Master in International Economic with a focus on China Chinese land reform: property rights and land use Xinhao Yang
[email protected] Abstract: Is China’s “ property rights ” legislation, which distinguishes transferable “property rights” and inalienable “land ownership”, a new concept that is unknown before, or a pragmatic reversion to the individual property rights system abolished by the communist revolution? This study claims that the latter is a better exposition. As part of a “socialist market economy”, such a reversion is manifested in the legal recognition of the leasehold tenure after the “responsibility system” in agricultural production had proved to be successful. As the development of private property rights is a prelude to market transactions, land use rights reform in China should be conducive to the success of China’s economic liberalization policies, provided that there is a contemporaneous advance in the development of the polices and technical know-how, such as new land use right policy and land surveying. Key words: property rights, land reform, land ownership, private property rights, rules of law. EKHM52 Master thesis, First year (15 credits ECTS) October 2014 Supervisor: Patrick Svensson Examiner: Christer Gunnarsson 1 Acknowledgments At the point of finishing this paper, I’d like to express my sincere thanks to all those who have lent me hands in the course of my writing this paper. First of all, I'd like to take this opportunity to show my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Patrick Svensson, who has given me so much useful advices on my writing, and has tried his best to improve my paper.