An Urban's Rural View

It isn't easy being a foreign correspondent. You have to dig deep into the strange and unusual to understand the story. But in writing it, you have to remember that your audience back home doesn't know what you know about the background of the story, and may stumble over what seems obvious to you.

What brought these thoughts to mind was the lead on a Wall Street Journal story the other day (http://tiny.cc/…). It wasn't a terrible lead, and as someone who spent a lot of time in Asia and follows Asian news, I understood it. You might, too. But I suspect it would provoke questions among readers unfamiliar with China land issues.

First, the lead. As you read it, imagine the questions someone unfamiliar with the issue could ask about it.

"The Chinese government is moving ahead with legislation to combat land seizures from the nation's 650 million farmers, a move that could ease a major source of social unrest and also help to rebalance the country's lopsided economic growth."

And now for the poor uninitiated reader's questions:

"Wow. 650 million? You mean the Chinese have twice as many farmers as the U.S. has people?"

"And someone is seizing their land?"

"Wait: Wouldn't it be the government that's doing the seizing? And if so, why does the government have to pass legislation to stop itself from doing that?"

"I think I get the unrest part -- I'd be un-restful, too, if someone was seizing my land. But why would stopping the seizures rebalance the nation's unbalanced growth? And what does that mean, anyhow?"

Yes, China's rural population is enormous. And yes, someone is seizing their land -- but as becomes clear if you read on, it's local governments. The national government is trying to put a stop to it. And what local governments are doing when they seize farmers' land is using it for industrial development. The result is too much industrial development -- unbalanced growth.

In other words, if you have the interest and patience to read on, the meaning of the lead becomes clear. Still, the story leaves out something I think is helpful to know.

The Communist Party may rule China, but Communism is mostly dead. Its last bastion is land ownership. Farmers' tenancy on their land has been expanded in recent years, but their property rights in the land are still nothing like what Americans think of as property rights.

The Communist Party rulers, who now worship at the altar of something called state capitalism, must still make occasional bows in the direction of Communism, and land ownership is where they bow.

That's one point the story omits. The other is that it's a big country, with a lot of power diffused to local governments. It's not an easy thing to rein in local officials who seize land and abuse citizens' rights. It will be interesting to see if this attempt succeeds.

Urban Lehner can be reached at urbanity@hotmail.com

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