Transforming rural housing land to farmland in Chongqing, China: The land coupon approach and farmers’ complaints

Land Use Policy 83 (2019) 370–378

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Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol

Transforming rural housing land to farmland in Chongqing, China: The land coupon approach and farmers’ complaints

T

Sun Sheng Hana, , Wenqi Linb ⁎

a b

Melbourne School of Design, The University of Melbourne, Parkville Melbourne VIC 3010, Australia School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

ARTICLE INFO

ABSTRACT

Keywords: Land reclamation Land coupon Rural housing Chongqing

Rapid urbanization in China since 1978 has created enormous pressure on farmland, which is encroached by not only urban expansion but also rural construction of peasant housing and services. As a land-use planning and management response, the Central Government endorsed a policy that bundles the reduction of rural construction land with the increase of urban built-up area, thus making it possible to connect the two seemingly contradictory processes between adding on to and taking off from the farmland bank by reclamation of rural construction sites and urban expansion respectively. This paper contributes to an emerging literature on the study of transformation of rural construction land by examining the land coupon approach and the associated complaints from the participating farmers in Chongqing, China. Data are collected from a government online feedback platform, supplemented by public policy documents. The findings reveal that the land coupon approach is a kaleidoscope that demonstrates a wide range of players in the farmland reclamation process. Farmers go through a lengthy and complicated process shaped by historical inconsistencies of policies, rent-seeking individuals and organizations, and market uncertainties. Their complaints focused on tangible issues especially on compensation payment, but intangible issues such as local and national policy intentions were totally ignored. Farmland reclamation is set to create landless farmers with poor social and financial security, which deserves attention in rethinking the land policies.

1. Introduction Farmland reclamation provides a new source of land supply to sustain China’s urbanization. Under the new land policy of Bundling up Addition of Urban Land with Reduction of Rural Construction Land (abbreviated as BAR hereafter)1, the amount of arable land reclaimed from rural construction land2 set up the limit for urban land expansion. Since its launch in 2004, BAR has attracted commentators who write on the pros and cons and the desirable measures required to optimize the policy outcome (Duan and Fu, 2011; Long et al., 2012; Ren and Zhou, 2013; Long, 2014; Tan, 2014; Gu et al., 2014; Zhao and Zhang, 2017). The increasing knowledge about BAR relating to its history, feasibility, and implementation, however, is in sharp contrast to the lack of understanding of the participating farmers. What are the phases, stages

and steps that participating farmers need to go through? Are there concerns in the policy implementation process? How the concerns and the ways that the concerns are addressed feedback to the broad land policy picture? The above questions are raised with a view that farmland reclamation is not merely a physical or technical process. Farmland reclamation changes property right and redistributes land-related benefits among the participants (Chen et al., 2017; Long and Liu, 2016; Zhao and Zhang, 2017). Multiple stakeholders, including farmers, rural collectives, developers and local governments are all active players in pursuing a maximum share of the newly created value derived from farmland reclamation (Han and Wei, 2015). These players have conflicting expectations in the process (Long et al., 2012; Luo and Timothy, 2017; Long and Liu, 2016). As Gou (2012, 38) summarized, the farmers

Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.S. Han), [email protected] (W. Lin). This policy has been translated as ‘increasing vs decreasing balance’ (Long et al., 2012; Zhao and Zhang 2018). For clarity, this paper uses the translation in Han and Wei (2015). 2 Rural construction land includes three land-use types. They are land used for 1) rural housing (also known as rural homesteads), 2) rural infrastructure (e.g., roads, schools and administrative offices), and 3) collective businesses (e.g. town and village enterprises). ⁎

1

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.02.001 Received 21 September 2018; Received in revised form 13 December 2018; Accepted 1 February 2019 Available online 22 February 2019 0264-8377/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Land Use Policy 83 (2019) 370–378

S.S. Han and W. Lin

reduced the demand for rural housing.5 Rather, it was widely observed that peasants who migrated to cities sent back cash and re-built their rural houses (Liu and Chen, 2010). The demand for rural housing was further strengthened by the changing family structure, i.e., the traditional large families dissolved into small ones, and the rising income level (Liu and Fang, 2014). Statistics from the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) show that in 1996, the rural built-up area was 164,500 km2 whilst in 2010, it was 182,100 km2. In contrast, the urban built-up areas were 26,500 km2 and 40,300 km2 respectively. There were a total of 31,400 km2 additional built-up areas in China in the period 1996–2010, where urban expansion contributed 13,800 km2 and rural construction contributed 17,600 km2 (MLR, 1997, 2011). The combined effect of urban expansion and rural housing construction was that the amount of arable land in China had been reduced to its threshold level. According to calculations for food security, China needs at least 1.8 billion mu6 arable lands; this threshold amount has been seriously observed in government land policies (Long et al., 2012; Liu, 2018; Han and Wei, 2015).

expected a share proportional to the land area they contributed, while the new land owners or the developers demanded for an un-proportionally larger share on the basis of their belief that the added value was created by their investment. The local government also argued for a larger share for their planning and infrastructure efforts. The rural collective sought for compensation to their loss of property right, to be calculated according to differential rent. Apparently, rural land is a highly contested asset, and poor management of the process has already resulted in social and political instabilities (Pils, 2016; Lin et al., 2018). This paper provides a systematic account on the farmers’ complaints in the contexts of rights and procedures in the BAR policy implementation, by examining farmland reclamation in Chongqing - one of the 24 local governments chosen by the central government to pioneer the BAR policy. Chongqing represents a unique case where a ‘land coupon’ approach has been introduced since 2008 to run in parallel with the ‘quota turnover’ (zhibiao zhouzhuan) approach3 . Both approaches need to balance the changes between farmland and urban built-up area, but they are different as the former requires reclamation of rural construction land before converting farmland to urban-land on a city-wide scale, while the latter allows urban encroachment to farmland to occur first within districts and counties. Moreover, the ‘quota turnover’ approach is administrative in nature but the ‘land coupon’ approach is market-driven (Gu et al., 2014)4 . This paper identifies and discusses complaints of the participating farmers in using the ‘land coupon’ approach. A brief review of farmland reclamation is presented before reviewing the rights and procedures in reclamation of rural housing land, followed by an outline of the conceptual framework and data, discussion of the empirical findings and a conclusion of the study.

2.2. Farmland reclamation The Land Management Act 1998 made it clear that ‘…non-agricultural development using arable land with permission must be accompanied by reclamation of the same amount of land as taken; the work-unit which initiates the development is responsible for the reclamation’. This practice is generally known as zhanbu pingheng (Balance between Taken-for-construction and Reclamation, or, BTR). Researchers claim that on surface, BTR ‘has made significant progress in slowing the farmland losses’ but due to illegal construction and the Return Farmland to Forrest Program ‘the Chinese government did not effectively control the rapidly decreasing amount of farmland’ (Xin and Li, 2018)7 . In 2004, the BAR policy was introduced in order to further explore the potential of reclaiming rural construction land (Long et al., 2012; Han and Wei, 2015; Zhao and Zhang, 2017). The main difference between BTR and BAR is that reclamation in BTR is not necessarily from rural construction land, whilst BAR is active in seeking rural construction land to be reclaimed in order to accommodate urban expansion (Tan, 2014). Anecdotal evidences show that the BAR policy has not been received well by farmers. Long et al (2012) show that the policy has inherited problem of its top-down design thus has failed to engage local actors in dealing with hollowed villages. Zhao and Zhang (2017) demonstrate that the ‘planned’ policy benefits are not appreciated by the farmers. These issues not only reduce the effectiveness of the policy but also lead to conflicts. In the Chinese language publications, some commentators debated on the possibility of discarding the BAR policy but others proposed changes for improvement (Ren and Zhou, 2013). A notably dominant angle of the comments is from a macro-level strategic perspective focusing on how the policy addresses national and local development concerns. None of the existing publications has examined the policy implementation process from the farmers’ perspective.

2. Farmland reclamation as a solution to urban land shortage and a source of rural conflicts 2.1. The context Since 1978, China has been urbanized at an extraordinary pace. More than 600 million rural residents moved to cities and towns in the period 1978–2015, resulting in a sharp increase in the level of urbanization from 17.9% to 56.1% (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 1979, 2016). This rapid urbanization has created enormous pressure on land supply for sustaining urban expansion nation-wide, as the increasing population and economic activities in cities demand for more spaces for housing, industrial parks, facilities and services, as well as infrastructure. These demands have been met largely by greenfield development, which encroaches into farms and takes arable land away from food production. Land cover change studies reveal that 14.6 million hectares of arable land was taken away from farming in the period 1978–2015 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 1979, 2016). In addition, China’s arable land has been reduced by rural housing construction. It is ironic that the decline of rural population had not

2.3. Farmers in farmland reclamation

3

Yep and Forrest (2016, p477) translate ‘dipiao’ to ‘land bill system’ in recognition of that the essence of Chongqing’s ‘dipiao’ is financialisation and securitization of land-use rights but the alterative translations such as ‘land voucher’ or ‘land coupon’ ‘have a connotation of subsidy attached or consumption related’. This paper acknowledges the lack of consensus in translation and chooses to use the term ‘land coupon’ to represent ‘dipiao’. In urban economics, ‘development coupon’ has been used as a tool to manage development right transfer (O’Sullivan, 1996, pp 296-8), which plays a similar functional role of ‘dipiao’ in Chongqing’s land market. 4 This approach allows urban development into greenfield to occur after obtaining a ‘turnover quota’ from the central government. The reclamation of rural construction land will follow at a later stage. There were evidences to show that heavy financial burden of urban development often meant that the land reclamation plan could not be carried out, and the farmers would not be fully compensated.

Farmers have played a passive role in the policy design and implementation processes but are placed under spotlight in land-related 5 This was so in the period at least until 2010. More recent evidences show that apartments in small cities and towns have been attractive to farmers in the real estate market. 6 Mu is an area measurement used in China. 1 ha = 15 mu. 7 Xin and Li (2018) argue that ‘China should not massively reclaim new farmland’ on the basis of a possible false alarm of food insecurity, scarcity of non-farmland to be claimed, high economic cost of reclamation and inefficient use even abandonment of existing farmland. There isn’t any official decision to discard the BTR policy.

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disputes. The starting point of rural land reclamation policy was a macro-level national food security concern aggravated by rapid urbanization. This has placed the central government, rather than the farmers, in a leading and active role in policy formulation. In policy implementation, it has been the local governments which are keen to evacuate farmers from their rural ‘homesteads’8 for the purpose of boosting their land-use quota and money-making opportunities (Lichtenberg and Ding, 2009; Zhao and Zhang, 2017). Though playing a passive role in policy design and implementation, many farmers, especially those who have little alternative income sources other than farming, are highly sensitive to land reform (Luo and Timothy, 2017). Lin et al (2018) summarize from the literature that more than 65% of farmers’ petition in China are land-related, and the issues spread widely into the various stages of land acquisition such as the overall project purpose, procedure, compensation and settlement. Land-acquisition induced protests threat social stability, some of which (e.g. the Wukan village uprising in 2011) attracted international attention (Yep and Forrest, 2016; Zhao and Zhang, 2017; Lin et al., 2018). An assessment of farmers’ satisfaction with rural land consolidation programs in three government-designated experimental townships in Zhejiang, Hunan and Guizhou provinces show that more than three quarter of the correspondents (76.5%) were happy with the outcomes (Luo and Timothy, 2017). However, other programs showed less-positive outcomes. For example, Zhao and Zhang (2017) demonstrated ‘some potential problems’ in a village in Shaanxi Province, including high cost, weak influence on farmers’ quality of life, little change in agricultural production, insufficient consideration of industrial development, and limited improvement in rural ecology. From a farmers’ perspective, their willingness to withdraw from their homesteads were shaped by convenience of transportation, level of compensation, distance from their new housing to work which could be the farm or nonagricultural jobs, the services and facilities available at the new housing location, and the quality (i.e., whether or not the house is structurally sound) of their homesteads to be reclaimed (Chen et al., 2017). Apparently, some imagined benefits (e.g., the provision of biogas which replaces plant stalks burning for cocking) were not appreciated by farmers because of the high cost (Zhao and Zhang, 2017). Farmers’ dissatisfaction were always associated with the government, such as their misconducts (e.g. land acquisition with no agreement, low or no compensation), their corruptive officials, and the unclear land ownership under their care (Zhao and Zhang, 2017).

reality land for rural housing was mainly used by farmers, it was not until 1998 that the then newly endorsed Land Administration Act made it official, i.e., only farmers have the right to use land for permanent rural housing. The size of homestead land blocks is another area with changing definitions. The Land Administration Act 1986 stipulated that the size of land block for rural housing should not exceed the standard imposed by the respective governments in provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. If the land block exceeded the standard size, the rural collective would take back the excessive land when the siting farmer decided to demolish or reconstruct their house or to resettle. The Land Administration Act 1998 introduced for the first time the ‘one land parcel for one household’ principle and stipulated that the construction of rural housing has to conform to the long-term and annual land-use plan. It pronounces that land blocks exceeding the standard must be returned to rural collectives. As to the right of obtaining homestead land, only the local residents are qualified. Non rural residents are prohibited from using rural land for housing. In 2008, after almost five decades without a land right certificate, the Ministry of Land Resource (2008) decided to push forward the registration of rural land-use right and to make clear about land-use standards for rural housing. Three scenarios were provided to guide the registration process. 1) Land occupied for rural housing before the implementation of the 1982 policy without further expansion since then would be registered according to its existing area of usage. This means that it is legal to have some homestead land blocks larger than the standard size. 2) For land blocks brought into use during the period 1982–1987, the land area exceeding the standard should be registered according to the existing area of usage after adjustment abiding to relevant regulations issued then by national and local governments. Practically, there was rarely any guidance for adjustment so the official records reflect the existing usage. 3) For homestead land blocks occupied since 1987, the excessive area should be noted in the land registration and land-use right certificate. Land blocks in this group should be re-registered according to relevant regulation and standards when the household is to construct another house, to resettle, or to upgrade the present house. In this scenario, the excess remains until the existing land and housing is to change. Farmers’ right to their houses has been more consistent than that to the land. They have kept the housing ownership right since 1949, and maintained the right to lease, sell and inherent the houses. However, according to Land Administrative Act 1998, farmers are prohibited from selling rural house to urban residents. They have the right to be properly compensated and to be resettled well if their houses were expropriated, though no details are given about what constitutes an appropriate compensation and/or a good resettlement. Together with the return of land-use registration, the certificate of housing ownership have been issued since 1998.

3. Critical rights and procedures 3.1. Farmers’ rights to land for rural housing It is not always clear about the rights to land and housing in rural China due to policy changes over time. In the first 1950s, all farmers were given the right to own their houses and the associated land blocks. This ownership right was affirmed by a certificate - a legal document issued in most areas in the Mainland. In 1962, the Central Government amended its policy and authorized the removal of the land ownership right from farmers (State Council, 1962). Rural collectives has become the land owners since then and this arrangement was affirmed in the Chinese Constitution 1975 and 1982. Farmers’ right to their homestead land has thus turned into a usership right since 1962. Under this arrangement, farmers have the right to occupy and use their ‘homestead’ land blocks permanently. However, farmers are not the only user group with such a right. In 1982, the State Council stipulated that both urban and rural residents would have the right to use land for rural housing (State Council, 1982). Though in

3.2. Land coupon in Chongqing 3.2.1. Shortage of land supply Chongqing has a mountainous topography which limits land available for large urban projects (Han and Wang, 2001). The master plan of Chongqing 2006 has posed further restrictions to land supply, as Chongqing has been set to slightly increase the amount of its arable land while its additional construction area has been planned to increase by 1084 km2 in the period 2006 – 2020. These targets meant that Chongqing would be allocated a land-use quota smaller than that allocated to the previous planning period (i.e., 1997–2005). Chongqing obtained 104 km2 land-use quota per annum during the periods 1997 2005. For the period 2006–2020, the Central Government would only allocate 72.27 km2 land-use quota to the city per year. Ceteris paribus, the annual shortage of 32 km2 meant that Chongqing wouldn’t maintain the same rate of urban development and industrialization in the current plan period.

8 Many researchers translate the Chinese phrase zhaijidi (literally ‘land for peasants’ housing’) into ‘rural homestead’. For example, see Chen et al (2018) and Kong et al (2018).

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Table 1 The 307-day process in land coupon generation, trade and compensation. Stages & main steps 1. Application (1)Policy explanation (2)Reclamation Application (3)Application processing (4)Application processing and public notification (5)Application approval 2. Rehabilitation (6)Land boundary specification and survey (7)Survey data review and filing (8)Public notification, contract sign off (9) Formulation of project execution plan (10)Archiving (11)Carrying out reclamation project 3. Acceptance (12)Acceptance review application and survey (13)Review and revision of completion survey (14)Acceptance checking by district and county, distribution of completion certificate (15)Acceptance checking by City 4. Land coupon trade (16)Application for land coupon trading (17)Execution of trade (18)Payment accounting 5. Compensation (19)Compensation confirmation (20)Payment transfer

Person/organization in charge

Farmers’ participation

Length (days)

Phase 1: Land coupon generation

244

Village leaders Sitting farmers Village leaders Town officials County land administration bureau

To acknowledge reading of notice To complete the application form 　 　 　

County land administration bureau

To give consent to the land boundary identified 　

Registered survey agency; district and county bureau Town and township, district and county administration County land administration bureau City land administration bureau Construction company or town and/or township administration Construction company; district and county administration Registered survey agency; district and county administration District and/or county land administration bureau City land administration bureau

159

To sign off the contract 　 　 To be informed about project commencement 85 　 　 To be informed about official outcomes of reclamation projects

　

Phase 2. Trade & Compensation County land exchange institute & commercial banks County land exchange institute County land exchange institute County land exchange institute County land exchange institute Commercial banks Phase 3. Land coupon utilization

63 48

To submit bank account information 　

15

To be informed the amount of compensation To receive the payment

　

Fig. 1. Framework of research.

The BAR policy came from the central government in the right time and provided a foundation to experiment with barter and quota transaction approaches. In 2009, the State Council approved Chongqing’s plan to "steadily implement BAR, set up the Chongqing Rural Land Trade Market, and build a market on unified urban and rural construction land" (State Council, 2009). A Chongqing version of BAR using "land coupon", coupled with the land “quota turnover” system has been put in place since then.

property” with “accurate measurement” and “just price” (Chongqing Municipal Government 2008). A 603-day process was used in its initial years until 2012 when it was shortened to a 307-day process involving 20 steps organized into 5 stages within 3 phases for efficiency (Table 1). Farmers are involved directly in 9 out of the 20 steps. There had been a popular response to the land coupon initiative. In its first six years of implementation, there were 152,600 mu rural housing land blocks involved in the trade, amounting to a total of RMB 30.76 billion yuan (Huang, 2015). By 2018, some 258,000 mu rural housing blocks were reclaimed, registering a total of RMB 50.5 billion yuan traded (Xie and Bai, 2018). This was about 172 km2 for the 10 years 2008-2018. On an annual basis, the land coupon scheme

3.2.2. The land coupon approach The BAR policy in Chongqing is implemented with the aims of achieving “true reclamation” and “timely compensation” on “legal 373

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Table 2 Number of step-specific complaints.

1) 2)

3) 4) 5) 6)

Steps

2011* (8-12)

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018* (1-8)

sub-total

(1)Policy Explanation (2)Reclamation Application 2a.Qualification criteria not clear 2b.Housing omitted in official base map 2c.Homestead land used by emigrant farmers 2d.Rural construction land for collective purposes 2e.Conflicts between neighbors 2f. Reclamation deposit (6)Land boundary specification and survey (surveyor boosting the area for a high survey fee) (11) Site work on demolition and clearance (farmers were asked to pay the demolition company or to demolish by themselves) (14)Distribution of completion certificate 14a.compensation area is smaller than expected 14b. surveyor asking for a fee in exchange of a manipulated outcome, i.e. a larger area (20)Payment transfer 20a.Not receiving compensation 20b.Compensation paid to village leaders’ account Subtotal

1 1 　 　 　 1 　 　 　 　

　 5 　 1 　 　 4 　 2 　

　 21 　 4 9 1 6 1 1 3

1 36 1 6 13 4 12 　 2 5

1 33 3 7 12 7 3 1 3 1

13 35 7 2 13 13 　 　 1 3

13 35 9 1 7 10 4 4 3 1

6 10 3 1 3 2 　 1 　 　

35 176 23 22 57 38 29 7 12 13

　 　 　 　 　 2

5 5 　 1 　 1 13

18 18 　 5 　 5 48

13 13 　 6 1 5 63

25 25 　 18 1 17 81

19 18 1 101 55 46 172

10 8 2 109 72 37 171

1 　 1 35 22 13 52

91 87 4 275 151 124 602

* No data was available for the entire year. The months covered by data are listed in parentheses.

re-posted message as it was deleted the first round due to a language problem in the original inquiry. Each raw data entry includes two parts: the inquiry detailed by its title, author, issue, and the authority assigned if any to answer the inquiry, as well as the response given by either the Network Platform or the authority in charge. The Network Platform data are open to the public thus are partially transparent. However, anyone who uses these data has to be mindful that 1) there was no way to be entirely sure that all records were kept in the dataset. We didn’t have access to the data log book; but even there was such access, log books could be modified too; 2) there was no official list of keywords which were declared as politically sensitive or hostile or embarrassing. Messages were filtered out in a black-box and no one knew whether there was any messages denied from being posted, and if there were, how many; 3) there might be age, gender, income, and/or geography divide in Internet literacy so not all residents had equal access to the Platform. In addition, some would-be participants might be scared off by village/town officials – as revealed in the latter sections, residents were sometimes threatened by losing compensation if they complained. Despite these limitations, the open nature of the Platform provides an opportunity to any determined residents to write in, thus the dataset is sufficiently representative of the collective sentiment.

contributed 17.2 km2 extra land quota for urban expansion. This was about half of the annual shortage in reference to the land quota allocated for 1997–2005 (refer to Section 3.2.1). 4. Framework and data 4.1. Framework of analysis Fig. 1 shows the framework of inquiry for this study. At the core of this inquiry is the relationship between farmers and their usership right to their homestead land, which is to be changed through generation and trade of land coupons for the purpose of supporting a continuous urban land expansion. Farmers’ complaints are raised mainly to the local governments which implement the central government BAR policy. These complaints could focus on step-specific and non-step-specific issues as well as the effects of the policy implementation on their quality of life. Within these foci, broad policy purposes could be a part of the non-step-specific concerns. 4.2. Data Data were collected from the Chongqing Network Platform for Residents’ Participation in Governance which was developed by the Chongqing Municipal Government in July 2010. As a repository the Network Platform provides residents an opportunity to clarify, question, complain and appeal government policies, decisions and projects. Anyone who wishes to voice a concern can do so after registering with his/her mobile phone (thus no post is anonymous because mobile numbers are linked to personal IDs in China). Technically, registered members could post multiple messages, as long as no inappropriate language (i.e. cursing and swearing) is used. However, those messages deemed by the government as politically sensitive, hostile or embarrassing could be blocked out through a nation-wide automatic filtering process using selected keywords. On the other side of the platform, all government departments could be involved to investigate and respond depending on the nature of the inquiry, and their actions are recorded and linked to the triggering messages. By using keyword search among the entries, a total of 1631 pages were captured with usage of ‘reclamation (fugeng)’ and ‘homestead land (zhaijidi)’ in the title and/or text. These represent 1631 entries of raw data covering the period August 2010 to August 2018. After eliminating the repeating records, incomplete records and empty posts, 1455 pages were selected for analysis. One of the 1455 data entries is a

5. Farmers’ complaints Empirical results show that farmers’ complaints concentrated on step-specific issues (602 entries) and non-step-specific issues (1292 entries). 439 of the complaints included both step-specific and nonstep-specific concerns. There was no complaints extending to broader policy goals of either the central (i.e. maintaining 1.8 billion mu arable land as minimum) or local (i.e., stimulating economic growth) governments. There was neither complaint to the quality of life, nor concerns about how their homestead land would be used after reclamation. The three issues relating to explanation of the land coupon scheme, registration for participation, and compensation attracted majority of the complaints. 5.1. Step-specific complaints Problems arose in 6 out of the 9 official steps. They are policy explanation, reclamation application, land boundary specification and survey, site work of demolition and clearance, distribution of completion certificate, and compensation payment (Table 2). 374

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Almost half of the 602 complaints (45.6%) were associated with compensation payment; and 30% were about reclamation application. The third largest group (15.1%) was related to the distribution of completion certificate. Complaints associated with the other three steps accounted for about 10% of the total. Over time, the complaints had increased. However, the trends vary among the issues. Complaints associated with policy explanation (step 1) and payment transfer (step 20) increased; those relating to mapping such as step 14 and the base map used in step 2 decreased; the combined outcome of step 2 (reclamation application) was rather constant from 2014.

securing farmers’ participation. 3) Land boundary specification and survey 14 farmers complained that their land blocks were deliberately exaggerated because the survey agency was paid according to the size of the area surveyed. This would not benefit the farmers because compensation would be determined by a different survey outcome after completion of the project. However, as both survey companies were appointed by the government, the complaint farmers believed that they should be paid according to the larger size.

1) Policy explanation

4) Site work on demolition and clearance

35 complained that village leaders exaggerated the benefits of the scheme in order to persuade farmers to participation. The unrealistic high expectation of compensation boosted the participation numbers. This helped village and town officials to demonstrate a desirable performance level in carrying out the BAR policy; it also helped these officials to reclaim rural construction land under collective usership by obtaining the compulsory minimum number (i.e. 30) of participating farmers – this would create rent-seeking opportunities for some. Nevertheless, unrealistically high expectations were not achievable thus invited complaints.

Nine complaints were about site works which involved demolition of the houses and conversion of the land to farms. By policy design site works were to be carried out by a construction company contracted by the county or town government, and the cost were paid after the land coupon was traded. However, some construction companies asked for payment from the sitting farmers. In other situations, farmers were asked to contribute free labor to carry out the site works. There were also complaints that site works failed to meet the official reclamation standards. As a result of the shoddy site work, the sitting farmers were harmed by having their houses demolished but being turned down by the government for compensation.

2) Reclamation application The 176 complaints relating to reclamation application focused on six issues (Table 2). Reclamation applications for homestead land used by emigrants and those used by collective facilities formed the two largest concerns. 57 complaints were about village leaders who filed reclamation application on behalf of the emigrant farmers without their authorization, or, those who manipulated the land and housing area to benefit themselves at the expense of the emigrant farmers. The latter was possible due to redefinition of land block standards (refer to Section 3.1) for rural housing. The excessive ‘homestead’ land might not be compensated to the siting farmer but to a collective account controlled by village leaders. 38 complaints were about that village leaders applied for the reclamation of land on which collectively-owned structures sat but without the required majority consent from two-thirds collective members. Though not abiding to the policy, the village leaders were eager to proceed because the potential income could be used under their discretion. Due to the absence of auditing and low risk of being penalized, it was tempting for village leaders to cheat for monetary gain. There were 29 complaints associated with disputes between neighbors due to shared building structure. Farmers who owned houses built next to each other and separated by a common wall often ran into situations in which one household might want to participate in the reclamation project but their neighbor might not. Complaints were raised by farmers whose houses became structurally unstable because of the demolition of the neighboring house, or, by those who wished to demolish for reclamation but were not allowed to by the authority because of the potential damage to their neighbors’ property. 23 complained about they not being given the chance to participate because their homestead land was not adjacent to an existing farm, thus the potentially reclaimed land would end up as an isolated patch. These farmers argued that it was not fair to them to be excluded from participation. 22 complaints were about the omission of houses on the base map, which meant that the farmers could not apply for participation. This was challenged as the omission was caused by government mistakes. A few complaints (7) revealed disagreement about town officials or village leaders who collected deposit in order to guarantee applicants not withdrawing from the project once they signed up. The official policy does not include a deposit requirement for the purpose of

5) Distribution of completion certificate 87 farmers complained that their land blocks were mapped smaller on the survey outcome, some even deliberately by the survey company as farmers did not respond to the hint to bribe the surveyor for an exaggeration to the land size. Four complaints were specifically about surveying companies asking for bribes in exchange of a manipulated survey outcome to cheat on block size for more compensation payment. These incidents happened in occasions outside the nine steps which farmers were designated an official presence in the process. In reality, site works including surveying would generate opportunities for the farmers to be in touch with the fieldwork crew. Such incidents were indicators to farmers that the process might not be fair. 6) Payment transfer 275 complaints pointed to the transfer of compensation payment. The majority (151 out of 275) complained that they did not receive the compensation payment. 124 complained that the compensation did not go to the farmers’ (usually the emigrants) bank account but rather to the village leaders’ pockets partially or wholly. 5.2. Non- step-specific complaints Non-step-specific complaints doubled the number of complaints associated with specific steps in the study period. Main issues of concern include policy integrity, length of process, information transparency, trust-worthiness of village and town officials, and project delays (Table 3). 1) Policy integrity 283 grievances pointed to inconsistency in policy delivery. One such complaint reveals that “In 2012 we took part in the rehabilitation project. Soon after the survey was done, our old house was demolished. In 2013 the compensation area was reconfirmed, which was consistent with the area surveyed in 2012. At the end of 2013, we received the first instalment of compensation payment in line with the policy. Four years 375

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Table 3 Non-step-specific complaints. 　Issues

1)

2) 3) 4) 5)

Policy Integrity 1.1) Inconsistency in policy delivery 1.2) Unlawful policy customization 1.3) Lack of technical specifications Unacceptable length of the whole process Lack of information Project delays Trust-worthiness of village and town officials 5.1) Doubt of compensation payment 5.2) Illegal conducts Sub-total

2011 (8-12)

2012

9 　 9 　 1 　 1 　 　 　 11

22 1 21 　 12 11 3 　 　 　 48

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018*

sub-total

(1-8) 57 9 46 2 44 41 2 　 　 　 144

58 8 45 5 72 73 15 6 5 1 224

111 10 92 9 123 104 47 8 7 1 393

86 28 43 15 75 38 32 30 29 1 261

72 35 21 16 6 22 10 44 44 　 154

25 13 6 6 4 12 3 13 13 　 57

440 104 283 53 337 301 113 101 98 3 1292

According to the Annual Bulletins (2008–2016) published by the Chongqing Land Resource and Housing Management Bureau, the delays was caused by oversupply of land coupons as a result of a land market slump. The sale of land-use right increased steadily in the period 2008–2013, but since 2013 the sale had been declining. Though the Municipal Government had a timeline to complete the payment process, the empirical evidence showed that the market did not cooperate thus some of the land coupons couldn’t be cashed out for compensation payment.

later in 2016, we were shocked to learn that the compensation area of all reclamation sites was cut by half… Why should we short changed in compensation payment?” 104 farmers complained the unlawful customization of the policies associated with illegal or erratic behaviors of village or town officials. One complaint reveals that “The village leaders … told us that we would be compensated at 250,000 yuan per mu if we converted our household registration to urban hukou and bought a house from the New Countryside Construction project. For those who did not wish to convert their hukou, they would be paid at 120,000 yuan per mu. According to the policy about subsidizing the needy families, we were supposed to get 5000 yuan per head. But village leaders told us that everyone was compensated 3000 yuan instead, or, no money would be paid to those who complained.”

3) Information transparency 301 complaints pointed to the lack of transparency especially relating to public notification in the reclamation process. The problem escalated over the years as the complaints increased consistently from 11 in 2012 to 41 in 2013 then to 73 in 2014 and reached its peak (104) in 2015. One key complaint in this group was the lack of information about project progress, which gave room for speculating the fate of projects and spreading rumors. Some farmers were frustrated by being kept in dark for too long in their reclamation application and other steps of the process, thus wished to be informed about the progress in all the steps. Some participating farmers were placed in a dilemma as they did not want to spend money to improve their old houses which were soon to be demolished, but the house structure might not be sound enough to last without improvement for an unknown period of time. In a response to such query about the timing of site work, village and town officials explained that the existing large number of land coupons in market caused uncertainty to the implementation and compensation schedule.

The government responses to this complaint show that the village leaders made their own policies. It was confirmed that first, the rehabilitation compensation of rural housing had to conform to the standard of 120,000 yuan per mu no matter whether the household would convert to urban hukou or not. Second, if house purchase from the New Countryside Construction Project was involved, the compensation would be calculated by taking off the newly purchased land area from the rehabilitation area. A subsidy was also said in place by the policy for families that relocated to the New Countryside housing and met criteria including income, the disability status, and housing conditions (e.g., dilapidated housing) or location of residence (e.g., landslide areas). The response also acknowledged the poor publicity as an area for future improvement on the government side. The third group of complaints (53 in number) pointed to the lack of technical specifications in defining the reclamation land area. For example, there were usually small patches of greeneries and/or vegetable farms next to the rural house and all the patches were considered part of the homestead land. These small land patches were included in reclamation documentation but understandably (by the participating farmers) they might not be compensated. However, knowing the policy customization possibility by village leaders, farmers complained that it was unclear whether the small patches generated land coupons and if so who pocketed the compensation payment.

4) Trust-worthiness of village and town officials 101 farmers complained about that village and town officials are distrustful. Some of the complaints expressed anger of farmers who were not comfortable with the idea that market auction was to determine the compensation rate. They thought that the lack of a standard compensation rate was due to village and town officials cunning arrangement for their own benefit. Others expressed their fear about their compensation payment being embezzled. To many, these complaints were not baseless as some farmers had evidences in hand about corruptive officials. The complaints included 17 families that sued the village and town officials for having distributed compensation payment to some farmers but not all the participating farmers.

2) The lengthy process 337 farmers complained about the lengthy process from project initiation to compensation payment. According to Table 3, the number of complaints reached its peak in 2015. In particular, delays of 2–4 years before receiving compensation payment accounted for 76% of the total complaints, whilst complaints of more than 5 years compensation delay were rare (only 18 cases in the dataset). In contrast, one-yeardelay of compensation fallen from 15 cases in 2012 to 4 cases in 2015.

5) Project delays 113 complaints were about delays of rehabilitation after official announcement of farmers’ participation to reclamation project. Many farmers stopped investment on their housing maintenance after 376

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confirmation of homestead withdraw. Some lived in dilapidated housing which could be just strong enough to sustain for the short time period before the planned demolition. Any progress delay meant an increased chance of experiencing a collapse, which was especially risky under bad weather conditions. As such, some farmers were very upset by project delays. Nevertheless, some project delays were unavoidable because the land coupon trading was dependent on the land market, which was affected by the overall economic situation in Chongqing, and to a certain extent, in China and the world.

economic development. There was no sign that the farmers cared about the future of the land on which they lived for generations. These findings point to a question for further research, i.e., do the Chinese farmers care about intangible influences at local, national and global levels and why? The farmland reclamation process is a kaleidoscope in which a range of players interplay with others at their own pace. Farmers were given the opportunity to initiate the land coupon generation process and actively participate in the phases and steps. However, the scope of their participation, as reflected by their complaints, was rather limited to the tangible financial losses and/or gains. Farmland reclamation through the change of land-use right is a life and death issue to some as they will be detached from the land which provides them security. The Chongqing farmers who were brought to face this life and death issue were accompanied in the process by various rent-seeking parties who were keen to share the benefit associated with land reclamation. The narrow focus of farmers’ concerns on receiving a compensation without any interest on the broad policy directions pose a challenge to both the government and the farmers themselves for making innovative policies towards a secured future. At its current value, the compensation is probably negligible compared to the security that land provides to the Chinese farmers.

6. Discussion and conclusion Chongqing’s land coupon approach provides an innovation to land management in China. Since its inception and operation in 2008, 258,000 mu (172 km2) rural housing land has been reclaimed, contributing half to the shortage of annual land-use quota and almost quarter of the annual land quota allocated by the central government. Apparently, in the first 10 years of implementation, rural housing land reclaimed via land coupon initiative could not meet the need of urban expansion in Chongqing. Nevertheless, the land coupon scheme is a novel land management method as it blends the national goal of arable land protection with local goals of economic development and individual goals of a just redistribution of income associated with land. Different from the conventional quota turnover approach, the land coupon scheme takes a bottom-up approach and allows farmers to play an active role in its implementation. Farmers travel through a lengthy process from application for participation in rural housing land reclamation to reception of compensation payment. This is a dynamic and complex process shaped by historical bags of inconsistent policies, rent-seeking individuals and organizations, and market uncertainties. For the past six decades, peasants’ right to land and housing has changed, so has the standard of land block for rural housing as well as the approaches to rectify problems. The discrepancies in policy directions and technical details have generated confusions, uncertainties and conflicts. The situation has been further complicated by the behavior of village and town leaders, some of whom were keen to fulfill their own interest at the expense of farmers. The rent-seeking behavior of some surveyors and demolition contractors add on to farmers’ grievances. Furthermore, farmers have to learn and be patient with market uncertainties and cycles in waiting for their compensation payment. Fluctuation of the real estate market led to changes in the number of complaints over time, which peaked in 2015 for non-step-specific concerns and in 2016–2017 for step-specific concerns. The downturn of housing market since 2013 (Chongqing Land Resource and Housing Management Bureau, 2008-2016; Chongqing Land Resource and Housing Management Bureau, 2008) and of office market since 2015 (Savills, 2018) not only reduced demand for but also led to an oversupply of construction land. These changes effectively slowed down the cash out rate of land coupons. Major spurt of non-step-specific complaints in 2015 was caused by farmers who became grumpy in the long waiting process, whilst the spurts of step-specific complaints in 2016 and 2017 were caused by a combination of the long-wait and a rushed delivery of partial and/or unjustified amount of compensation. A common thread in the peak period complaints was that the expected compensation payment did not arrive on time wholly or partially. Although the complaints were results of different circumstances, compensation payment was the focal point. Missing payment, delayed funds transfer and inadequate compensation thus were all the top concerns. Rent-seeking officials and organizations angered the farmers. Any matters that affect compensation calculation, entry for participation, and expectation of financial return were also raised in the complaints. Interestingly, none of the complaints went beyond farmers’ immediate financial interest from the land. There was no single complaint that connects farmers’ experiences and/or unhappiness with the national land policies, or, with local government ambitions for

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