Siu Wai Wong

Institutions, Property Taxation and Local Government Finance in China

China’s rapid urbanisation has prompted its government to explore new sustainable sources of public revenue to finance the continued demand for urban infrastructure and services. Property tax advocates have sought to take advantage of the real estate booms that have occurred since economic liberalisation by actively campaigning for a real property levy as an appropriate policy choice. Against this background, this study evaluates the prospect of implementing market-value-based property tax reforms in mainland China. Based on the new institutional economics perspective, it posits property tax as an institutional arrangement which requires complementary mechanisms in land registration, property appraisal, tax administration, social security and dispute resolution. Property tax reforms would not only necessitate technical changes, but would also have extensive social, political and legal repercussions for Chinese society.

Property Agents, Housing Markets and Housing Services in Transitional Urban China

This study examines the particular role, services and functions of property agents in the housing markets in mainland China. Since the implementation of housing market reforms, cities on the Chinese mainland have transferred from a centrally-directed, welfare-oriented housing system to a more decentralized, market-based one. Commodification of housing has expanded the opportunity of new market intermediaries to service the growing urban housing markets. Yet there appears to be little research on these agents, which bear similarity in name, but not exactly in operation, to those in a market society. Based upon insights from new institutional economics, this study examines how the existing institutions in China have constrained and facilitated their services in the housing transaction process. This micro-analytical study provides a different means towards understanding the market transformation of a socialist housing system.

Land Requisitions and State–Village Power Restructuring in Southern China

Land requisitions for urban development have led to a rapid growth of wealthy, autonomous villages in southern China. However, the underlying causes of this emerging phenomenon and its impact on local governance have been largely unexplored by the existing literature. Through an in-depth analysis of the contestations and negotiations between the local state and villagers when dealing with the various problems arising from land compensation, this study explains how and why land requisitions strengthened the collective power of villagers in defending their rightful interests. This bolstered power has in turn forced the local state constantly to adjust its tactics when addressing the needs of villagers in order to avoid widespread conflicts and potential social unrest. The findings provide new insights into the complexities of land conflicts and their actual impact on state–village power restructuring in southern China.

Urbanization as A Process of State Building: Local Governance Reforms in China

Existing scholarship suggests that local transformation in reform-era China has been a process of decentralization of state power driving extractive local governments to pursue economic growth through rapacious land appropriation and producing many miserable landless villagers. This study puts forward an alternative perspective by arguing that local governance reforms in China to advance urban development should also be interpreted as a process of state building, whereby local government reshaped its governance strategy so as to mitigate potential social unrest and strengthen its political legitimacy in governing rapidly urbanizing areas. Based on intensive fieldwork in a periurban district in southern China, this research examines how the local state has heightened its control over urbanizing villages through its day-to-day governance practices and the pursuit of a complex policy agenda comprising social welfare provision, shareholding reforms and intervention in grassroots politics. The findings of this study shed new light on understanding local state transformation in periurban China and on explaining why the country still maintains tremendous urban growth despite incessant land disputes and numerous social tensions at different localities.

Reconsolidation of state power into urbanising villages: Shareholding reforms as a strategy for governance in the Pearl River Delta region

Shareholding Cooperatives (SCs) are the officially recognised organisations responsible for managing villagers’ collectively owned assets. In recent years, massive land requisitions in the Pearl River Delta region have led many villages to experience a rapid expansion in their collective assets, highlighting the indispensable role of SCs in reshaping the landscape of local governance. Based upon an in-depth case study of the Guangzhou Luogang District, this study shows that the local state has engaged with shareholding reforms to achieve two main objectives: inducing compliance amongst villagers and promoting the accountability of village cadres in the management of collective assets. These empirical findings suggest that shareholding reforms were not simply a process of market building or property rights reforms driven by local initiatives. Rather, they should also be interpreted as a process of state power reconsolidation, whereby the local government sought to regain its control over the urbanising villages.