Land and urbanization in China

I. Macro differences lead to the need for differential observation and treatment of China's problems.

First of all, before discussing the issue of rural land in China, I think we should first grasp the three major differences in China's development over the past three decades. The first is the regional difference. The regional differences in China over the past few thousand years mainly refer to the differences between the North and the South. We all know that China has a dividing line that divides China into northern China and southern China, that is, the Yangtze River. The north of the Yangtze River is divided into two parts by the Qinling Mountains and the Huaihe River. To the north, there is another dividing line, the Great Wall. The south of the Yangtze River is divided into Lingbei and Lingnan. Think about the four lines between North and South China. The core lines are the Huaihe River and Qinling Mountains, which in ancient times were called the wheat area in the north and the rice area in the south. This is the most typical story. Different planting structure has different diet structure, different culture, and even different temperament of people. Over the Great Wall, nomads live in pursuit of water and grass, and their lifestyles and habits are more different from those to the south of the Great Wall. Living after water and grass and the two lifestyles of nomadism, settlement and farming play an important role in the official history. Therefore, the regional differences we talked about in the past were about the North-South issue.

Important changes have taken place in the past 30 years of reform and opening up, and the regional differences have become more differences in the eastern, central and western regions. This was a change after modern times, which began along the coast, and after the first Opium War, trade was opened to five ports. the second Opium War extended trade northward along Shanghai to Tianjin and Yingkou, and then along the Yangtze River to Nanjing, Wuhan and Chongqing. In other words, the whole spread of Western learning to the east is promoted along the coast and along the river. The Yangtze River refers to the Yangtze River, because the Yellow River is not a navigable river, while the Yangtze River can be traced all the way up from the estuary and expanded along its tributaries. Therefore, the start of China's modernization began along the river and along the coast. In other words, the differences between the eastern, central and western regions have something to do with the promotion of China's entire modernization process. This difference narrowed in the first 30 years of the planned economy, when the central government considered the problem of preparing for war along the coast, and the industrial layout went deep into the central and western regions, and so did commercial activities. In the three decades after reform and opening up, foreign capital was introduced into China, and labor-intensive capital and its industries were distributed along the coast, the first was Hong Kong capital in Dongguan and Guangdong, and the second was Taiwan capital, followed by Korean and Japanese investment. or in the coastal areas, and then gradually move to the west. As a result, China's regional development differences have increased in the 30 years after the reform and opening up. Such regional differences are also relevant when we talk about the land system and urbanization.

The second is the gap between the rich and the poor, that is, the gap between the rich and the poor and class differences. This differentiation mainly occurs in the field of market and capital, but not on land. Of course, this land refers to agricultural land, excluding the conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural use. The starting point of reform and opening up was in 1982, when China abolished the commune system, and the land established a village-based, a new village collective ownership and farmers' right to contract. Of course, how to distribute the value-added parts caused by the use of agricultural land and non-agricultural use is the most controversial area in the past 30 years, and it is also a complex phenomenon. I don't think we can generalize and say that the system is still deprived of rural areas by specific groups of people. In fact, the compensation situation of farmers is different in different periods, different regions and different stages of development. During the Olympic Games, for example, tens of thousands of farmers were estimated to be demolished near the Bird's Nest, where the standard of compensation was very high, and farmers became rich overnight through demolition. Therefore, it is complicated to talk about the gap between the rich and the poor.

The third difference is the local fiscal difference. In the 1980s and 1990s, the central government adopted decentralization and profits to the localities, and the local finance decided its own expenditure according to its own revenue, that is, the so-called fiscal overhaul system. The advantage is that each local government makes money by yourself, and if you make more money, you will have more financial expenditure. Those who are unable to make money will make money from the peasants, so it is very difficult for the peasants to plunder the land, which is "China by the Yellow River" written by me. In 2004 and 2006, after the national farmers' burden was abolished, the county and township finance dominated by agriculture was very bitter, and basically completely relied on the central financial transfer payment to survive. In other words, a very important observation point in understanding today's China is that there are great financial differences between different provinces, different cities in the same province, different counties, and different villages and towns in the same county. This extends a variety of different local government mentalities and practices. In 1996, I went to Germany to discuss this issue with Germany's China hand. Originally, I did not notice this problem before. He said that your China is a unitary country, and our Germany is a federal state. The situation of all countries in the world is that the capacity of unitary countries to dispatch local public finance at all levels is generally stronger than that of federal countries. He has studied many countries, and there is no such unitary country as China, where the difference in local public finances can be as much as a hundred times worse. He said he had always wondered how such a big fiscal gap could be maintained in a country without division. We are rarely aware of this problem at home, nor are we aware of its relationship with the integration and division of the country.

Therefore, the difference in China is too big. I am more and more afraid to talk about China and migrant workers, because the internal differences are so great that it is difficult to make the next judgment in a general language.

II. Land system and potential problems in the future development of agriculture

The first question of the land system is whether the ownership of land should be privatized. In order to discuss this problem, we must abolish the commune system and establish a village collective ownership system with the village as the main body from 1982 to 1983. The commune period refers to 1958-1982. The period from 1958 to 1962 was called the Great Commune. In 1962, the sixty articles of the outline of Agriculture defined the small commune. It lasted until 1982 for 20 years. As the most important means of production, land, how is this ownership stipulated? What was stipulated at that time was team-based and level 3 ownership. What do you mean by "team"? Refers to the production team. So what is the production team? The foundation of this production team in China mainly refers to natural villages. 60% of the natural villages in the south are between 20 and 60 households. Of course, there are some rivers and lakes villages, including 500 to 600 families, and in the mountains, there are also two or three households. The proportion in the north is a little smaller. It is determined that based on the production team, in fact, it is determined that based on the natural village, the large natural village is divided into several production teams. Smaller natural villages, three here and five there, may be merged into one production team. As we all know, a natural village is formed naturally, basically by blood relationship and its reproduction, so in general, a natural village is usually a surname, and a natural village is actually an expanded family. We have always thought of history as an earth-shaking revolution, but this tradition has been maintained. The period of the big commune violated this tradition, the production organization and accounting units went far beyond the natural village, and the interests of the peasants were blurred beyond the natural village, and the whole county deployed labor, organized production and distribution throughout the county, thus turning it into a big pot of rice. Everyone has no enthusiasm.

In the south, at least I have investigated Jiangxi. In the past, the average number of natural villages under the jurisdiction of a brigade was 11. As mentioned earlier, the natural village continues naturally. It is a clan, mostly with one surname. If you go to the countryside to investigate, if there are many surnames in this natural village, it is generally safe to conclude that the time for the formation of this natural village is very short, and even after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the land in that place is gone. People from the four villages go there to form a natural village. If it is dominated by one surname and one or two mixed surnames, we can probably conclude that these people are the residence of the long-time workers in the land reform, who were originally from other villages. Such a natural village is based on a small team, the right to the use of land is all controlled by the village, family-based, natural and stable. The problem of lazy people can basically be solved by dozens of families in this area, how much they produce in a year, mutual supervision of labor and how to distribute it. Because they are all villagers, and you don't have others to do, this system has been stable for 20 years, because it conforms to the general interests of farmers.

In theory, the land is based on the team and owned by the third class. The brigade is the production team, the brigade is owned by the first class, the commune is above, and the commune is also owned by the first class. In the past, the commune was not only a commune, but also a first-level political power under the county. The county under the political power was moved in the late Qing Dynasty, developed in the Republic of China, and completed in New China. In the past, after the Sui and Tang dynasties, the political power did not go to the county, so the countryside was allowed to govern itself. During the Qin and Han dynasties, the political power was under the county, and township-level institutions were set up under the county, so when we read Han Shu and Historical Records, we can read XX County, XX County, XX Township and XX in the Han Dynasty, which is similar to the address we now write to our hometown. For example, XX Village, XX Commune, Longyou County, Zhejiang Province, is exactly the same expression as in the Han Dynasty. Liji Village is also a natural village.

After the abolition of the commune, the ownership of the land shrank at both ends, the ownership at the team level shrank to the village, the ownership at the commune level also precipitated to the village, and the land became collective ownership of the village. The so-called farmer, strictly speaking, is a villager. This villager is the co-owner and contractor of the collective ownership of the village. We say that the peasant is actually an identity group, not a class concept, nor a hierarchy, which is a very important concept of Marx and Weber, which is different from class and hierarchy. This group is defined because it is a village and is defined because it owns land. According to this understanding, migrant workers are not a class, but an identity group. This group is defined by their respective villages. He became a villager of XX village because he had land in the village. It is legally impossible for the villagers of this village to become villagers of that village. The villagers were feudal. Seal up the soil and build the qualification of a villager. So you have to understand all the peasants and restore them to which province, county, township and village he is a villager.

After 1998, the second land system change, it is stipulated that it will remain unchanged for 30 years. The 17th CPC National Congress stipulates that the land will remain unchanged for a long time. The 18th CPC National Congress later continued this saying, saying that it will remain the same forever, and then there will be no increase in life and no decrease in death. Please pay attention to its sociological significance. What is the sociological meaning of this economic institutional arrangement? That is to say, if the girl from village A marries to village B, the girl becomes the wife of village B, but she has no land, so theoretically she is not a villager of this village, so the villager is feudal in his original village because of land ownership. In this way, how is the mobility of farmers possible? The purpose of this system is to protect farmers as well as agriculture. suppose you have one mu of land, you are from this village, you come out to work to earn extra income, you can go back if you cannot work, you have the security of land, you cannot buy or sell, you cannot mortgage, and you will always belong to you. Then, take the village as a unit to establish medical security and new cooperative medical care. Not long ago, I just went to Hangzhou to do research. In the south of Xixi Wetland, the labor force was introduced on a large scale. There are only 28000 local people and 58000 foreigners, and the land of several villages has all been urbanized. In 2006, Wang Guoping, secretary of the municipal party committee in charge of Hangzhou, stipulated that 10% of the land expropriated was owned by the village, that is, the collective construction land of the village, for fear that there would be too much land expropriation and there was no guarantee for farmers. The farmers' land is also owned by the peasants, who can build houses, which are originally two-story buildings and can be built into five floors. The rent of such a house will occur, and there can be a stable rent of 30,000, 40,000 to 200,000 to 300,000 a year, which varies from good to bad. The collective construction land in the village can be used to build factories and commercial and residential buildings, and it can be rented out every year, and this rent should be paid a dividend. However, as soon as it comes to the question of dividends, who are the villagers? If you are a villager, you can get a dividend, but if you don't, you won't. They quarreled for three years and just figured it out. Married, aren't you? Got married, didn't you? Recruiting a son-in-law, isn't it? The dead, aren't they? It's just born, isn't it? Of course, there is a problem. I will not talk about it here. Therefore, if we want to understand the rural problems, we should start with the land system. To understand the arrangement of the land system, on the one hand, it protects farmers, but on the other hand, it also restricts farmers. In other words, the other side of rights is responsibility. The right to leave responsibility does not exist, nor does it exist without the protection of bondage. So far, is constraint greater than protection? Or does protection outweigh constraints? We have no way to give a universal answer. Therefore, when you think of farmers, do not think of undifferentiated peasants. No, he belongs to a certain village. He is a villager and defines a peasant as a villager. The villagers are collective in nature, and the reason is that the land is collectively owned and he can contract it.