The 100-day crackdown on the illegal seizure of land ended on
Monday, with 2,300 officials given disciplinary punishments, more
than 2,700 people transferred to judicial departments for trials
and more than 3,700 officials waiting to be disciplined.
The largest campaign ever launched by the Ministry of Land and
Resources has been deemed a success. It involved investigations of
more than 30,000 cases of illegal land seizures, affecting about
222,000 hectares of land.
Minister of Land and Resources Xu Shaoshi was quoted as saying
the campaign had significantly reduced the illegal approval and use
of land. But we still have a long way to go before officials at
various levels are made to toe the line when it comes to protecting
the country's limited arable land resources.
The top three violations were: leasing land from villagers
instead of through outright acquisition, effectively circumventing
the land approval process; illegally expanding development zones or
setting up new zones; and occupying land without going through the
proper legal procedures.
The message is that many officials have turned a blind eye to
both the laws governing land use and the repeated notices issued by
the State Council highlighting the urgent need to protect arable
land.
Lenient penalties for offenders are also to blame for the
audacity with which these offenders have broken the law. Even the
land minister admitted that the punishments have been too
light.
The central government has set a strategic goal of maintaining
the amount area of arable land at no less than 120 million
hectares, which would be enough to basically guarantee food
stability. The country now has about 122 million hectares of arable
land.
With a population of 1.3 billion, the importance of having
enough land for farming cannot be overemphasized, especially since
property deals have emerged as an important source of local revenue
- and illegal gains - for local governments.
The 100-day crackdown is more than necessary, but far from
enough. We have heard time and again from land and resources
authorities that more severe penalties will be meted out to illegal
land seizers. The minister said again on Monday that the crackdown
will be more severe in the future and that a permanent mechanism
will be put in place to supervise land use. We hope he meant
it.
(China Daily January 24, 2008)