Who Owns My Land? Chinese Farmers’ Land Rights at the Crossroads

A discussion on China's rural land issues will be held at Asia Society in New York City.

China is now suffering one of the worst rural-urban income gaps in the world. One of the fundamental causes is that many Chinese farmers do not have secure property rights to land. Recent legal and policy reforms have afforded stronger protections of farmers' land rights than before, but they are often ignored at the local level. As China is moving toward a market economy, the central government is facing important choices and decisions that would affect the livelihood of more than 700 million rural citizens.

In the past decade, Landesa Institute, Renmin University, and Michigan State University has brought about an unprecedented field study on the status of farmers’ land rights, including five large-scale surveys covering 17 provinces in China.

Join us for an eye-opening discussion with experts about their findings in China's rural land issues.

Roy Prosterman: Founder and chairman emeritus of Landesa (formerly the Rural Development Institute), emeritus professor of law at the University of Washington

Zhu Keliang: Attorney for Landesa’s China Team, expert in China’s rural society, rural land issues, legal policy relating to land and forest tenure, and land-related institutions concerning China

Frank K. Upham: (Moderator) Professor of Property Law, Co-Director of the US-Asia Law Institute at New York University

Can't make it to this program? Tune in to the free live video webcast on AsiaSociety.org/Live from 8:30 to 10:00 am ET. Online viewers are encouraged to submit their questions to moderator@asiasociety.org during the webcast.

Please register at https://tickets.asiasociety.org/public/auto_choose_ga.asp?area=32.