Chinese Modern History: Land Reform Movements

Chinese Modern History
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Chinese Modern History
Land reforms in China gained prominent in the 20th century. In her memoir “The Dragon’s Village” by Yuan-Tsung Chen and “Why Did It Go so High? Political Mobilization and Agricultural Collectivization in China” by Yu Liu, the authors discuss how these land reforms occurred in China. In these pieces, the authors’ extensively explore why land reforms occurred extensively and the reasons behind the acceptance of these reforms (Liu, 2006). For this reason, it is important to analyze Liu’s argument from his article using Chen’s book “The Dragon’s Village.”
According to Liu, in the traditional Chinese society, the villages were mostly self-ruled as opposed to being governed from above. The rural elites, lineage seniors, and landlords are the one that controlled the rural society and in some way exploited the locals (Liu, 2006, p. 733). Chen findings agree with Liu’s point of view about the rural landlords. According to Chen (54), the rural farmlands in China were under the control of the feudal landlords. The feudal landlords were appointed by the Guomindang government so that they could run the rural areas (Chen, 2013, p. 54). They considered themselves the elite, literate, and lords of the large majority of the rural illiterate. To control the rural illiterate, they rented out land to them at high prices, charged exaggerated interest rates on loans, and ensured that they amassed extensive amount of wealth. For example, Chen describes that when Ling-ling reached the rural China, she encountered one landlord named Landlord Chi. Landlord Chi became rich swiftly when he was given that post because he mistreated the peasants. He would force the peasants to take part in gambling and then they were only allowed to lose. Ideally, when Landlord Chi gave peasants farmland, all proceeds would go to him and the peasants could only survive on what they grew in their farms (88). Further, Liu declares that under the rural elites, the poor had few options in land ownership (Liu, 2006, p. 733). This is again emphasized by Chen in “The Dragon’s village.” Chen (2013, p. 99) notes that under the landlord system, the landless suffered worse than the rest. This is because the landless had no choice but to rent land from the landlords and for this, they paid dearly. In most cases, the landlords would take half or more of the entire harvest and then the landlords would ensure that these peasants were heavy indebted to them. Ideally, Chen notes that about five percent of the population in the rural areas was made up of the feudal landlords. However, despite their small percentage, they controlled more than 60% of the land (Chen, 2013, p. 69). In this way, Chen’s findings confirm that the rural areas were under the control of rural landlords or elites who mistreated the peasants or the poor.
Further, Liu claims that the idea of collective agricultural collective campaign became successful in China because the land reform system dismantled this power system. In other words, the land reforms aimed specifically at dismantling the power of the rural elite or landlords (Liu, 2006, p. 733). In ...