China's economic resurgence has not been good for all Chinese, particularly those living in rural areas. The gap between the rich urban areas and the poor rural areas is growing. And part of the increase is due to what amounts to takeover of the peasant's lands by the state. Usually, this takeover is aided by greedy local officials. The officials are able to deceive their fellow villagers into signing contracts which ultimately result in the sale of the village lands, the proceeds of which go to the officials not the villagers. Furthermore, since China does not regulate the development of rural land, the farms are usually replaced by factories, power plants, highways, dumps, etc. Thus, the loss of their land often results in villagers having to join the migrant workforce as they can no longer feed themselves from the land.
And land is especially 'sacred' to the Chinese peasant as he was unable to own land until the Communist Party redistributed land after the revolution. Now, it appears as though his land is being given to the rich. But he is not taking it lying down. In 2004 alone there were 74,000 rural uprisings protesting the loss of land. Since then, things have gotten worse and the violence has increased. In Dongzhou recently thirty demonstrators were killed.
Will China eventually find that this type of eminent domain is not in its best interests?
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