China - justice and injustice on the rise
Author(s): Sigrid Deters
Posted: 2008-1-31
Source:Radio Netherlands Worldwide
Source date:2008-1-14
Number of hits:1044
China is bursting at the seams. With its towns and cities expanding at a pace, villages on their outskirts are coming under increasing pressure as a result.
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Qingdao construction site
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An example can be found in Qingdao, a large city on China's eastern seaboard, where a number of village homes have been forced to make way for new apartments.
However, it's not only China's towns that are growing, or the related landownership problems, there's also a growing sense of what is just and unjust.
Everything gone
Yu Dafang (52) holds out the keys to her - now demolished - house. She points at the construction site where bulldozers and cranes are tearing away at what little still remains of her village and of her life: "That's where my house stood. It was knocked down without my knowledge. Everything has gone. The only thing I have left is my house keys."
There's one house still standing on the edge of the building site. The former inhabitants of the village have gathered there, and the atmosphere is threatening. From the window you can see the cranes moving back and forth over the roof of this last remaining building, but the villagers tell their story undaunted.
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Some of the villagers, including Ya Dafang, outside the last remaining building
| Making way
One day, they received a letter from the city authorities informing them that their village would have to make way for new construction. Those who lost their homes would be paid compensation, but the amount was based purely on the surface area occupied by their houses and did not take into account the surrounding land. The villagers turned down the offer and demanded a higher amount. The local authorities rejected their demands and decided that the demolition work should go ahead as planned.
For months on end the inhabitants were subjected to intimidation by men who visited them at night to tell them that they must leave their homes. Their electricity and water supplies were cut. When the demolition work actually started in the summer of 2007, there were clashes with the police.
"We're quite prepared to relocate, but then we want a fair price for the compulsory purchase of our land," says village elder Yu Qian. He shows us the villagers' property deeds and photos of the clashes with the police.
One of the villagers has been in jail ever since those clashes took place. Yu Qian adds, "We won't let ourselves be messed around with." Far from throwing in the towel, the villagers used the internet to look for a lawyer who has been representing their interests in the case against the local authorities.
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Cranes dominate the skyline where the village once stood
| New laws
According to Professor Peter Ho, who heads the Centre for Development Studies at Groningen University, the Chinese government is aware of the problems surrounding compulsory land purchases and the real upset they can cause. There's now a veritible production line of new laws coming into force, aimed at protecting citizens against such illegal practices.
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Professor Peter Ho
| At the request of the Chinese government, Professor Ho and the Dutch land register organisation, Kadaster, are working together to establish a land registration system in China, because there's a need for clarity about who owns the land in order to prevent people from being illegally dispossessed.
Too weak
However, Peter Ho believes documentary evidence of ownership, i.e. paper records, will not be enough in China: "In the villages, the land is in collective ownership. These peasant-farmer collectives are certainly too weak to exercise their rights with regard to the local authorities. So, if a local government really wants to, it's not really very difficult to take land away from the peasant farmers, even if they own the land on paper and there are laws in place to protect them." In order to allow the law to work properly, Professor Ho believes there's a need for a system of checks and balances, enabling ordinary citizens to organise themselves in such a way that they are strong enough to take on the authorities.
Rule of law
According to Professor Ho, there's no doubt that the development of the legal system in China is leading to more individual freedoms.
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Yu Dafang with keys
| He believes that if a country is steering its economic development by means of a system of laws and regulations - in other words, wants to become a state where the rule of law takes precedence - then that country cannot avoid a process of democratisation.
However, he doubts whether that will mean, in the long term, that China will actually become a democracy. "China isn't very likely to become a democracy in the way that we understand a democracy to be. The country will follow its own path. But, whatever else happens, justice is on its way."
The villagers on the outskirts of Qingdao are now trying to establish through the courts just how far they can exercise their rights.
Meanwhile, Yu Dafang waves her keys about once again. She, in any event, has hope of getting considerably more money for her land. If so, she says, then she might even be able to go and live in the new apartment block, even though it will never be as nice as the small house she used to have.
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