The progress of rural land system reform this year will be limited.

After the third Plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, people from all walks of life have high expectations for the land reform, but the land reform has not shown the momentum of acceleration. The lack of consensus and worries make the land reform cautious and conservative. Liu Shijin, deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, once pointed out: "Land reform can be said to be an area of greater controversy and less consensus."

It can be said that the central government does not attach importance to land reform. In September 2014, President Xi Jinping presided over the fifth meeting of the Deep Reform Group, which deployed to promote rural land reform. On December 2, 2014, President Xi Jinping presided over the seventh meeting of the Central leading Group for comprehensively deepening Reform, and examined the opinions on Rural Land expropriation, the entry of Collective Construction Land into the Market, and the pilot work of Homestead system Reform. This shows that the rural land reform, which has not been promoted for a long time and is regarded as a "hard bone", will be a focus of reform in the future. But the lag in the actual reform process may dash expectations.

The General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council recently jointly issued the opinions on Rural Land expropriation, the entry of Collective Construction Land into the Market, and the pilot work of Homestead system Reform. In the reform of the entry of rural collective construction land into the market, it is necessary to explore and improve the land property right system, endow rural collective construction land with the power to sell, lease and invest in shares, and clarify the scope and ways for rural collective construction land to enter the market. establish and improve market transaction rules and service supervision system. In the reform of the rural homestead system, it is necessary to improve the protection and acquisition of the rights and interests of homestead, explore various forms of realization of farmers' housing security in different areas, and explore the paid use of excessive occupation of homestead and multiple houses in one household, and explore the voluntary and paid withdrawal or transfer of homestead by farmers settled in cities within their collective economic organizations. This means that the pilot work of land reform has taken another step forward in key areas such as collective construction land and homestead.

However, judging from the position of the relevant departments, the progress of land reform will not be very fast, and we will still strive to be safe. Jiang Daming, minister of land and resources and chief inspector of land, said that the requirements of the pilot reform are to adhere to small-scale pilot projects. Overall planning the eastern, central, western and northeast regions, taking into account different stages and models of development, mainly in the new urbanization comprehensive pilot and rural reform pilot areas, select a number of basic and conditional counties or county-level cities to carry out. The second is to persist in reform in accordance with the law. The pilot project involves breaking through the relevant legal provisions, which needs to be submitted by the State Council to the standing Committee of the National people's Congress for authorization to allow the pilot areas to suspend the implementation of relevant legal provisions during the pilot period. The third is to persist in closed operation. The pilot project is strictly restricted to counties (cities) authorized by law, and non-pilot areas should not blindly compare with others and act without authorization to ensure that the pilot project is closed and the risk can be controlled. The pilot work will be completed by the end of 2017. In other words, there are still nearly three years to go, and there is no hurry to spread it out.

Prior to this, Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu said on December 23, 2014 that the reform of the rural land system would be actively and steadily promoted in 2015, and that it would cooperate with the standing Committee of the National people's Congress in revising the Land contract Law, giving farmers the right to mortgage and guarantee land management rights, and allowing farmers to participate in the development of agricultural industrialization with management rights. It will take about five years to basically complete the registration and issuance of the right to contracted management of rural land. The registration and issuance of confirmed rights is the basis of land transfer, which will take five years, which also means that the transfer of land contractual management rights can not make significant progress in a short period of time.

The achievements of land reform in 2014 are still limited to basic areas such as registration and issuance of rights. Although many places are experimenting with the feasible model of land reform, it is still too early to form a mature model that is universal throughout the country. There are many experiments on the transfer of land contractual management rights, and the transfer of rural homestead and collective construction land is the most difficult part of the rural land system reform. In the field of legislation and law amendment, except for the interim regulations on Real Estate Registration, there is little movement. On the issue of the legalization of houses with limited property rights, the government's tone shows no sign of loosening.

Looking forward to 2015, the areas that are expected to make some progress are still the further expansion of the pilot project for the confirmation of land contractual management rights registration, as well as the pilot projects for the transfer of land contractual management rights in various localities. The transfer of rural homestead and collective construction land is more sensitive, lack of consensus, may not move forward quickly, but gradually try and innovate on the basis of the pilot, and strive to be positive and steady. Therefore, we should not expect too much for the progress of rural land system reform in 2015.

There are objective reasons for the central government's cautious attitude on the issue of land reform. In the view of our research team, land reform is an important part of comprehensively deepening reform, an unavoidable task after the reform has entered a critical period, and an important means to solve the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers. The lag of reform will have negative effects, such as affecting the promotion of a new type of urbanization. With the abolition of the household registration system and the unification of urban and rural social security, the resistance to urbanization in the "urban end" is getting smaller and smaller. However, in the "rural end", due to the lag of rural land system reform, farmers' land assets are difficult to properly dispose of and realized, and can not provide strong support for farmers to go to cities. The development of urban-rural integration may be held back by the reform of land system. At present, the fragmented rural land property rights system not only weakens the protection of farmers' rights, but also reduces the source and quantity of rural property income, which not only increases the cost of rural social and economic development, but also gradually loses the opportunity of rural social and economic development. 2015 is the key year for comprehensively deepening reform, and the central government should show greater courage to attack the "hard bone" of land reform. If this government can complete the historic reform of land reform, it will shine through the annals of history.

In short, although the government attaches great importance to land reform and the concept of land reform is very hot, at the specific operational level, rural land reform in 2015 will still be pilot and sound, and the results of the reform may be lower than many people expected.