Types of Land Development in Chinese Villages under Rapid Urbanization: The Town-Villages and Village-Towns in the Pearl-River Delta

In the beginning of 2010, the No.1 document of China central government focuses on the issues of agriculture, farmers and rural areas (三農問題) once again. This is the twelfth central No.1 document in the last seven consecutive years which concerns village/agriculture issues. These documents indicate the importance of these issues under the ongoing rapid-urbanization. The socialist legacy of urban-rural dichotomy in land ownership maintains to this day and results in a geographical pattern where state-owned urban areas are surrounded by village-owned countryside. Under the state-monopolized market of urban land ownership, village collectives become the source of low-cost land for the purpose of urban development initiated by the local state, the so-called “town villages” are the results of state-led land expropriation.
This thesis chooses three urbanized-villages in Pearl-river Delta as cases to look into the process how socialist villages, pursuing their own economic interests, have joined the regional urban/economic development with their own collective land. With focus on the village collective land, this research conceptualizes the dynamics between the village and local state into “social force” and “public "public authorities”, in order to discuss different types of land development in Chinese villages under rapid urbanization. Development conditions of these three cases are different according to their “locality” and “collectivity.” Locality includes: 1. Locational conditions as determined by land nationalization; and 2. The land development types determined by the location. Collectivity takes account of: 1. The institution of public ownership; and 2. Kinship network. The results of the three villages indicate different paths of evolution of the socialist village public ownership: Yu-nong (漁農) village -- “collective privatization”; Shi-jing (石井) village -- “dispersed collective ownership”; Nan-ting (南亭) village -- “partial collective ownership”.
oWe conclude that: 1. Local clanship is a crucial factor in collectivity formation; 2. The conflict hbetween the social force and public powers happens in village land development, that is to say, the locality, as determined by both the village and local state, effects the performance of the local collective economy; and 3. The performance of collective economy determines whether the “socialist village public ownership” would be supported by the farmers.