Land reform in the People"s Republic of China, 1978-1988

This paper explores the dynamics of land reform in China during the period 1978-88, focusing on the two basic reform models that have evolved on the local level. The first --"land tenure" reform -- has been developed to a high degree in Meitan County of Guizhou Province, but also reflects changes occurring on a broad scale across the country. The reform aims to consolidate household land use rights and create a new facilitating role (as opposed to a command role) for the collective as farming moves toward increasing specialization and commercialization. It also promotes the development of a market in land use rights and the use of such rights as collateral for credit. The second model of land reform -- "scale reform" -- has developed in economically more advanced areas, among which Southern Jiangsu Province is prominent. In these areas, the rapid rural industrialization by township and village enterprises (T&VE"s) over the last decade has led to a major outflow of labor from an agricultural sector fragmented by micro-holdings. Increasingly, T&VE"s have subsidized otherwise unprofitable grain production, thereby generating a reform model which promotes land consolidation and concentration into units to provide full-time farmers with incomes comparable to those of workers in rural industries. It is unclear what impact the current reaction against economic liberalization will have upon the two models. Scale operations reform appears to be more secure than land tenure reform, as it is a planned adjustment by local governments and does not rely upon market forces to the same extent as the land tenure model. Nonetheless, the reforms discussed here originated not with central planning agencies but in local and provincial initiatives. For this reason, they may survive if not thrive in today"s difficult and confused policy environment.