Land Reform in China: From 1950 to the Present

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Land Reform in ChinaFrom 1950 to the Present

• Stephanie Patterson
• March 1, 2005

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Timeline of Land Reform in China

• Feudal Cooperatives Great Leap
  Forward
• warlords Peoples Communes
• Land Collectives
  Household
• redistribution
  Responsibility System
• __________________________________________________
  ____________
• 1949 1953 1954 1958 1978

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The Introduction of Communism

• Pre-Communism
• Prior to 1949, peasants and land controlled by
  feudal warlords
• Chinese Peoples Republic
• Land redistribution
• Party administrators sent to villages
• Cultivate relations with poor, organize peasant
  association, identify potential leaders, organize
  struggle sessions
• Elimination of landowning elite
• Enforced by government

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Cooperatives to Collectives to Communes

• Cooperatives
• Consisted of 40-50 families
• Collectives
• 1954-1956
• United cooperatives
• By May of 1956, 90 of farmers in collectives
• Incentive structure
• Feudal warlords vs. collectivization

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The Great Leap Forward

• Peoples Communes
• 800 million rural people organized into 52,000
  Peoples Communes
• State feudal manors
• Little resemblance to Communist ideals
• Organizations
• Land Reform Bureau created in early 1950s to
  manage land reform on unified basis
• Abolished in 1954
• State Bureau for Land Use
• Hukou system
• Good news reporting stations created in place
  of State Statistical Bureau in 1959

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The Great Fall Backward

• Programs of Great Leap Forward abandoned in 1960
• Peoples Communes remained
• Recovery
• Reorganization of agriculture
• Mechanization
• Emphasis on nonmaterial rewards changed in favor
  of material incentives
• Free-rider problem
• Reintroduction of private plots

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Household Responsibility System

• Family farms vs. communal farms
• Farmland remained under collective ownership, but
  allocated to individual households
• Generated incentives, linked rewards with
  performance
• Different ways of distributing land
• Available labor force of individual households
  within village
• Assigning land to specialized team or group
• Total number of people within village
• Based on size of household

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Productivity Problems

• Land Readjustment
• Fragmented farming units
• Mechanization difficult
• Lack of productivity
• No economies of scale
• Absence of land market

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Land-Use Rights

• Provide better incentives for soil conservation
  and investment
• Uncertainty of land tenure
• 15 years in 1984
• 30 years in 1995
• 2003 Land Management Law
• Power of local authorities reduced
• Farmers can transfer, exchange rights of land-use
• Regions using different methods
• Two land system
• Food land vs. contract land

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The Effects of Long-Term Land Tenure

• Disposition
• Uncertainty of land tenure
• Utilization
• Over-utilization during Great Leap Forward
• Government now promotes mixed-farming economy
• Use of Production
• Elimination of low-yield but valuable crops,
  orchards and trees during Great Leap Forward
• With long-term land tenure, farmers have
  incentive to produce goods more compatible with
  region

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Population Movements

• Hukou
• Prevented commune residents from escaping feudal
  obligations to state
• Recovery from the Great Leap Forward
• Between 1960 and 1965, 100,000 enterprises closed
  down so that over 20 million people could go to
  rural areas
• Limited, temporary migration to cities during
  late 1970s
• Economy boom led to need for unskilled workers
• En masse migration in 1990s
• Move to city in hopes of closing the income gap

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Unemployment

• State-owned enterprises
• Eliminating inefficient communal farming methods
• Increasing efficiency
• Unemployment
• Underemployment
• China ignores rural areas when calculating
  unemployment figures

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Questions?