One way to turbocharge the Chinese economy

livemint.com:

hongben, or red booklets, as proof of ownership. These look just like urban-property certificates. In one village, however, residents are unable to produce them—they say they are being stored by the village authorities (a clue, probably, to who really controls the rights).

In a nearby village where the majority of houses are empty, residents say that big changes have happened in the management of their agricultural land. The central government is encouraging experiments with the pooling of fields to make farms bigger and more efficient. Now all of the village’s rice paddies are being tended by two people.

But hongben have yet to be handed out. Villagers suspect that local officials have a tourism project in mind and do not want NIMBY-ish hongben-waving residents to block it. State media have suggested that the recent third plenum may ultimately result in further reforms.

But if the plenum in 1978 is any guide, they could be slow to unfold. On July 24th, six days after the meeting ended, the agriculture ministry’s party chief, Han Jun, told reporters that reforms would be “carried out cautiously". Just to be clear he added: “The right to use homesteads is a right enjoyed by members of rural collective economic organisations, meaning that non-members of these organisations have no right to obtain or indirectly obtain these rights." In other words, do not bet the farm on a breakthrough.

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