4.2 Land Reform in China
4.2.2 Land reform model
Prior to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, land could be privately owned and exchanged between parties, but by the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 all land was owned by collectives or the state. Private ownership rights disappeared and land transactions were banned. The second phase of land reform in China, beginning in the mid-1980s, was typical of land reform in ex-socialist countries (which present-day China has effectively become) in its focus on privatisation and de-collectivisation of properties,
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abandoning communal farming (Griffin, Khan & Ickowitz, 2001:1).6 Communal farming was abandoned because of the catastrophic Chinese famine of 1958- 1961 where millions of people died of starvation. Ashton et al., (1984: 614) maintains that 23 million people died, Coale (in Ashton et al., 1984: 615) estimates it at 27 million, Harms (1996: 2) estimates the death between 16.5 million and 40 million, while Chang and Wen (1997: 1) estimate it at 30 million deaths. The situation was terrible as people were beaten to death for stealing grain from the fields. During this time people ate everything including leaves, roots, poisonous berries, leather, unripe crops and earth before succumbing (Walden: 2010).
The causes of the Chinese Famine are viewed differently by various scholars.
Chang and Wen, (1997: 1) cite the reduction in sown acreage, the high grain procurement, disregarding allocation of resources to agriculture by the state and most important the forced collectivization. Goldstone (1995: 39) maintains that the famine was due firstly to diversion of labour from agriculture into inefficient backyard industries. Secondly, the cultivation of grain on all cultivated land irrespective of suitability or cost contributed to the famine as woodlands were destroyed and there was massive erosion. These were Mao Zedong’s land reform policies that failed China. Perry (2007: 4) agrees with Goldstone that the introduction of rural communes which resulted in chronic poverty for millions of rural communities in China was the result of Mao Zedong’s administration. This is linked with the horrendous Great Leap famine.
This is the period when many people in China died of starvation. Millions of people were left without food. Some reports indicated that there was also
6 This is in direct contrast to the position in South Africa, where the 1996 Communal Property Associations Act encourages communalisation or collectivisation. If Griffin, Khan and Ickowitz are correct, the South African government’s communalising land reform needs to be examined to establish whether the system has truly led to agricultural growth and a reduction in the poverty levels of the beneficiaries.
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cannibalism, because the grain was finished and the state could not produce enough to feed its people. The situation changed during Deng Xiaoping’s administration where centrally controlled communal farming was abandoned in favour of private land controlled by peasant families. This resulted in increased productivity and diligent use of the farmland.
In a pilot project, state-owned land was leased to foreign companies in Shenzen, a Specialised Economic Development Zone, and in 1988, China amended its constitution to allow transactions in land through leasing.
Corporations could lease land from the government through an up-front payment of land-use fees for an extended period (40-70 years). In this model, China made a distinction between land ownership and land-use rights. The state continued to own the land, while corporations and households could enjoy user rights (Ding, 2005: 3). The separation of ownership and user rights ensured that:
As the owners of the land, the state would be able to minimise social and political conflicts
Market mechanisms could help to guide the allocation of scarce resources
Local government would get revenue from land-use fees (Ding, 2005: 3) Ding and Knaap (2003 ) maintain that this system of land-use rights has had a positive impact on the economy of China, has enhanced the fiscal capacity of local government and has accelerated the advancement of market socialism.
Griffin et al (2001: 37) maintain that China is one of five Asian countries that successfully transformed their agrarian structures after the Second World War:
the others being Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Vietnam.
If, as has been claimed by Griffin et al (2001), that the Chinese model successfully benefited beneficiaries, local government and the economy, does this means that the same could be said for the South African model? The main difference between the two countries is that in South Africa land is privately owned. Where the state is the landowner, it has better control of the process.
For example, China targeted corporations and not only poor households (as
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South Africa is doing), hence the economic benefit. Is the South African land reform model having a multiplier effect? In other words, can beneficiaries increase production or even produce on the properties that have been given to them in order to benefit themselves and the country? Can they pay their rates to the municipalities as per the provisions of the Municipal Property Rates Act (as the land owners)? Does the model encourage equity? These are some of the questions that are critical when assessing the success of a land reform programme. What implications would this have for the South African model of communal or collective agriculture as per the provisions of the Communal Property Associations Act of 1996?
Considering that South Africa has itself taken a step in the direction of communalisation or collectivisation in the 1996 Communal Property Associations Act, it is obviously relevant for South Africans to ask what prompted China’s “cyclical movement” from peasant holdings to collective farming and back to peasant farming. According to Griffin et al (2001: 49), although the original redistribution of land to individual farmers was successful, the subsequent move to collectivisation was based on the assumption that individual holdings would be inefficient because the farms would be too small for modern, mechanised agricultural production. It was also argued that individual holdings would lead to unequal land ownership because rich peasants would take over land owned by the poor. Unfortunately, the intended outcomes did not materialise; the new system turned out to be disastrously inefficient (Griffin et al 2001: 50). The decision was made to “decollectivise”, reverting to family-based agriculture (Brandt et al., 2002: 67). Land owned by the state was redistributed to individual households, but with the state retaining ownership of the land, while households had secure rights to use it (Griffin, Khan & Ickowitz, 2001: 50).
Ding and Knaap (2003) describe this history as a move from a state-controlled system to a system strongly influenced by market forces. South Africa’s model is also market-led, and the crucial question is whether it benefits from this model, as countries like China do. The difference in China is that the state owns the land and “privatises” only land-use rights. In South Africa, ownership
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is in private hands and the challenge is how the state can play a central role in shaping the reform process when it does not own the land.