Based on analysis and arguments, this article aims to provide a new perspective to issues realted to the land ownership in contemporary China. The article can be summarized by the following 4 points.
1, It is meaningless and useless to argue whether China should keep public land ownership or allow private land ownership under the current political, economic, and social circumstances.
2, Those who advocate public land ownership should clarify what kind of “state ownership” and “collective ownership” they are talking about. It is especially important to distinguish the different nature of “voluntary collectivization” from that of “being collectivized by force”.
3, Those who advocate private land ownership, should also clarify what kind of private ownership they are talking about, whether there is enough legal system to make the private ownership work, and how to prevent it from becoming empty talk, or fake private ownership.
4. In regarding to Professor He Xuefeng’s new book (The Logic of Land Ownership: Where China’s Land System is Going), this article raises several arguments, especially for those parts of self-contradiction on the major concerning of Chinese peasantry.
Finally, the author concludes that, the rights to owning land individually is an important part of human rights. Given the prevailing circumstances in China that can be characterized by lacking clear understanding on land ownership and human rights due to the failure for the whole society to reach a consensus on this issue, in addition to the fact that the current legal system is too weak to provide sufficient protection to property rightrsany talk on land ownership (whether pubic or private) will sound empty, because it will neither make any real sense, nor would it resolve any problems.