How Land Reform Makes Me Feel

I swear this is not [just] the inane ramblings of a Bachelor of the Arts from THE liberal arts college. No no no. Buried somewhere beneath the drivel I'm about to spit forth is a complex narrative on comparative psychological norms regarding the purpose of property laws.

A couple of summers ago, just after my 1L year without a shred of knowledge about the laws of foreign nations, I sat freezing with twelve other US law students in what may have been the most ACed room on Jiao Tong University's Minhang campus while listening to a lecture on China's property laws by a Jiao Tong professor. When the professor started explaining that China does not have real property ownership, but land use rights akin to a lease from the government (30 for agricultural, 40 for recreational, 50 for industrial, and 70 for residential), I thought, "Huh?", but not in those exact words. Then, my arm shot up. "What happens to your ownership rights when the 'lease' runs out? Do you have to repurchase the rights?" He replied that no one can really know what the government will do, but that many are simply proceeding as if the government will grant free and automatic renewal or extension. I think I then grumbled something under my breath about not trusting even my own government with something like that. Why, when they have it, would they just give it right back to you? It isn't yours anymore, it's theirs! And, I tend to think more highly of my own government than anybody else's government.

A year later these leasehold type arrangements made me feel a lot less uncomfortable. At some point after that summer for some reason, I was searching for game preserves for sale in Africa and I found that many only had 99 year leases. Since other countries did the lease thing, it made me more comfortable with China's lease thing and land use ownership in China.

China's new land reforms for agricultural land have eased many of my worries. In the year the earliest land use rights would have expired, they were extended for another 40 years. As long as China keeps becoming more transparent and more comfortable with private property ownership, then I'd heed the advice of my professor and assume, with an air of caution, that any land use rights purchased today will be permanent.

To sum up: the recent land use reform makes me fell really really good. Not necessarily warm and fuzzy, but good.

Substantive Blogging on the Land Use Reforms:
China’s Land Reforms Offer Plenty for American Midwest’s Agricultural Businesses at China Briefing
Land lovers: Rural land-use reform makes sense at CER: Editors' Journal
Reading Tea Leaves On Rural Reform at TIME: China Blog
Land Reform. It's A Coming. Sort Of? at China Law Blog