The veto of the General Plan for Land Use in the 11th Five-Year-Plan period (2006-10) at a session of the State Council demonstrates both the central government's great concern for the rapidly dwindling amount of arable land and its determination to put a brake on rampant land enclosure.

The target of keeping 120 million hectares of farmland by the end of 2010 was criticized as not putting a tight enough lid on the occupation of such land for other purposes. That figure is actually what the central government wants to see by the end of 2020. The General Plan's quota of 330,000 hectares for construction use annually nationwide was reprimanded as not conforming with the frugality principle in land use.

Nationwide, 6.16 million hectares of farmland were lost from 2000 to 2005. Of them, 1.9 million hectares went to construction projects.

Now we have only 122 million hectares of cultivated land. This means that only 2 million hectares of land will be able to be used for non-farm purposes in the coming 15 years. But the various localities' total demand is 9 million hectares for the coming five years.

The central and local governments have different agendas for the land issue.

The former, with legitimate concerns about food security, is taking measures as harsh as possible to protect cultivated land, while the latter insist on the use of land for urbanization as essential for local economic growth.

Behind the rejection of the plan is the central government's intention to set a tighter limit so as to force local authorities to make more efficient use of the acquired land.

But a huge number of acquired land was left undeveloped nationwide. The central government had to issue rules requiring land that lay undeveloped for two years to be taken back without compensation.

But as land enclosure has become an important source of revenue for many local governments, it is quite doubtful whether the stricter quotas will be effective in curbing unbridled land seizure.

Past failures to mete out severe penalties for defiant local officials who pushed through unauthorized construction projects on illegally seized farmland encourage more to follow suit.

Neither local governments nor officials will voluntarily give up interests from the transaction of land use rights. So we cannot expect the limited quotas to stop the craze of land enclosure unless these quotas are supported by severe penalties.

(China Daily September 22, 2006)