Rural Land Takings Law in Modern China

Origin and Evolution

Chun Peng

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781107190931
• eBook ISBN: 9781108128933
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

One of the most pressing issues in contemporary China is the massive rural land takings that have taken place at a scale unprecedented in human history. Expropriation of land has dispossessed and displaced millions for several decades, despite the protection of property rights in the Chinese constitution. Combining meticulous doctrinal analysis with in-depth historical investigation, Chun Peng tracks the origin and evolution of China's rural land takings law over the twentieth century and demonstrates an enduring tradition of land takings for state-led social transformation, under which the takings law is designed to be power-confirming. With changed socio-political circumstances and a new rights-respecting constitutional agenda, a rebalance of the law is now underway, but only within existing parameters. Peng provides a piercing analysis of how land has been used by the largest developing country in the world to develop itself, at what costs and where the future might be.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 A Broken Constitutional Promise: Diagnoses and Prescriptions
• 3 Limited Reform: Symptoms and Causes
• 4 Original Constitutional Takings Clause: Origin, Meaning and Purpose
• 5 Theoretical Foundations of Land Takings Power: Competing Traditions and Common Legacy
• 6 The 1982 Constitutional Takings Clause Re-examined: New Wine in an Old Bottle
• 7 Rural Land Expropriation Law in the Reform Era: A Story of Continuity
• 8 Conclusion
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Index