Rural Land Reform in China: Central-Local Politics and Experimentalism

This chapter addresses the first research question by tracing the historical evolution of China’s land institutions prior to the 2015 rural land reform and examining how shifting central-local scalar politics shaped land policy. Through an analysis of key central policy amendments and corresponding local land practices, the chapter argues that the trajectory of rural land reform has been forged through continuous interactions between central and local governments. Driven by strong land-related interests, local governments have frequently sought to reshape urban hierarchies and challenge existing land institutions to secure land resources for local growth, while the central government has retained ultimate authority over land development. Using the proposed conceptual framework, the chapter situates land governance within the broader context of state rescaling and policy experimentation, revealing how institutional change reflects the state’s attempts to balance land, economic development, and social progress. The chapter comprises three further sections. The first provides a historical overview of land governance, including revisions of the LML, the establishment of the hierarchical land-management system, and major institutional (re)organization amid shifting administrative power. The next section reflects on how state rescaling and policy experimentation have jointly shaped China’s land reform trajectory, thereby laying the conceptual groundwork for the following chapters.