By Irving Feng
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
BEIJING, China – Unjust central government usurpation of villager farmland led to a violent clash between hired government thugs and local villagers in the Chinese village of Shangpu.
Residents of Shangpu village protested the government taking of a 33 hectare parcel of land used by the villagers to grow rice for their personal consumption and livelihoods. The parcel had been sold without the consent of the villagers to a third party to be used as an electric cable factory as part of the central government’s plan to urbanize and industrialize much of the once rural countryside.
The central government hired thugs to disperse and intimidate the thousands of residents into agreeing with the unfair land grab, however, the protesters turned violent when the hired thugs threatened violence with steel pipes and metal spades.
The villagers fought back, expelling the thugs from their land, destroying their vehicles, and recently set up barricades and outposts to guard their village against further intrusion and intimidation. The countryside near their village is now littered with the overturned, smashed vehicles the intruders rode in on.
China’s push to urbanize and industrialize the rural outskirts of major metropolitan areas has generated mass land seizures by the central government. Parcels of land destined for commercial development have also caused soaring land prices.
This push to urbanize and industrialize has left local farmers and villagers who depend on these parcels of farmland for their livelihoods with inadequate compensation from these land grabs and no legal options to fight these unjust usurpations of their land.
The Landesa Rural Development Institute, a group calling for fairer laws on land ownership and rights, estimates out of the 90,000 social unrest incidents that occur in China each year, roughly two thirds of these incidents is related to land disputes like the one in Shangpu.
With the incoming wave of new politicians currently being installed, Chinese lawmakers are attempting to increase protections allotted to farmers, however, the process is slow and arduous. The current rule of law specifies that farmers who have their land taken only need to be compensated with 30 times the annual agricultural output of the parcel of land that is taken.
The current system allows for cheap takings of farmland and selling the cheaply acquired land to commercial developers at a huge mark up. The proposed system currently being debated in China’s parliament allows for the payment of fair market value on farmers’ land that is taken by the government for commercial development.
For further information, please see:
Global Times – China stresses farmers’ property rights in land transfers – 7 March 2013
Reuters – China village seethes over land grabs as Beijing mulls new laws – 7 March 2013
Cuyoo.com – Stand-off in Chinese village over land grab – 6 March 2013
NPR – Chinese Farmers Revolt Against Government Land Grab – 5 March 2013
