The Process of Urban Land Reform

Urban land reform did not start with the overall economic reforms of the 1970s because land, is more politically sensitive than other commodities in Chinese society. The urban land reform launched in China in the late 1980s was partly driven by the overall economic reforms and the open door policy advocated by the late leader Deng Xiao Ping, and partly evolved out of the negative consequences of the state land allocation system. The need for urban land reform in the 1990s arose for the pragmatic reason that land had to be used efficiently in order to provide a source of income in the developing market economy. Since the current reforms are very much a top-down affair, the inherent problems of the state land system should be analysed first so that the objectives of the reform can be understood.