Journal Article

Institutional change and diversity in the transfer of land development rights in China

Tang, Bo-sin, Shi, Chen

2020

Overview

Rapid urbanisation in China has led to a substantial decrease in agricultural land. To address this unsustainable form of urban development, the Chinese government has implemented the ‘Linkage’ Policy (Zengjian Guagou), which requires any increase in new urban land by local governments to be compensated for with an equivalent amount of new arable land. This paper examines the institutional changes and the implications for China’s land production and development arising from this mechanism of transferring land development rights from the rural to the urban sectors. Using Chengdu as a case study, our research concludes that this institutional mechanism has conferred commodified and tradeable development rights on rural land, leading to the emergence and direct involvement of new players in village land consolidation, resettlement of affected villagers and, indirectly, in the supply of new urban land. Process efficiency has been improved with the local governments, developers and village collectives capitalising on their niches in village improvement projects. The conventional state-led model of land production is enriched with bottom-up market initiatives, and villagers have more choices to realise their land property rights under the dual land market. Land use efficiency has been enhanced by the reallocation of construction land potential. However, infringements of villagers’ interests and negative impacts on balanced regional development under this policy were also found. 中国城市化的快速发展导致了农业用地的大幅减少。为了应对这种不可持续的城市发展形式，中国政府实施了“增减挂钩”政策，它要求地方政府在增加新城市土地的同时用同等数量的新耕地进行补偿。本文考察了这种土地发展权从农村向城市转移的机制，以及该制度变迁对中国土地生产和开发所产生的影响。以成都为例，我们的研究得出以下结论：这种制度设计赋予了农村土地商品化的、可交易的发展权，致使新的参与者出现并直接参与乡村土地整理、受影响村民的重新安置，并使他们间接参与到新的城市土地供应中。地方政府、开发商和村集体利用其各自在村庄发展项目中的优势提高了过程效率。传统的国家主导型土地生产模式因融合了自下而上的市场主动性而更为丰富，村民在二元土地市场下拥有了更多的选择以实现其土地产权。通过重新分配建设用地潜力，土地利用效率也得以提高。然而，在这一政策下，也出现了侵犯村民利益的现象和对区域均衡发展所产生的负面影响。

• Publisher: Sage Publications, Ltd,SAGE Publications,Sage Publications Ltd
• Subject: Address forms / Agricultural development / Agricultural land / Agricultural policy / Agricultural production / Arable land / Case studies / Collectives / Consolidation of land holdings / Development policy / Economic development / Institutional change / Land development / Land market / Land use / Local government / Markets / Niches / Production / Property rights / Regional development / Regional planning / Relocation / Resettlement / Rural areas / Rural communities / Rural development / Rural land use / Special issue article: New directions of urban studies in China / Urban development / Urbanization