Rural Land Takings Law in Modern China
Origin and Evolution

A contextualized and critical reading of the origin and evolution of China's rural land takings law.

Chun Peng (Author)

9781107190931, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 April 2018

348 pages, 2 b/w illus. 7 tables
23.5 x 15.7 x 2 cm, 0.61 kg

'The issue of land expropriation draws increasing public and scholarly attention. China is of special interest due to its globally unprecedented pace of economic development and its roller-coaster speed of urbanization. Can China's constitutional law, rooted in its special socio-political circumstances, evolve alongside changing social norms and public expectations? Peng convincingly and authoritatively shows how the massive and pervasive rural land expropriation is well supported by China's constitutional design, and yet, has not been able to overcome major difficulties. Peng's analysis of how path dependency in legal and institutional evolution, the social embeddedness of property rights, and the complex dynamics between public and private interests interact, is relevant to any country's land system. I highly recommend this rich and pathbreaking book not only to those engaged in Chinese law and urbanization, but to scholars and policymakers concerned with the dilemmas posed by expropriation law and policy generally.' Rachelle Alterman, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology

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.

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. 1982 constitutional taking clause re-examined: new wine in an old bottle
7. Rural land expropriation law in the reform era: a story of continuity
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Law & society [LAQ], Law [L]