ABSTRACT
China seeks to add 300 million new urban residents to its cities over the next 20 years, an urbanisation target of around 60 per cent of the population. To orchestrate this unprecedented rate of urban growth, the State Council released the National New-Type Urbanisation Plan in 2014. According to this urbanisation blueprint, urban expansion will be achieved through a mix of reform (to the hukou system), urban renewal (of villages within cities) and resettlement (primarily within central and western China). This plan has flow-on effects for all forms of mobility in China, including the resettlement of people to make way for water resources projects. In the case of large dams, this type of resettlement is called New Type Urbanisation Reservoir Resettlement. Little is known about this type of resettlement and even less is known about how it will be legislated. This chapter addresses that gap. By reviewing the draft Land Administration Law (currently only available in Chinese), we consider how this draft law attempts to resolve the contrasts between rural and urban lives, including, but not limited to, the employment base, consumption patterns and social cohesion. Then, drawing on our research and Chinese literature, we identify the key challenges for this new type of resettlement.
