Protesters in southern China are up in arms. They feel that Beijing’s promises that they’d be able to vote for their own local leaders have been honored in the breach. They’re outraged at the show of force in the face of peaceful protest, and...
In the midst of it all, the Chinese people increasingly expect a different kind of relationship with their government – one of citizens and not subjects. They want their rights respected and their preferences heard.
A “tomb-flattening policy” in Henan province has sparked intense controversy, with millions of tombs reportedly destroyed by local authorities in a quest to turn graveyards into farmland.
The policy can be seen as a historical extension of...
The forced eviction of people from their homes and farmland has become a routine occurrence in China and represents a gross violation of China’s international human rights obligations on an enormous scale. Despite international scrutiny and...
Despite China's significant economic growth, most of the 700 million farmers that make up about 56% of the total population still lack secure and marketable land rights that would allow them to make long-term investment in land in order to...
With the realization of China’s rapid ecological deterioration, partly caused by irresponsible logging, the Chinese government has in recent years taken a series of drastic measures to improve forest coverage. One important approach was to...
This report discusses women’s rights to land in China. The report is based on field research conducted in January 2000 in the city of Dongfang in the Hainan Province. It finds that granting women in China legal rights to land is unlikely to...
