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"Great! " Liu Yonghao, chairman of the board of Sichuan New Hope
Group, hailed in a joyous tune when asked to speak on the proposed
amendment to the Chinese Constitution that is to enshrine the right
to own private property.
"Legally-obtained private property of the citizens shall not be
violated," according to a clause expected to be written into the
Constitution when Chinese legislators end their annual full session
next Sunday. The draft Constitutional amendments were formally
submitted to the session for deliberation Monday afternoon.
While China nouveaux-riches such as Liu, once picked as the
wealthiest man on the Chinese mainland by Forbes, are --
quite unsurprisingly -- waiting anxiously for a smooth adoption of
the amendments, others, especially those from the needy,
disadvantaged groups, are also expecting substantial benefits from
this landmark change.
"It is completely wrong for a few people to believe that the
proposed revision will simply protect the interests of the rich,"
said Prof. Cai Dingjian, with the prestigious China University of
Political Science and Law. "Actually, the amendment aims at
safeguarding the common interests of all social strata at a time
when both private assets and private investments are amassing
rapidly."
To some extent, the amendment is more crucial to those in
disadvantaged social groups, whose interests are often easier to be
jeopardized, said Cai, an expert on China's parliamentary
system.
Many scholars hold that once the Constitutional amendment on the
protection of private property is adopted, some thorny issues of
private property infringements, such as forcible demolition of old
urban residential houses and relocation of private house owners,
wage arrears facing rural migrant workers in the cities and illegal
expropriation of rural farmland, will be deemed as "a blunt
violation of the State's fundamental law."
Sun Jinpeng, a Beijing taxi driver with the Capital Taxi
Corporation Ltd., was outraged when a real estate developer, with
the backing of local government departments, asked him to move out
of his small, rundown apartment in downtown area for a compensation
of 50,000 yuan (about US$6,000).
"With such tiny sum of money," said Sun, "I cannot buy a
downtown apartment again, but I can't move to the outskirts as my
daughter attends a school in the city center."
"If the Constitution really starts to protect everyone's private
property, I don't think the developers will go on doing things at
my cost any more," he said.
Actually, cases like Sun's are not rare in China today.
According to Zhang Chengqi, director of the provincial audit
department of north China's Hebei Province, it has been common
across China that private houses, apartments or cropland are taken
away for commercial development or urbanization, with little money
paid to their owners in compensations.
Yu Dina, a farmer lawmaker from eastern Anhui Province, said
approximately 40 million Chinese farmers had lost their farmland
due to urbanization or so-called "development", and the figure was
estimated to increase by more than 2 million a year.
A 2003 survey also showed that about 60 percent of the
land-losing farmers had suffered infringements of their rights and
interests and as a result are living in need.
Although all land in China is owned by the State, noted law
experts, the right to till the land, as guaranteed by the rural
land contracting system, constitutes the primary means of
subsistence for the farmers and, therefore, should be regarded as
part of their private property.
In recent years, a growing number of rural surplus laborers have
moved into the cities and towns in pursuit of a better life. But
their rights were often seriously violated as many illegal
construction project contractors deliberately delayed their
payment, for months or even for years.
By the end of 2003, total wage arrears owed to the
85-million-strong rural migrant workers in the cities were
estimated at a whopping 100 billion yuan (US$12 billion), prompting
the government to take action against some illegal employers.
"As those belonging to the weaker social groups are mostly
poorly educated with a lack of law awareness, they often do not
have any idea of protecting their rights and interests through
legal means," said Wang Li, chief lawyer of the Beijing Deheng Law
Firm.
The highly-publicized Constitutional amendment, which from the
very beginning had become a focus of public attention and triggered
heated social discussions, will help increase the law awareness of
people and enable them to know how to better protect themselves,
said Wang.
"Moreover, once the amendment is adopted, it will also offer a
primary, solid legal basis for the commoners to negotiate with
government officials over compensation issues when their private
property is encroached upon," she added.
Sociologists also acknowledged that a better legal protection of
private property will help eliminate the worries of those people
who aspire to become rich some day.
"Now the Chinese citizen, feeling absolutely safe with their
personal assets, will surely be bolder and more daring in doing
businesses and more ready to direct their savings to investment," a
Beijing investment analyst predicted.
(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2004)
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