Law Commons^™

Expanding The Gap: How The Rural Property System Exacerbates China's Urban-Rural Gap, Benjamin James

Benjamin James

This paper asserts that one of the main reasons the wealth gap between China’s peasants and city-dwellers persists and continues to widen is China’s system of property laws, especially those that specifically govern rural real estate. The principal problem with the current rural property system is that it is a hybrid system – a mix of China’s socialist past with significant changes toward a market-based future. This system marginalizes China’s farmers by creating insecurities in their legal rights to operate rural land and by systematically undervaluing that land. As a result, Chinese peasants are deprived of both the protections and …