The expression of interests and the order of Land Rights in Rural Land disputes

I. Research background

(1) problem awareness

There are many researches on land disputes, and the literature is also very rich. The author believes that, according to the focus of the study or the level of concern, it can be divided into three parts:

The first part is simply concerned about the phenomenon of land disputes itself, mainly analyzes the types of disputes and their settlement strategies, this kind of research has a strong policy color. For example, according to the type of rural land ownership, Li Yuan (2007) divides the rural land conflict into the use right conflict and the ownership conflict. In terms of the causes of the rural land conflict, she thinks that it is mainly stimulated by the national policy to benefit farmers; the source of the land ownership is unclear; the boundary is unclear and the formalities are incomplete; farmers do not have complete land property rights and can not protect their rights and interests; in the old days, land resources were unreasonable. Land ownership disputes caused by random land development; land transfer procedures are not standardized; grass-roots cadres do not have a strong sense of responsibility; work is disadvantageous; publicity and education are not in place, farmers' legal concepts are weak. Mei Donghai (2008) divides rural land conflicts into five categories according to the subjects of the conflict: the first category is peasant household or village-village, the second category is peasant household-villager group (collective owners of land), the third category is farmers-grass-roots organizations and cadres, the fourth category is farmers-higher-level government and land authorities, and the fifth category is farmers-capital holders.

The second part looks at the current rural land problem from a more macro level, and the research focuses on the major issues of rural land system reform. Many scholars believe that the problem of rural land and the solution of the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers need to establish a fair and efficient rural land system. For example, Wen Guanzhong (2008), Yang Xiaokai (2002), Zhou Qiren (1995), Zhang Wuchang (2004) and Mao Yushi (2009) believe that for the current agricultural land system, because the land legally belongs to the state or the collective, however, representing the state and collectives are governments at all levels, the non-market allocation of land elements is difficult to achieve the optimal economic and social effect. The direction of the reform is to determine the farmers' more and more rights to the land. Of course, there is another different way of reform. Representative voices such as Yao Yang (2000), starting from the social security function of land, think that at present, in the vast rural areas of China, the government does not have the ability to establish an effective social security system. At present, the equalitarianism farmland system characterized by equal distribution of land is an effective substitute for cash-based social security in providing social security for the rural population. Wen Tiejun (2008) holds a similar view that the bottom line of China's rural land reform is not to privatize land.

The third part is the research from the perspective of sociology, which mainly focuses on the description and interpretation of phenomena in land disputes or conflicts, focusing on the social restrictive factors after the distribution of rights and interests, such as social structure, cultural customs, village authority and so on. it points out the historicity and complexity of real land disputes. For example, Zhang Jing (2003) believes that under the condition that the political field is not separated from the legal field, in the current rural land disputes, the selection process of land use rules politicizes legal events. Therefore, the rules of land use are uncertain with the change of interests and power. Cao Zhenghan (2008) reached a point of view similar to that of Zhang Jing through the study of tidal flat disputes in the Pearl River Delta. In addition, Shen Jing and Wang Hansheng (2005) took a village in central Sichuan Province as the research object to explore the grass-roots practical logic of collective property rights existing in the rural society. It is considered that the relationship of property rights from the perspective of sociology is not as clearly divided and relatively stable as economists. On the contrary, it is a process of continuous interaction between individual actors and their social environment, and the structure of property rights relationship from the perspective of sociology is a dynamic equilibrium process. Zai Xiaoye and Chen Yingying (2000) mainly studied several "super villages" in developed coastal areas by using the variable of "choice structure". It is considered that there is an inherent relationship between the various conditions faced by these villages during the reform and the selection strategy, so the phenomenon that the village has its own property right model has been formed.

From the review of the above literature, the research on the rural land dispute itself is too detailed, while the macroscopic study of the land system is difficult to explain the complexity of the real rural land dispute. The sociological perspective provides a lot of inspiration for us to understand the current rural land ownership order and even land disputes. Du Zanqi (2010 207) believes that only when the state power successfully integrates its own authority and interests into the cultural network, can it really effectively achieve the governance of rural society. Compared with the strong transformation of the rural society by the state power in the 20th century, the construction of state power in the new period should be combined with the logic of the countryside itself in order to establish a rural land system that can stand the test of practice. Therefore, the question that this article wants to answer is how people in rural land disputes safeguard their own interests, and where is the reasonable basis for the declaration of their interests.

(2) Overview of the case

The case material of this paper mainly comes from the author's field investigation in X village. in February 2010, the author conducted an in-depth investigation of a land dispute in the village that lasted for four or five years, mainly interviewing the active participants of both parties. For example, the old party members of the community, the organizing committee members of the villagers group, the new and old team members of the village committee and so on. Most of the case materials are interview records, in addition, there are various written materials provided by the parties, including agreements, government documents, court judgments and so on.

Village X is located in the west of Jiangxi Province and belongs to C Township, S County, P City. the old National Highway 319 passes through the village from south to north, 20 kilometers north from the county seat and 18 kilometers south from the urban area. it is not only the office location of the township government, but also the township economic and cultural center. The village has a population of about 2000, with a per capita annual income of about 4000 yuan; a per capita cultivated land of 0.5 mu, plus a small amount of dry land (vegetable land) per household; with a large population and little land, the sideline industries such as fireworks, working and breeding have become the villagers' source of net income. The 14th villagers' group under the jurisdiction of the village, commonly known as "Luxia" (later called this name), is divided into more than 60 households and more than 300 people, which is the most populous village group in Village X. Among them, the villagers surnamed Huang account for more than 90%. The residents of Luxia Group are mostly distributed along the hilltop slope to the south of Line 319, and the houses are built into two rows according to the topography. As the rural economy becomes active, the arable land located in the center of villages and towns in Luxia is converted into commercial facilities and housing. The village office building is located in this central area, where disputes over the land occupied by the village office building (referred to as the Xmurl plot for short) took place.

The land dispute between X Village and Luxia Group can be started before liberation. Before 1949, Xmurl was owned and operated by the Huang people of Luxia. After the land reform and collectivization movement after liberation, the land became the collective land of the Luxia production team, which lasted until 1976. Since then, as the former Luoxin brigade [①] built a new integrated office and commercial building in the area, according to the agreement reached between the two sides at that time, the Luoxin brigade compensated the Luxia production team with 1700 jin of grain every year, without specifying the compensation period. From 1977 to 1987, the Luoxin brigade subsidized for a total of 11 years. During this period, in 1986, the people's Government of C Township issued a document stipulating that the public welfare construction land of the village can be discounted and balanced in the arable land transferred from agriculture to non-agriculture in the whole village. In early 1988, Village X occupied the commercial office building and listed the office, refusing to continue to compensate for the land occupation fees on the grounds of the 1986 township government documents and the apportionment of the original Luoxin brigade. However, the villagers of the Luxia group expressed their opposition, so they often organized some villagers to obstruct the daily work of the village committee. In 1995, Luxia Group sued the X Village Committee to the people's Court of its S District (County), asking the defendant to compensate 13923.00 yuan for the land occupation fee of the complex (from 1988 to 1994), and asked the defendant to continue to perform the compensation agreement. The District Court ruled against the plaintiff, and the P Municipal Intermediate Court upheld the original verdict [②].

In 2004, due to the dilapidated village building, the X Village Committee decided to demolish it and build a new commercial office building at the same site. In December, Village X and Luxia Group signed an agreement to compensate 30,000 yuan, and another 10,000 yuan was given to Luxia Group for the demolition of the village, stipulating that there were no disputes between the two and could not go back on their promises; but on the last day of the year, villagers of Luxia Group still came to the scene to obstruct it, and the auction organized by the village construction group aborted. In January 2005, the village committee signed an agreement to sell the houses and land of the old village to the C Township Education Foundation at a price of 480000 yuan without consultation by the meeting of party members, group leaders and villagers' representatives. After unsuccessful negotiation with the foundation, the Luxia group opposed the resale of the land by the X village committee and organized the villagers to reflect the situation to their superiors. From 2005 to 2008, the C Township Education Foundation was unable to start construction due to unsuccessful negotiations with the Luxia Group. In November 2008, the X village committee was re-elected. Through the efforts of the new team of the village committee, in February 2009, the C Township Education Foundation agreed to transfer the former office building of the X village to the X village committee for construction. In March, the X village committee and the Luxia group agreed to compensate each other 80,000 yuan, stipulating that there would never be any disputes between the village groups and would never go back on their promises. After more than two months of construction, the new office and commercial building in Village X has been completed.