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Urbanization is one of the major threats to the dynamic inheritance of the agricultural heritage system (AHS). The ability to achieve sustainable development in intra-urban areas is an essential proposition related to the innovation of AHS conservation principles. The Haizhu high bed-low ditch agroecosystem (HHBLDA), a China-Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage System site located at the center of Guangzhou City, is taken as an example in this study. The effect of implementing the Land Acquisition to Keep Agricultural Use (LAKAU) on intra-urban AHS conservation is assessed through literature collection and review, field survey, and in-depth interviews. The results show that the LAKAU was implemented because of a three-decades-long struggle between ecological conservation and urban sprawl. Because of the important functions of ecosystem services, the AHS can coexist with urban land use in the course of rapid urbanization. The LAKAU mode can ensure that the nature of farmland remains unchanged, which is an effective strategy for the conservation of an urban AHS. The resulting problems, such as high operating costs, insufficient agricultural outputs, and insufficient local farmers in the AHS site because of off-farm opportunities, should be addressed by establishing an effective self-sustaining mechanism. Realizing the compatibility of management concepts between the AHS and nature reserves, adapting to the changing role of farmers, and strengthening the acceptance of the AHS by urban managers should attract the attention of decision-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes a particular form of everyday politics through the case of land development in a Chinese village. Commonly referred to as edge ball politics (cabianqiu), it implies the act of transgressing certain rules or laws and testing the limits of what is socially and legally possible. We found that the state, the village leadership, private developers, and villagers all vie to influence the outcomes of land development in the village by engaging in this practice. We suggest that edge ball politics plays into the Chinese state's governing strategies, which allow for a manageable space of negotiation to ward off a collective sense of injustice in the face of rampant dispossession of the weak and accumulation by the powerful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land policy making is a complex systemic process in which new policies emerge and are nonlinearly transferred. However, challenges remain, as the recent policy diffusion literature cannot match policy making to complex adaptive systems. This study elucidates the conjunctural causal mechanisms of local policy innovation and diffusion in China. To analyze the differences in China's land reform, a theoretical framework is established that includes four key conditions—incentive rules, local context, vertical governmental coercion and interregional diffusion—as well as three analytical principles, namely, nonlinearity, conjunction and intersection. Then, an archetype analysis based on the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method is conducted on 119 city governments that implemented land retention policies during the period of 2000–2019. The results systematically associate local policy action with five theory-based archetypes, each with its own narrative expression ("risk aversion", "reform pilot", "political learning", "induced competition", and "social evolution"). This article reveals that 1) China's administrative institutional structure shapes the reform motivation of local governments and their interaction with the central government, and the performance evaluation system for officials plays a key role in this dynamic; 2) local contexts can limit or amplify coercive and learning mechanisms, and policy knowledge can impede diffusion under certain conditions; and 3) the combination of archetypes occurs at three levels: theoretical mechanisms, conditional elements, and factor combinations. Overall, the study shows how multilevel factor interactions influence the decision-making process for China's land reform. These findings can serve as useful references for conjunctural causation research on policy innovation and diffusion in China and assist local decision makers in other countries in transition in developing sustainable land policies. • Land policy making is conceptualized as a complex process in socio-ecological system. • Positive promotion incentive contributes to policy innovation and diffusion. • Absence of central government enhances the reform incentive of local governments. • High-level spatial proximity hinders policy diffusion under specific situation. • Combinations of policy elements at different scales produce conjunctural result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lagging other components, project-induced resettlement rarely, if ever, is completed after those resettled are compensated and replacement infrastructure handed-over. Initiating livelihood restoration programs may jumpstart but fall short of re-articulating dismantled local economies. Successful resettlement requires pre- and post-relocation actions that will help resellers and their hosts re-articulate new routine social and economic arrangements and improve their well-being. This Special Issue examines the distinct challenges of the post-relocation phase of resettlement. During this phase, the resettlement burdens shift from the relocation project to the resettlers, their hosts, and third parties; from individual to collective issues; and from mitigation to development. For decades, China has experienced with a variety of long-term, post-relocation policies, programs and methodologies. The contributors provide a glimpse of an extensive toolkit being crafted for use in this localized context-defined phase. Some are transferable. Others are not. Post-relocation support (PReS) adds value to improving the likelihood of successful outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protests and opposition to land acquisition from displaced peasants for fair compensation occur on a daily basis in China and have become the most prominent social problem in rural parts of the country. Employing a procedural perspective on conflict, this paper aims to uncover the complexities and tensions that are triggered in the process by drawing on a case of a land confiscation in Jining City, a medium‐size city in Shandong Province, China. Our research shows that conflicts exist at various scales: both between the local governments and rural households and between the village officials and villagers. The paper argues that ambiguity in de jure and de facto land acquisition procedures has resulted in both an escalation of conflict and increasing inequality in the outcomes and benefits of the process. We discuss and conclude that the differences between de jure and de facto procedures in the process of land acquisition are a significant institutional barrier in the resolution of conflict in this important issue for rural China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China and India urbanize, land acquisition by state and private actors has become highly contentious in both countries. This article compares two large-scale anti-land acquisition protests—the Wukan protest in China’s Guangdong province and the Singur protest in the Indian state of West Bengal—to examine how the subnational state partakes in land acquisition and how rural protesters engage with different levels of the state in their resistance. The comparative analysis finds that the different involvement of the subnational state in land speculation has produced different spatiality and dynamics of protests. In China, rural protesters target the bottom-level authority such as village councils, often taking on a cellular form of mobilization geographically confined to their particular villages. By comparison, in India rural protesters target the regional state governments and they engage in associational forms of mobilization by building ad hoc alliances with political parties and NGOs beyond the affected villages. Although the larger context of political regimes should be taken into account, this article shows that the scales at which the subnational state partakes in land acquisition have largely shaped the spatiality and strategies of rural protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban and rural environments show clear differences in morphology, production mode and culture. With rapid urbanisation, these differences have become a major cause of urban–rural conflict. One of the most significant challenges arises from land acquisition, particularly in China, where cities have experienced substantial growth in the 21st century. Different types of risk are associated with land acquisition conflict in different Chinese cities. In this study, two types of cities are discussed: those with a historically low level of development but recent rapid economic growth, such as Yueqing; and cities that have maintained a relatively high level of development and experienced stable growth, such as Jiaxing. Land acquisition conflict in these two representative cities is then analysed in terms of property rights, access to resources and development. Analysis is performed at the institutional level to provide more accurate insights into the dynamics of conflict. The findings of the study suggest that different risk-management strategies are used in the two kinds of city, and that conflict is more likely to occur in cities with historically weaker development, such as Yueqing. To avoid such conflict, systematic risk-management strategies should be established in these cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how land acquisition during urbanization affects labor allocation decisions of farm households in China. We develop an agricultural household model by including land acquisition to examine its impacts on nonfarm labor participation and income. Two data sets (self-designed household surveys at Xingwen County in 2012 and the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) data covering 29 provinces in 2013) are adopted for empirical analysis. The results find that land reduction has significantly positive effects on the probability and the share of family nonfarm labor allocation from both data sets. We also find that land acquisition increases the household income of the land acquisition group in CHFS data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the 2006 Forum on China–Africa Cooperation, President Hu Jintao announced the establishment of Chinese Special Economic Zones in Africa (CSEZAs) in the spirit of mutual development and cooperation. The Chinese government launched seven such projects across Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Zambia and Mauritius. In most of these countries, there was social outcry over land expropriation for the construction of the CSEZAs and the resultant displacement of existing settlers. Seven years since their launch, the delayed CSEZA development only exacerbate the frustration of the host African communities as they contemplate whether the land they appropriated for the zone, at the expense of rural livelihoods, is getting an appropriate usage. The case of Mauritius is particularly salient considering its size, location and outward economic dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Conflicts over land have arisen frequently in China during rapid urbanization and have caused adverse impacts. Different from previous researches on land conflict analyzing its causes, types, consequences, methods of assessment and management, this paper develops a new analytic framework from a behavioral perspective based on game theory. The framework concerns the logic and strategy of conflicts of legal land acquisition, and that of illegal land conversion. The paper has established three innovative models: (1) the dynamic model for conflicts of legal land acquisition, (2) the game model of illegal land acquisition and (3) the game model of the black land market. These models are to explain how disputes and conflicts evolve and illustrate the logic and strategy of conflicts between local governments and farmers. Based on the Nash equilibrium of these models, the paper offers some important insights for policy direction in land acquisition and conflict management. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Land acquisition is the primary means used by governments to meet increasing land demand driven by rapid economic and urban growth in China. Since development is prohibited on non-state-owned land, land acquisition in which landownership is converted from collective communes to the state shall take place prior to any land construction. This paper reviews institutional structure governing land acquisition in pre- and post-reform eras and examines consequences and impacts associated with or derived from land acquisition. It is concluded that land acquisition (1) has been used heavily by local governments to fuel urban development and finance infrastructure provision and (2) has resulted in increasing social tension and injustice that may impose a long-term threat to stability and sustainable development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

During the course of urbanization and industrialization, a growing number of farmers have become landless as local governments have bought out their land for non-agricultural uses. Even in the localities where the industrialization process absorbs a vast majority of rural labor, the questions of how to compensate for the economic shock on the rural landless and how to alleviate and eliminate mental suffering as a result of losing land have always been a challenge to government capacity in social stabilization and a yardstick to measure social justice in local communities. In the administration areas of Suzhou City in Jiangsu Province, governments at all levels have successfully coped with this challenge. By means of “swapping land for old-age support” and income redistribution, Suzhou municipality has not only met the demand on land for urbanization and industrialization while maintaining social stability, but also laid a foundation for establishing an integrated pension system for both urban and rural residents. Such a system has changed the tradition of farmers' households relying on land to deal with economic risk and of the aged depending on their sons for livelihood support in rural society. Edited by Xinyu Fan [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Political trust across local government levels impacts individual support to land-taking compensation policies in China. • Political trust in the county-level government positively correlates with individual support to pension policy. • Political distrust in the village collective induces villagers to prefer the one-time payment over yearly dividends. • The central government lends credibility to county-level governments by softening their budget constraints. • Both risk-averse and risk-seeking individuals prefer the one-time cash payment to yearly dividends. This paper examines how political trust across local government levels and risk preferences impact individual support to land-taking compensation policies in China. Land expropriation becomes a touchstone for protests and conflict during China's urbanization, driving local governments to diversify land-taking compensation from the traditional one-time lump-sum cash payment to multiple payments, notably, in the form of monthly pension payments and yearly dividends. We found that political trust in the county-level government positively correlates with individual support to pension payments; political distrust in the village collective induces villagers to favor the one-time payment to yearly dividends. Both risk-averse and risk-seeking individuals prefer the one-time cash payment to yearly dividends. The findings are developed using two choice experiments embedded in an original survey: we elicit individual policy support by asking villagers to state their preferences over hypothetical alternative compensation policies; we elicit risk preferences using a lottery-choice experiment with varying probability of winning real monetary rewards. The findings highlight the multi-level local government structure under decentralization and offer insight into to what extent the government efforts in innovative compensation policies are effective at quelling rural anger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]