ABSTRACT
Following the second rehabilitation of Deng Xiaoping in July 1977, rural China’s organizational structure and its property rights regime were transformed. Land, while nominally still collectively owned, was distributed among individual households that received legal usufruct or use rights to the farmland, with the term of control set for fifteen years or longer. The organizational or administrative structure that had supported collective land ownership and management was also readjusted. Central to this was the dismantling of the production team, which had organized all farmers’ labor, giving farmers relative autonomy in economic decision making. Although support for these reforms was extensive, opposition and differences of opinion existed as well. This chapter explores the motivations of those who resisted these changes and the problems that arose during the implementation of the policy. *
