莫
非中国领导人开始重新思考中国的土地管理方式了？
Zuma Press
像重庆一样迅速扩张的大城市正挑战着中国政府以农业上自给自足来平衡城市化的努力。
现在，中国最高土地政策机构的一名高级顾问似乎准备放弃这个想法了。
本周，渣打银行（Standard Chartered）在一份报告中提到了中央农村工作领导小组副组长陈锡文最近发布的一篇杂志社论，他在文章中试探性地表示中国不应在管理土地资源时采取严格的城乡平等交换的原则，十分引人注目。
陈锡文写道，适当增加必要性建设用地，也许比机械地追求当年耕地的占补平衡更为理性。
渣打银行分析师王志浩（Stephen Green）说，这种说法表明了"重大的政策妥协"，他称这表明北京方面已经准备承认短期内城市的扩张速度会比收回耕地的速度更快。
此时的中国随着大力促进中国中西部农村地区的城镇化进程向前迈进，正面临农村人口大规模流向城市的移民大潮，中西部城镇化进程被视为北京方面推动持续经济增长中的关键组成部分。在整个城镇化过程中，有关部门始终严守18亿亩（约1.2亿公顷）耕地底线。虽然陈锡文似乎有甩掉该要求的意愿，但王志浩指出，中国也许仍会借助调整某些数据统计的方式，以实现自给自足的目标。
王志浩写道，如果确实需要牺牲某些耕地，那么对粮食进口的需求会增长，尤其是玉米；非食用用途的玉米很有可能不被列为自给自足目标的范围内，从而为进口更多玉米提供更多理由。
中国目前的目标要求粮食自给率为95%。
另外，王志浩还将中国土地使用政策的转向归因于中国政府开始承认，随着时间的推移，土地改革将可在农业生产效率提高和城市扩容之间找到平衡点，但同时政府也承认，目前还存在非法的城市化扩张行为，并且有关部门在这方面应对不力，尽管中央政府已做出了最大努力。
中国农民的抗议行为呈上升趋势，其中很多人的抗议是由于地方政府征地，其村庄被城市扩张所吞没。公众对于强行征地拆迁感到十分愤怒，而中央政府又似乎无力阻止地方政府的所作所为，中央领导人认为这是威胁中国社会稳定的最大因素之一，并且会殃及统治。
陈锡文的解决方案意在鼓励农村集体组织自行开发属于自己的土地，而不是让地方政府给他们一次性付清一笔费用(一般都很少)，就征用了他们的土地。陈锡文还呼吁中央政府限制地方政府的权力，不要让其随意从农民手中征地。
随着新拆迁条例草案的出台，中国国务院似乎已向限制地方政府征地权力的方向迈出了一步。草案将强制拆迁的专项权力交给法院，并要求拆迁补偿金的数额至少与被拆迁房屋的公平市价相当。
王志浩指出，尽管陈锡文在城市化问题上有所让步，但从根本上说，他还是支持社会主义新农村建设计划的。该计划倡议对农村地区进行现代化建设，不过中国有些领导人批评说，这是资源浪费。陈锡文坚持认为，尽管有年轻一代农民将步入城市地区，但仍约有4.5亿年龄较大的农民会需要新农村计划所提供的设施和服务。
陈锡文写道：中国发展不能仅依赖大城市，也需要小城市和小乡镇，需要建设社会主义新农村。
至于中国政府是否有能力或意愿来实现这样一个目标，仍有待进一步观察。
Jonathan Shieber
（更新完成）
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
Are China's leaders beginning to rethink the way they manage the country's land?
From redistribution to radical collectivization and back again, massive changes in land use policy have been part and parcel of Chinese politics for the better part of a century. In recent decades, however, the government has been remarkably consistent, holding tight to a land-use policy built around the goal of agricultural self-sufficiency and mandating that any arable land given over to the country's growing cities be replaced with reclaimed farmland elsewhere.
Now it appears one of the government's top land use advisers may be prepared to abandon that idea.
In a recent magazine editorial highlighted by Standard Chartered in a report this week, Chen Xiwen, deputy head of the Central Leading Group on Rural Affairs, takes a tentative but noteworthy step away from the idea that China has to maintain the strict urban-rural quid-pro-quo in managing the country's land resources.
'Necessary and suitable expansion of construction land,' Chen writes, might be preferable to 'the extreme enforcement of each year's dynamic balance.'
Such a statement represents a 'significant policy concession,' argues Standard Chartered analyst Stephen Green, calling it a sign that Beijing is ready to realize that cities can expand faster than agricultural land is recovered in the short term.
Chen's editorial comes with China in the mist of a massive rural-urban migration, aided in part by aggressive efforts to urbanize rural areas in central and western China seen as a critical component in Beijing's plans for continued economic growth. Throughout that process, authorities have insisted on maintaining a 'bottom line' of 1.8 billion mu, or roughly 120 million hectares, of land for use in agriculture. While Chen seems willing to drop that requirement, Green suggests China might still meet its self-sufficiency goal with some statistical shuffling.
'If some agricultural land is indeed sacrificed, then the need for grain imports, particularly corn, will rise. It is very possible that corn for non-food use could be reclassified as being outside the self-sufficiency target, thus giving more cover for more corn imports,' Green writes.
China's current target calls for the country to produce 95% of the grain it consumes.
In part, Green attributes the shift to an acknowledgment that over time, the land reforms will balance increased efficiency in agricultural production with more urban space, but it is also an acknowledgment that illegal expansion of urban areas is an ongoing, and poorly addressed, problem despite the best efforts of the central government.
China has seen a dramatic uptick in protests by rural residents, many in response to local government land seizures as villages are plowed under for growth. Public anger over the seizures, and the central government's apparent inability to stop them, is considered by leaders in Beijing to be one of the greatest threats to social stability in China, and by extension, to Communist Party rule.
Chen's solution is to encourage rural collectives develop their own land rather than allow local governments to expropriate it for a (usually meager) lump sum payment. Chen also calls for Beijing to limit the power of local governments to take land from residents.
China's State Council seemed to take a step in that direction today with the release of draft regulations (in Chinese) that would put power to order forced demolition exclusively in the hands of the courts and require compensation to be at least equal to the fair market value for the building to be removed.
Despite his concessions on urban development, Green notes, Chen is ultimately a proponent of the New Socialist Countryside, a program that advocates modernizing rural areas and has been criticized by some in the government as a waste of resources. Chen is adamant that while younger rural residents will move to urban areas, approximately 450 million older citizens will still need the amenities and services the program aims to provide.
"We cannot just rely upon big cities," Chen writes. "We also need small cities, small townships and to build the New Socialist Countryside."
Whether the government has the power or the will to realize such a vision remains to be seen.
Jonathan Shieber
From redistribution to radical collectivization and back again, massive changes in land use policy have been part and parcel of Chinese politics for the better part of a century. In recent decades, however, the government has been remarkably consistent, holding tight to a land-use policy built around the goal of agricultural self-sufficiency and mandating that any arable land given over to the country's growing cities be replaced with reclaimed farmland elsewhere.
Now it appears one of the government's top land use advisers may be prepared to abandon that idea.
In a recent magazine editorial highlighted by Standard Chartered in a report this week, Chen Xiwen, deputy head of the Central Leading Group on Rural Affairs, takes a tentative but noteworthy step away from the idea that China has to maintain the strict urban-rural quid-pro-quo in managing the country's land resources.
'Necessary and suitable expansion of construction land,' Chen writes, might be preferable to 'the extreme enforcement of each year's dynamic balance.'
Such a statement represents a 'significant policy concession,' argues Standard Chartered analyst Stephen Green, calling it a sign that Beijing is ready to realize that cities can expand faster than agricultural land is recovered in the short term.
Chen's editorial comes with China in the mist of a massive rural-urban migration, aided in part by aggressive efforts to urbanize rural areas in central and western China seen as a critical component in Beijing's plans for continued economic growth. Throughout that process, authorities have insisted on maintaining a 'bottom line' of 1.8 billion mu, or roughly 120 million hectares, of land for use in agriculture. While Chen seems willing to drop that requirement, Green suggests China might still meet its self-sufficiency goal with some statistical shuffling.
'If some agricultural land is indeed sacrificed, then the need for grain imports, particularly corn, will rise. It is very possible that corn for non-food use could be reclassified as being outside the self-sufficiency target, thus giving more cover for more corn imports,' Green writes.
China's current target calls for the country to produce 95% of the grain it consumes.
In part, Green attributes the shift to an acknowledgment that over time, the land reforms will balance increased efficiency in agricultural production with more urban space, but it is also an acknowledgment that illegal expansion of urban areas is an ongoing, and poorly addressed, problem despite the best efforts of the central government.
China has seen a dramatic uptick in protests by rural residents, many in response to local government land seizures as villages are plowed under for growth. Public anger over the seizures, and the central government's apparent inability to stop them, is considered by leaders in Beijing to be one of the greatest threats to social stability in China, and by extension, to Communist Party rule.
Chen's solution is to encourage rural collectives develop their own land rather than allow local governments to expropriate it for a (usually meager) lump sum payment. Chen also calls for Beijing to limit the power of local governments to take land from residents.
China's State Council seemed to take a step in that direction today with the release of draft regulations (in Chinese) that would put power to order forced demolition exclusively in the hands of the courts and require compensation to be at least equal to the fair market value for the building to be removed.
Despite his concessions on urban development, Green notes, Chen is ultimately a proponent of the New Socialist Countryside, a program that advocates modernizing rural areas and has been criticized by some in the government as a waste of resources. Chen is adamant that while younger rural residents will move to urban areas, approximately 450 million older citizens will still need the amenities and services the program aims to provide.
"We cannot just rely upon big cities," Chen writes. "We also need small cities, small townships and to build the New Socialist Countryside."
Whether the government has the power or the will to realize such a vision remains to be seen.
Jonathan Shieber
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