Change And Innovation Of China's Rural Land Property Rights System(1949-Present)

Farmland system has always been the key to rural reform.Its essence is property rights,with fairness and efficiency being its core.Taking Weishi County in the Eastern Henan Plain as research object,this dissertation does a multi-faceted and multi-level research on its rural land property right system since 1949.Its research objectives focus on providing pertinent and practical policy suggestions for the reform and innovation of the rural land system of Weishi County and the whole country.Two rights attributed to farmers(1948-1955):During this period,the government established the farmers' land ownership,and formed a complete farmers' private land ownership,which totally changed the feudal and semi-feudal land ownership.The land reform in Weishi was launched under the guidance of the Land Reform Law promulgated on June 28,1950.Agricultural resources were redistributed among different classes in the land reform.Cadastral association between agricultural population and land was initially established based on the location of the population.After the land reform,the rural productivity in Weishi County was not effectively improved,and the agricultural tax burden remained relatively high,which were not conducive to the further development of the agricultural economy and came to be the urgent issues for rural counties.At the initial stage of agricultural production cooperatives,part of cooperatives' annual income were paid to members as remuneration according to the quantity and quality of their land.Land ownership acquired by farmers after land reform had not been effectively protected by law in the process of cooperative implementation.Two rights attributed to the collective(1956-1981):This stage is the one of cooperative transformation and the people's commune.With the realization of high-level socialization at the end of 1956,the collective ownership of farmland was established,and the private ownership was replaced by a collective one.In the gradual process of the farmers' land deprivation,the cooperatives in Weishi made a detailed production plan and designed an elaborate production process to establish the relationship between the farmers and the land.However,the small production community did not meet or protect the economic demands of farmers.In January 1958,the Chinese government promulgated and implemented the Household Registration Regulations,which blocked the migration of agricultural population to non-agricultural areas and urban areas.In September 1958,Weishi County realized the communalization in a short time.In 1962,the "three-level ownership,team-based" system of people's commune was established,and brigade and production team,the two basic forms of accounting,coexisted in Weishi.The rights owned by the brigade and the production team were seriously infringed and strictly restricted by the administrative power,and the land ownership relationship changed.From the period of'co-operation to the people's commune,the collectivization movement which was characterized by unilateral pursuit of a high degree of public ownership and by the gathering of farmers' property did not establish the nationwide connection of and the free universal communication among farmers,but instead deviated from the free and comprehensive development of human beings.Undoubtedly,the commune system had been unable to adapt to the rural economic development.There must be a fundamental reform to change the rigid reality.The rural land property right system in this period showed several characteristics,such as the incomplete ownership of land,the labor score institution's under-representing of distribution according to work,the inconsistency between the people's commune,the collective farming system and the agricultural production,and the violation of law of economic development by the integration of commune and government administration.Two rights separation(1982-2013):The practice of "Separation of the two rights" in Weishi County went through such organizational forms as contracted production to group,contracted production to labor,contracted production to household,and contracted labor to household,which reflected the evolution and change of the farmland property right system.In 1978,the rapid development of the contract responsibility system of co-production in Weishi County was inevitable.By taking farming households or groups as contractors,it improved the autonomy of farmers and heightened the advantages of small-scale operation.It overcame the shortcomings of over-centralized management and equalitarianism while inherited the positive results of previous cooperation.It adhered to the public ownership of basic production materials such as land and certain functions of unified management,which enabled the newly formed productive forces to play a better role over the years.The establishment and development of the household contract responsibility system in Weishi County broke the pattern of the integration of land ownership and right of use under collectives from the period of the people's commune.The micro-efficiency was improved and the property right relationship was further clarified.The main manifestations were the content completion of the household contract management right of land,the eternalizing of the term of the household contract management right of land and the materialization of the property right of rural land family contract management.As the effective form of collective property rights,the "two rights division" released huge institutional performance.Three rights separation(2014-present):The practice of "Separation of Three Rights" in the process of farmland transfer in Weishi County in 2014 had farther enriched the theoretical and practical value of the relationship among farmland ownership,contractual rights and management rights.The system of separation of three rights in farmland circulation was another institutional innovation based on the practice of separation of two rights.The "separation of three rights" clearly defines the boundaries of farmland ownership,contractual rights and management rights,which is beneficial to improving the efficiency of farmland use and optimizing the allocation of rural production factors on the micro level.On the macro level,it is beneficial to further liberating and developing rural productive forces,increasing farmers' income and promoting the transformation of rural production relations.In a sense,the "Separation of Three Rights" has laid the foundation of land system for China's agricultural modernization and the promotion of national economic development under the new normal economic situation.At the same time,the system design of the "Separation of Three Rights" bear the institutional and legal shackles,the risk of the imbalance of rights and interests caused by the game between the right subjects under the market economy,and the obstacles such as the imperfect supporting mechanism that restrict the realization of the management right.With regard to the promotion of the reform of rural land property right system,the report of the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China has also made a major strategic plan,which is an important part of the Party's work on agriculture,countryside and farmers.The relevant policies have certain inheritance and development,which have great significance on building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way.How to innovate the system of rural land property rights and protect the rights and interests of farmers in the context of the transition from high-speed economic growth to high-quality economic growth has great practical significance to the implementation of the strategy of rural revitalization,and it is also an important direction of the "three rural"work in the new era.Under the framework of China's socialist market economic system,there is no clear definition of the kind of rural land property rights system to build.In the new era of economic development,accelerating the macro-strategic layout of agricultural development,focusing on breakthroughs of rural land property rights system to explore new patterns of agricultural land transfer.In practice,a series of breakthroughs and achievements have been made,but there are still some problems to be solved.Innovation should be continued along the path of property rights division,property rights clarity and property rights integrity,so as to promote rural economic development,to implement the strategy of rural revitalization,and to build a well-off society in an all-round way and a modern country.