Startled by self-immolations and protests, China suggests major changes for land seizures

China suggests major changes for land seizures

BEIJING — China’s Cabinet suggested major changes Friday to the way land is seized for redevelopment in an attempt to calm a passionate issue that has sparked growing violence and even prompted some protesters to set themselves on fire.

Developers and demolition companies would be banned from using violence or shutting off water and electricity to force residents from their homes, according to the changes proposed by the State Council, or Cabinet, and posted on its Web site.

All are common tactics in China, where hundreds of thousands of people have been uprooted for booming urban redevelopment, fueled by government lending and often with the approval of local officials.

The draft proposal also calls for compensation for seized property to be above its market price, an effort to calm protests over little or no payment. And more than 90 percent of residents in places marked as old or dangerous would have to agree to demolition first — even for projects judged to be in the public interest.

China Central Television led its midday news broadcast with the proposals.

“Definitely these would have helped us,” said Zhang Weimin, who camped out in his unlit, unheated Beijing restaurant for weeks, resisting threats from what he and other holdouts suspected were hired thugs, before their strip of businesses was torn down this month. “What happened to us would have been a violation.”

Property seizures, often with little or no compensation, have caused widespread protests. Late last year, a video and photos of a woman standing on a roof and setting herself on fire in protest in the southwestern city of Chengdu spread across state-run media. Shortly after that, a man protesting another demolition set himself on fire in Beijing. Unlike the woman, he survived.

Five law professors from China’s top university, Peking University, then took a rare public stand, asking the National People’s Congress Standing Committee to change a regulation they said encouraged abusive tactics by developers and led to “mass incidents” and “extreme events.” Meetings with legislative officials from the State Council followed.

Friday’s proposals are open for public comment until Feb. 12, a statement on the State Council’s site said. The National People’s Congress has already authorized the State Council to enact regulations on the issue after the comment period is over.

Property seizures are supposed to be limited to projects in the public interest, and seizing land and negotiating with residents for compensation is the government’s job under China’s property law.

But a regulation issued in 2001 allows developers to step in and handle those negotiations, the professors argued. Developers are sometimes accused of using hired thugs to threaten residents, sometimes with violence.

“The interests of the companies and people are sharply contradictory. So increasingly, more demolition cases end in a horrible way,” Shen Kui, the professor who organized the request to the National People’s Congress, told The Associated Press last year.

The professors could not immediately be reached Friday.

Associated Press researcher Zhao Liang contributed to this report.