A concise history of Chinese rural land ownership

A concise history of Chinese rural land ownership (中国农村地产权简史)

Since the birth of Chinese civilization, its agriculture has enduringly faced the twin challenges of natural calamities on a multi-provincial scale and a dense population in relation to the limited area of agricultural land per capita. The capricious climate leads to two results: on the one hand, the concentration of land in the hands of large landlords who impose high rents likely to bankrupt their tenants and disrupt society; on the other, the establishment of a centralized state with the mission of reorganizing the territory on an inter-provincial scale to secure agricultural production and redistribute land in an egalitarian manner against local mismatch. However, the fact that only a small amount of land is farmed by each rural household prevents economies of scale and means that agricultural production quickly reaches a ceiling. Added to this is urban industrialization, which makes young farmers lose interest in tilling the land: many of them go to work in the city for higher wages than their traditional agricultural occupation. Once again, the choice of land concentration is on the table, but in what form? Will China's industrialization weaken or strengthen agriculture? Will the abandonment of farming by farmers mean the loss of their peasant status? Will the rural exodus be definitive? The conference will address this interesting topic. And in presenting solutions to the problems, it will also pose new questions that invite you to think and go and discover.

By DENG Jie, lecturer at INALCO and the Centre Culturel de Chine in Paris, Teacher at the Ecole Supérieure d'Interprètes et de Traducteurs

Saturday March 18, 10:00 am to 12:30 pm
Room 3.12
Inalco, 65 rue des Grands Moulins - 75013 Paris
Free admission on registration: conferences.fc@inalco.fr