Does land dispossession equal impoverishment or liberation in rural China?: evidence from Zhejiang Province, China

Abstract

Land has consistently been central when disentangling the complex picture of rural China. It is also considered to be the fundamental asset for Chinese farmers. Drawing on extensive literature review and qualitative data collected from several villages and various other institutions such as government agencies in a coastal province in China, this research aims at understanding how urbanization has affected people’s perception of land in rural coastal China and how different levels of government play their roles in this process. To be specific, I aim to understand whether the land is still being perceived as a holy right and as inalienable pieces of property or it is being perceived as any other common commodity. The results show that while urbanization has transformed rural coastal China almost completely, people’s perceptions of land doesn’t vary significantly in villages where levels of urbanization influences differ. Perceiving land as a common evaluable piece of commodity is prevalent in rural coastal China. Some other findings, policy implications and limitations are also discussed in this paper. ☐ Keywords: rural China, land rights, urbanization, government