally, Chinese peasants understand about the values of the property rights and

their obligation or the government obligation to them during the duration of the contract. For

example, the Chinese constitution gives the central government “the right to appropriate land

from the collectives” (Heurlin, 2006) or the agriculture producer cooperatives. Local

government, on the other hand, would act on behalf of central government to expropriate the

land through local government from the peasants and transfer it too the central government.

Central government would then transfer the payment to the local government, which lager gives

it to the peasants as compensation and to resettle the peasants to other area when the government

deems that the lands would be used for development. Prior to privatization, the land would be

deemed as the state land, but for commercial development, under privatization scheme, the land

is later sold to private sector. The proceed from the sale of the land is divided between central

government, local government, and the peasants with a ratio of 30% to the state government, and

70% is to be equally between local government and the peasants (Heurlin, 2006). The peasants

would also receive compensation for their unharvested crops.

The privatization policy has expanded this bureaucracy of compensation and negotiation

to include private agents in the negotiation of land expropriation. In the process of negotiation,

this process of expropriation has become a media to create profit for government and the private

agents rather than giving fair compensation to the peasants.

This arrangement also gives incentives to local government, which has been under

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market control, to create illegal schemes in its efforts to expropriate the land without resettling

the peasants.

According to Ho and Lin (2005), “between 1995 and 2002, the central state discover

nearly a million cases of illegal land expropriation, which was approximately 42% of the total

amount of land transformed legally” (Heurlin, 2006) while the total amount of land expropriated

legally was greater than such number. In fact, the data obtained by Asia Times, edition August 20,

2003, indicates that between the same period, 67% of the land were illegally expropriated.

In addition, the total amount of land expropriated by central government intended for

electricity development, for example is small compare to the total land expropriated. The

remaining land is expropriated by local government and state own enterprises, with local

government to depend on its agents in the negotiation process.

Violation among peasants are considered as individual incident, which is about 79% in

2002 (Ho & Lin, 2003)) but the biggest offenders in land seizures are the state representatives

and village government (ibid).

The most areas of land expropriation are in Beijing, Shanghai, Hunan, Henan, and

Shandong. The later two have the extreme cases of land expropriation. The process of land

appropriation itself causes conflicts between the central and local government. The conflicts are

commonly associated with finance, agriculture, and social stability.

For example, says Heurlin (2006), if the local state expropriate the land, it has to give

30% of the proceed to the state government. Thereby, this arrangement gives local government

more incentive to expropriate it illegally.

Says Heurlin, without central government acknowledgment, expropriation of land soon

becomes a lucrative business. Private entrepreneurs, similarly, tend to exploit the peasants as the

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medium of trade between the local and central government and the peasants. This causes conflict

in the end because the peasants receive very small compensation because each party is seeking

for “profit.”

Privatization also adds fuel to the burning fire in the case of land expropriation. So many

local governments are expropriating the land without proper resettlement. This has created social

unrest. As central government comes with its development agenda, peasants are attacking it

because of low compensation; they have no land to rebuild their house, and do not have enough

capital to rebuild their lives.

While local development is meant to improve the society’s welfare, according to Kahn

(1966), central government suffers from the tyranny of small decision makers. Most peasants

believe that central government policies are good but the government is unreachable post

privatization. At village level, they are unrecognizable (Gou, 2001). Even at local government,

they are invisible because they are not considered as the customers (Schorr, 1997), while the

state and local government are in division.

This division is used by the “political entrepreneurs” to increase the division between the

two levels of governments and at the same time, they are exploiting the peasants for funding

effectiveness in terms of human rights abuse. “By manipulating the state’s legal ideology, state

laws and policies “(O’Brien, 1996), in terms of land seizures and human rights, they can present

the case of resistant toward the state’s power.

The state laws and policies provide a provision, which states that petition of land claim

can be done administratively without legal process. This process can be done either individually

or collectively.

In general, peasants believe the state government but they are being abused by local

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government’s agents. The administrative process simplifies the process of land petition and the

case of petition related to land seizures increases tremendously.

Between 2001 and 2003, for example, “63% of all petitions were related to land disputes”

(Heurlin, 2006). However, most of these petitions were addressed to the court rather than through

government administrative process. Others sent their petition to Construction Ministry. The main

argument of this petition is illegal expropriation.

Prior to privatization, such petition to central government was often successful and the

response was effective because state government was in favor of social stability (ibid) rather than

social unrest.

After privatization, state government was becoming remote to the people. According to

Schorr (1997), government is not to solve public problem but simply as an administrative

process, while decision-making authority is at the hand of the front line staffs and at the same

time, it gives a mandate to local government and different level of organizations or the grassroots

cadres to carry out its responsibilities. The grassroots cadres, on the other hand, often put

pressure on the peasants’ obedience to the law and are submissive to the state power rather

solving the dispute of solving other social problems.

In the past, says Heurlin (2006), state workers were efficient in handling this issue.

Petition could be made individually without collective action, activism, or without political

entrepreneurs. The issue was quickly solved; peace and social stability were resolved.

Today, much of the government employees is young, inexperience, and has poor capacity.

They do not consider such position as important or they do not know how to solve the problem.

Peasants go through the level of governments – from the village to township to municipality and

to the state government. However, the higher the level of government they go, the less likely

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their petition would be successful because they are facing with the new era of government who

has given out its mandate to so many small decision makers, who in turn, becomes the tyranny of

the state government.

As state government mandates its decision-making, its power is diminishing (Austin,

2000). While being controlled by the small decision makers, state government as well is

considered as corrupt.

People’s sentiment toward central government mounted and petitioners have to go to

court with their petitions. Unfortunately, the courts tend to take side with the local government,

its cadres, or its private representatives. In the field, government cadres or its private agents tend

to retaliate by involving the police even though the demonstration is simply just a sit-in without

violence.

Joining social activists to demand better compensation and resettlement seems to be the

peasants’ only but they fail to realize that the involvement of these “political entrepreneurs”

would end up in “from bad to worse” situation. While the peasants thought, they could address

their sentiment, which is growing higher, and higher, the political entrepreneurs, on the other

hand, can use the peasants for funding effectiveness.

State government is torn between its obligation to keep social stability, the economic

welfare of the citizens, and the needs or demands of its private partners. Sadly, in this dilemma,

state government often chooses its partner because, as Michael Bryant, the Ontario District

Attorney puts it, “You cannot bite the hands that feed you.”

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