I Want To Be Expropriated!: the politics ofxiaochanquanfangland development in suburban China

Abstract

This paper analyzes the ‘Minor Property Housing’ (XCQF) phenomenon. XCQF is an illegal residential building, constructed on rural collective land in suburban areas by a joint land development of township and village governments, land developers, and peasants for selling and renting to non-local urbanites. We argue that XCQF became a fait accompli not to be demolished nor legalized by higher authorities because the interests of lower-level governments and those non-elites converge. As a result, they jointly defy the central government and higher-level governments' land policies. It brings a rare opportunity for grassroots officials, entrepreneurs, and ordinary citizens to find a manner of co-existence, shaping this positive-sum coalition game unlike the near zero-sum game of other exploitative land developments. The XCQF phenomenon suggests that other patterns of coalition building, beyond what is in the current literature of ‘rightful resistance’, exist.

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