A Review of the Changes in the Rights Transfer System for Rural Homestead Land in China

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the rural land system in China has undergone several rounds of change and reversal, and each change was deeply related to the historical background of its time. The transfer of rural homestead land rights, as part of the rural land system, has also gone through profound historical changes. Examining this historical change is conducive to clarifying the issues in China's current choice of a rights transfer system for rural homestead land, taking stock of the situation, summarizing patterns, and thereby effectively finding a practical solution. This article intends to divide the historical changes in China's rural homestead land rights transfer system into different historical periods, so as to sort out its development thread and the patterns behind it.

The Land Reform Period

Because of the fundamental nature of the land issue, at the very beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, a dedicated Land Reform Law was promulgated, and rural homestead land also fell within the scope of the objects regulated by that law. Article 1 of the law explicitly provided that "the feudal exploitative land ownership system of the landlord class shall be abolished and peasant land ownership shall be implemented," establishing the basic land ownership system as peasant private ownership. The practical implementation of this peasant private ownership system was achieved through the method of "robbing the rich to help the poor," namely through the provision in Article 2 that "the land, draft animals, farm tools, surplus grain, and surplus houses in rural areas of the landlords shall be confiscated," and the provision in Article 10 that "all land and other means of production confiscated and requisitioned, except those that this law provides shall be taken over by the state, shall be received by the township peasant associations and distributed uniformly, fairly, and reasonably to the poor peasants who have no land or little land and lack other means of production, and landlords shall also be given the same share." After the implementation of this law, land reform was carried out in batches throughout the country in the newly liberated areas where land reform had not yet been carried out. By the end of 1952, land reform was basically completed, the feudal exploitative land system that had existed in China for more than two thousand years was completely abolished, and peasants became the masters of the land. In other words, "the basic content of land reform was to confiscate the land of the landlord class and distribute it to peasants who had no land or little land. In this way, as a class, the landlord class was abolished in society, and the feudal exploitative land ownership system was changed into peasant land ownership. Such a reform was indeed the greatest and most thorough reform in China in thousands of years of history." However, it is worth noting that during the land reform period, what was eliminated was only the feudal exploitative land system, not private land ownership. In fact, Article 30 of the Land Reform Law explicitly provided that "after land reform is completed, the people's government shall issue land ownership certificates, and shall recognize the right of all land owners to freely operate, buy and sell, and lease their land." Because the core result of land reform was to distribute land ownership to individual peasants rather than to the state or the collective, and peasants' individual ownership also belongs to private rights, this reform embodied private land ownership and was therefore summarized by later generations as a continuation of the democratic revolution. Against the broader background of this private land ownership system, rural homestead land was no exception. "As a result of land reform, peasants in most areas received the 'People's Republic of China Real Estate Title Certificate' issued by the government. The laws at that time allowed the buying, selling, leasing, and mortgaging of land, but at that time peasants lived hard lives, and homestead land was a major asset for them, so acts of selling or leasing homestead land rarely occurred." (Jiang Rong, 2013) It can be seen that, corresponding to private land ownership, at the legislative level during the land reform period, a free transfer system was adopted for peasants' individual ownership of homestead land.

The Socialist Transformation Period

In December 1953, Mao Zedong pointed out: "From the founding of the People's Republic of China to the basic completion of socialist transformation, this is a transitional period. The Party's general line and general task in this transitional period are to gradually realize the country's socialist industrialization over a fairly long period of time, and gradually realize the country's socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts, and capitalist industry and commerce." Guided by this thinking, the preamble of the 1954 Constitution confirmed: "From the founding of the People's Republic of China to the establishment of socialist society, this is a transitional period. The general task of the state during the transitional period is to gradually realize the country's socialist industrialization and gradually complete the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts, and capitalist industry and commerce." This period is historically known as the socialist transformation period. However, similar to the land reform period, we should not misunderstand this period as the full realization of public ownership. In fact, the 1954 Constitution still clearly recognized private land ownership. Article 5 of that law provided: "The means of production ownership in the People's Republic of China currently mainly consists of the following: state ownership, that is, ownership by the whole people; cooperative ownership, that is, collective ownership by the working masses; ownership by individual working people; and ownership by capitalists." Article 8 also provided: "The state protects peasants' ownership of land and other means of production in accordance with the law." Article 11 provided: "The state protects citizens' ownership of lawful income, savings, houses, and various means of livelihood." Article 12 provided: "The state protects citizens' right to inherit private property in accordance with the law." At that time, homestead land was mainly regarded as a means of livelihood, but the possibility of it being regarded as a means of production was not ruled out either. Since the state explicitly provided for the protection of peasants' land ownership and ownership of various means of livelihood, it can be affirmed that rural homestead land was still owned by peasants, and the legislation did not impose any prohibitive provisions on the transfer of homestead land rights, so it should be understood as permitting their free transfer.

⟦NL> The Advanced Agricultural Producers' Cooperative Period

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in some areas of North China and Northeast China where land reform had been carried out earlier and the mutual-aid and cooperation movement had developed relatively extensively, a small number of advanced agricultural producers' cooperatives were gradually established on the basis of elementary agricultural cooperatives. By 1955 they had developed to 500, with 40,000 participating peasant households. By the end of 1956, China had basically completed socialist transformation, and advanced agricultural producers' cooperatives surged to 540,000, with 119.45 million participating peasant households, accounting for more than 96% of the total number of peasant households nationwide. The widespread establishment of advanced agricultural producers' cooperatives marked a fundamental transformation of China's land ownership system, because under this system, land privately owned by peasants was transferred to collective ownership without compensation. However, for certain homestead lands, the legislators made exceptional provisions, specifically reflected in the Model Charter of Advanced Agricultural Producers' Cooperatives adopted at the third session of the First National People's Congress in 1956. Article 16, paragraph 2 of the model charter provided: "Members' original grave land and house foundations need not be contributed to the cooperative. Land foundations needed by members for building new houses and grave land needed by members who have no grave land shall be solved by the cooperative through overall planning, and when necessary, the cooperative may apply to the township people's committee for assistance in solving the matter." It can thus be seen that, for homestead land, the old-land-old-method and new-land-new-method approach was implemented at that time, that is, only newly applied-for homestead land had ownership belonging to the cooperative, while existing homestead land still belonged to peasants privately, and naturally no restrictions were imposed on its transfer either.