China Reform Monitor: No. 1092

March 6:

China’s agricultural minister, Han Changfu, has stressed local governments should not “force” rural land transfers and should carry out the policy gradually and in an orderly manner. “Rural land transfer should be bound by law, made voluntarily, and with compensation,” Han said on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People’s Congress. “Rural land transfer is for farmers, not cadres.” The official China Daily reports: “Some Chinese local governments set targets for implementing rural land transfer and forced farmers to transfer their land-use rights.” Han stressed that the transferred land should continue to be used for agriculture. China has wants keep 120 million hectares of land for agriculture, an amount considered a “red line” for food security.

[Editor’s Note: Lured by better salaries as many as 260 million farmers have left the countryside for cities leaving large amounts of land uncultivated. In November, Beijing began encouraging farmers to transfer their land-use rights, or turn the rights into shares in large-scale collective farming entities. Most farmers have land-use rights, but cannot sell or mortgage their land.]

March 7:

China’s special envoy to the Middle-East, Wu Sike, has met with Libyan Interim Prime Minister Ali Zaydan to improve bilateral cooperation on the sidelines of Friends of Libya conference in Rome, Global Times reports. Both sides agreed to restart Chinese companies projects in Libya as soon as possible and PM Ali Zaydan said Libya plans to open a consulate in Guangzhou, Libya’s LANA news agency reports.

China is torn over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine between a reluctance to stand against Russia and its cardinal foreign policy principle – non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs. China has refrained from condemning Russia but is displeased by the March 16 referendum over whether the autonomous region should break away from Ukraine and join Russia, the Christian Science Monitor reports. “That would be like Taiwan’s destiny being decided only by Taiwanese,” says Jin Canrong, a professor at Renmin University. “China insists that Crimea’s fate should be decided by all Ukrainians. We will not support a Russian occupation of Crimea. Because of Taiwan, China would very much hate to see the division of a nation, but on the other hand China needs stable relations with Russia. We will try to balance these two considerations.” Others disagree. The Global Times, an official nationalist tabloid, editorialized that “backing Russia is in China’s interests” and that “we should not disappoint Russia when it finds itself in a time of need” because Moscow “has been resisting the eastward trend of western forces in Ukraine.” China did not support Russia’s Georgia invasion in 2008.

March 8:

Chinese workers in the Sivukh village of Dagestan in Russia have been attacked by “drunken” local residents who burnt down their $1.6 million greenhouse facility. Personnel from Russia’s Directorate of the Federal Migration Service later arrived to place the Chinese under protection. In January, the Chinese investors applied to lease 200 hectares for a greenhouse and tomato juice factory, but the local Russian authorities allocated only 20 hectares. Before the Chinese investment the fields had not been tilled for ten years and were covered in weeds. “For two months, the Chinese built a greenhouse complex using timber and polyethylene film; planted tomato seedlings and were planning to build a tomato juice factory in the nearest future,” the Chernovik reports. Over 100 jobs were created paying R700 ($19) per day. Prior to the attacks, the Chinese had requested protection from China’s embassy in Moscow against “aggressive young men threatening to kill them if they do not stop their ‘greenhouse’ activities.”

March 10:

Security across the Chinese border with Nepal has been upgraded in order to prevent Tibetan protests and commemorations marking 55th Tibetan Uprising Day against China, the Himalayan Times reports. Police have detained five Free Tibet activists for organizing protests at Jai Nepal Cinema Hall in Hattisar.