Hu Jintao’s Land Reform: Ambition, Ambiguity, and Anxiety

Amid the global financial crisis and its strong impact on the Chinese economy, the Party leadership has embarked on another land reform plan. This ambitious development plan promises to give farmers more rights and market incentives that will encourage them to subcontract and transfer land and give incentives for surplus rural laborers to move to urban areas. Cheng Li’s preliminary study of the launch of Hu Jintao’s land reform aims to shed light on the program.