ABSTRACT
Over the past years, the rate of China’s substantive economic growth has shown no clear signs of slowing. Foreign observers and journalists have used a profusion of superlatives to describe and marvel at this Asian economic wonder. At the same time, however, the price of Chinese capitalist development has become painfully clear: the eviction of farmers from their land without proper financial compensation and housing. As the value of rural land is significantly lower than that of urban land, and property rights are illdefined, there is a strong incentive for real estate companies to strike illegal deals with local authorities. At the start of 2006, the Chinese Minister for Land Resources, Tian Fengshan, was found guilty and convicted for clandestine land deals committed during the time when he served as provincial governor of Heilongjiang. The forced evictions have led to the resurfacing of one of the central government’s chimeras from the revolutionary past – landless peasants.1
