In mid December 2007, three headlines appeared on overseas Chinese websites: “40,000 Heilongjiang Farmers’ Declare to the Whole Nation: Permanent and Full Land Ownership,” [1] “About 70,000 Sanmenxia Farmers Declare the Retaking of Land Ownership,” [2] “Jiangsu 250 Farm Families Declare to the Whole Nation: Permanent Ownership of Residence Bases.” [3]

In 2007, China’s National People’s Congress passed the Property Rights Law. The law is intended to protect private property. The new law, however, did not make a dent in the current land policy. Even less did it break through the systemic limitations of Chinese socialism. On December 13, 2007, the police gave a criminal detention notice to the family of a civil rights representative who had been helping  Fujin farmers who had lost their land. The police gave a criminal detention notice to Yu Changwu. Representatives for the arrested farmers in Shanxi’s Sanmenxia Reservoir District, Chen Sizhong and Xi Xinji, are under criminal detention. Their arrests have been “formalized” by the Huayin Municipal Procuratorate.
{mospagebreak}
Below is a translation of the Heilongjiang and Sanmenxia Resevoir farmers’ declarations.

Notice of Dongnangang Village, Fujin City, Heilongjiang Province 72 villages, 40,000 Heilongjiang Farmers’ Declare to the Whole Nation: Permanent and Full Land Ownership [1]

We are 40,000 farmers in a total of 10 townships’ 72 administrative villages including Changan Township, Xinglong Townships, and Toulin Tonwship in Fujin City, Heilongjiang Province. In response to Fujin officials at various levels using the need for development of the country as an excuse to forcibly take 1.5 million mu (0.25 million acres) of farmland and wilderness since 1994, we declare our ownership rights as follows:

1. We, 40,000 farmers in 72 administrative villages, have ownership rights to the 1.5 million mu of land. With villages as the boundaries and farm families as the units, the originally occupied collective land [will] all be distributed equally among the whole body of villagers.

2. A farm family’s land ownership rights include the right to use, the right to earn, the right to inherit, , and the to negotiate and the right to set prices when the government or developers want to take the land for development.

3. Over 900 villagers from Dongnangang Village, Changan Township took the lead in taking back 996 shuang (about 15,000 mu) of occupied land, and have already distributed it evenly among the whole body of villagers. Before doing so, they dismissed the former head of the village, who had colluded with officials who encroached on the farmers’ collective interest. All other villages will follow this method in succession to regain and evenly distribute the occupied land in each village. Every villagers’ committee and all other self-governing organizations elected by villagers have the responsibility to support the farmers on this proposal [of land-ownership], have the responsibility to organize and lead the entire body of villagers to take back the occupied land that originally collectively belonged to the villagers, and have the responsibility to distribute the land according to the principal of individual equity. [When] encountering collusion between officials and businessmen or forcible requisitions, every villagers’ committee and [every] self-governing organization has the obligation to organize [a] village militia to defend to the death the farmers’ land ownership rights.

4. The CCP’s organizations at various levels and the government at various levels should, in accordance with the revolutionary ideal and the promise of ‘land to the tillers’ in those years, lead the farmers to land reform, like in the early stage of reformation, support the farmers’ land operation rights, respect farmers’ pioneering spirit, and support and protect farmers’ various land rights. The Central Committee of the Party has, for many years, cared about the countryside, cared about why the farmer’s preferential policies were never implemented, and why farmers’ circumstances can never undergo a substantial change. The root [of the problem] is “favor but no implementation.” Completely give the land to the farmers—only then can [this] be the most effective and the most realistic preferential policy. Currently China’s countryside is still fundamentally unsuited for collective operation. When the time is appropriate and when it’s necessary, we, the farmers, will self-organize a collective operation.
{mospagebreak}
5. Collective land in the countryside should belong to the whole body of villagers who form the collective. Farmers have the right to decide together on the form of land ownership. For a long time, the so-called collective ownership, in reality, denied the rights of the farmers as land owners. Various levels of the Fujin municipal government have repeatedly and wantonly occupied and privately possessed farmers’ land in the name of the country and the collective. In reality, [they] have become the ‘landowners.’ But the farmers—the real owners of the land—have been forced to become serfs who toil for the ‘landowners’’ land. Together we decided to change this kind of land ownership. Through ownership by farm families and farm individuals, we truly implement and protect the status of farmers as land owners.

6. We believe, just like at the beginning stage of reformation and opening up—where farmers owned the right to operate the land, great changes took place in the countryside—farmers’ land-ownership rights won by farmers will create even greater changes in the countryside. We, farmers, have suffered enough from pillage, suppression, and the fate of having no help from the heaven and earth. Now we believe that only when farmers directly practice [their] rights, will farmers have rights, and will farmers’ human rights improve.

Land is a farmers’ life; it is the farmers’ greatest human right. [Only when farmers] truly have land-owning rights, can we farmers settle down and get on with our lives, can Chinese farmers settle down and get on with their lives, can the entire country settle down and move on.

December 8, 2007

In Shanxi Province Former Yellow River about 70,000 Sanmenxia Farmers Declare They are Regaining Land Ownership [2]

We are about 70,000 returning farmers [from] 76 administrative villages of Dali County, Huayin City, and Tongguan County. [When] the country built the Sanmenxia Reservoir in the 1950’s, [it] occupied a total of 800,000 mu of our farm land. Through 30 years of blood-and-tears resistance by tens of thousands of migrants, who were forced to leave home, in the 1980s, the State Council appropriated 300,000 mu of land to settle returning migrants. In actuality, the migrants were only given 150,000 mu. Another 150,000 mu of farm land belonging to the farmers as clearly stipulated by the State Council directive, was directly taken by Weinan City and Sanmenxia County officials at various levels, or has been taken in actuality under various names and used by those seeking their own economic interests. Annual land rental alone amounts to 40 to 60 million yuan. Heretofore, close to 120,000 of the 150,000 mu of occupied land has already disappeared from the reported statistics. This is to say that not only have the officials used various means to actually occupy the land, they have also been brazenly swallowed the land. Large and small modern-day “landlords” have appeared in the Reservoir District. For us migrants, the actual average cultivation land is less than 2 mu (0.33 acres) per person. In order to make a living, [we] are forced to pay officials high rent to farm the land that originally belonged to us. Several decades of appeals hasn’t solved [the problem], the procedures stipulated by the law hasn’t solved [the problem.] {mospagebreak}
We, approximately 70,000 Sanmenxia County farmers, now together decide to take back our right to land ownership, and announce the following to the entire country (each of the undersigned is a family representative):

1. Every family of ours has permanent ownership rights to the individually contracted land [in the] total of 150,000 mu originally in the village collective. Land allocation and usage belong to our offspring. We have the right to use, rent, inherit [the land]; if someone wants to develop, rent or occupy [the land], please negotiate with us directly. We only recognize [those] governmental planning agencies that are in accordance with the public interest and [those] taxes stipulated by the law.

2. Every family of ours also has permanent ownership rights to the 150,000 mu of land that were appropriated back to the farmers by the State Council but which have long been occupied and privately possessed by officials at various levels. We will organize together, and directly give back [the land] to each family for permanent ownership according to average farmer acreage, [and] end the many years of illegal occupation and possession of land by officials from various levels.

3. We abandon the original ‘village collective’ form of land ownership. This kind of land [ownership] cannot guarantee farmers’ permanent rights to the land. This kind of ‘village collective’ often cannot accurately reflect the consensus of the entire village of farmers, cannot stop officials and the black force’s illegal infringement of the land [rights] and on other farmers’ interests. Every village committee shall assume the responsibility of protecting farmers’ land rights, and cannot place [its will] above the whole body of farmers, or occupy or allocate land.

4. As to the billions of various migrant fees annually appropriated by the country for the past several decades, we also need to square the account. What belongs to the farmers must be given to the farmers. [We] will also pursue the related illegal behavior, such as corruption, embezzlement, occupation, etc.

5. We have land ownership rights. If, in addition, we can run enterprises in education and health care sector, the three new ‘mountains’ on top of the farmers will be removed. The farmers’ social security will basically be taken care of by itself. In recent years, the Central Committee of the Party has given farmers some economic sops. We believe only farmers’ land rights and entrepreneurial rights are big economic favors. [Only then] can the countryside’s problems be solved from the root, can farmers be equal to the city dwellers, and can [they] participate and share the fruits of modernization. [Only then] can villagers’ self-governing elections [that has been instituted] for the past twenty years truly be decent.
{mospagebreak}
6. We, in the countryside, are very clear: No matter what laws and what policies the government uses, it will be very difficult to manage the land. [If] land rights are again returned into the hands of farmers, those bad forces blinded by greed won’t dare to act recklessly. Because [what] you’ll be occupying, will no longer be collective land. It will be my land, my life root. I’ll risk my life. When the power of the farmers is mobilized, the government will be free from the burden to protect the land. Base level government will then rely on industrial and farming taxes to maintain operation. [It] can no longer depend on taking farmers’ land and engaging in the so-called ‘land finance.’

We, the Reservoir District farmers, send regards to the entire country’s people!

December 12, 2007

End Notes:
[1] Boxun.com, December 9, 2007
http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/china/2007/12/200712091236.shtml
[2] Canyu.org, December 12, 2007
http://www.canyu.org/n208c6.aspx
[3] Aboluo Web, December 15, 2007
http://www.aboluowang.com/news/data/2007/1215/article_36721.html

In September 2007, the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court formally accepted charges filed by Shanghai petitioner Tong Guojing against the former Minister of Public Security, Zhou Yongkang. On October 16, the second day of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) National Congress, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) sent a formal reply to Tong. While filing a petition in Beijing in 2005, Tong had been beaten by officials from Beijing’s Shanghai Liaison Office. After responding with an unsuccessful complaint to Beijing’s Public Security Bureau, Tong brought the case to the attention of higher authorities. On September 18, 2006, Tong filed a lawsuit with the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court. After one year’s delay, the court accepted his administrative complaint on September 20, 2007, charging Minister Zhou for administrative inaction. This has become a landmark case involving an average Chinese citizen suing a high-level official and has been accepted by a Chinese court previously infamous for lack of judicial independence. The Epoch Times, a US-based weekly newspaper, published several reports on this groundbreaking course of action.

From Epoch Times on October 31, 2007 [1]
“In March of 1990, Tong Guojing’s home was illegally occupied. Not long after moving into temporary housing, he was forced to leave after this temporary home was demolished. In 2003, Tong traveled to Beijing to petition for his case. After being intercepted and beaten many times, Tong began teaching himself law in order to defend his rights.

On December 28, 2005, Tong was dining with a few petitioners in a restaurant near Beijing’s Tiananmen Square when officials from the Shanghai Liaison Office rushed in and beat them. The petitioners called Beijing Public Security Branch for protection but the Public Security Branch refused to take a report, neither documenting any injuries nor taking record of any witness accounts of the incident.”

“Tong complained to public security multiple times about this negligence but his petitions were ignored. In the end, he brought his petition to the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court.

“Normally the court is required to reply within 7 days regarding acceptance or rejection of the case, but it took one full year and Tong’s 8 visits for the court to formally decide to accept the case, labeled case number 585, on September 20, 2007. Tong received an official response from the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) on October 16 and expected a court hearing to follow quickly.”

“Shanghai human rights lawyer Zheng Encong found the court’s decision encouraging, and said that this marks a victory in the history of petitioners defending their own rights. Zheng said that this case presented an opportunity for Shanghai petitioners to legally safeguard their own rights. If their rights were violated, they could sue the local Public Security Bureau and even sue the Ministry of Public Security. He did not rule out the possibility that this could initiate a chain reaction in the form of a new wave of lawsuits from petitioners.
{mospagebreak}
He said that Zhou Yongkang should be punished for not fulfilling his responsibility as the Minister. ‘He has the responsibility to protect the safety of petitioners. MPS was funded by taxpayer’s money but failed to fulfill its responsibility.’

Zheng indicated that he had already accepted Tong Guojing’s invitation to be his defense lawyer, preparing for the upcoming hearing in the Beijing court. He feels that whether he can make it to Beijing will be a test of the Party’s progress on democratization.”

“A member of CCP’s Standing Committee of the Politburo, Zhou is Jiang Zemin’s nephew-in-law. Zhou’s current position is Secretary of the Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs (CPLA) of the CCP’s Central Committee. He was formerly Minister of Public Security and First Political Commissar of the Armed Police. As the head of the CCP system’s judicial branch, Zhou is commonly known as ‘da liu mang‘ [2], or ‘chief gangster,’ by the people. [3] 

During Zhou’s leadership of the MPS, public security continued to deteriorate with annual crime rates burgeoning at 17% – 22%. The assessment by the general public is that the MPS is ‘jing fei yi jia’ [4] , ‘a police force colluded with bandits.’ Zhou made an all-out effort to carry out Jiang’s genocidal policy toward the Falun Gong, claiming that ‘harshly cracking down on Falun Gong is the major focus of MPS.’

Zhou worked as the party chief of Sichuan province for many years. Because of that, Sichuan, a 100-million-population province, became a province that persecuted Falun Gong most severely.”

From Epoch Times on November 2, 2007 [5]

“Beijing human rights activist Hu Jia considered the court’s decision unbelievable. Hu said that: ‘we all knew the hidden rules of China’s legal system. CPLA (Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs) is the de facto big brother of China’s underworld society. Zhou is the head of the CPLA and former Minister of Public Security. The President of the Supreme People’s Court and the Procurator-General of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate must report to Zhou. With such power, Zhou is fully capable of controlling all lawsuits in China.

Hu added, ‘This shows that the court has support from a political force above the CPLA. The force may be seeking judicial independence from the CCP or taking advantage of this case to attack Zhou.’”

“Li Tianxiao, a Political Science Ph.D. from Columbia University, said that even though Hu Jintao gained greater authority after the CCP’s 17th National Congress, he is still under threat from Jiang’s faction, as Jiang will tightly cling to power for fear of being punished for the crimes he has committed. Hu should know that only by openly exposing and criticizing Jiang’s crimes can he rid himself of the threats.
{mospagebreak}
Li believed that Hu is attacking Jiang mainly from three levels: the top leadership, the local government, and the political system. On the local governmental level, the attacks started from the corruption case of Zhou Zhengyi and extended to the investigation of Jiang Mianheng, son of Jiang Zemin. Within the political system, Hu accepted the open letter written by Wang Zhaojun, and launched waves of criticism against Jiang by party cadres.

Li said, ‘From the central leadership, the greatest threat to Hu is the CPLA, which directly governs the Armed Police and Public Security. Zhou is a prime culprit in the persecution of Falun Gong and is notorious for bad deeds from his previous positions. No one except for Jiang himself supports him.  Consequently, Hu already aims to gain support from other officials by making Zhou the first target of attack.’

Li added that this case was accepted in September with Zhou as the clear target. On one hand, this serves as Hu’s frontal attack to deter Zhou from entering the Standing Committee of the Politburo; on the other hand, by disallowing the new Minister of Public Security from entering the Politburo and the CCP’s Secretariat of the Central Committee, Hu weakens the powers of the MPS and of Zhou.”

“Political commentator Wu Fan indicated that the case against Zhou Yongkang sends a clear signal of the rivalry between Hu and Jiang inside of the CCP’s high-level leadership. This also shows that Hu is speeding up his attack on Jiang while trying to separate himself from Jiang’s persecution of Falun Gong in preparation for further political moves.
 
On October 28, Meng Jianzhu replaced Zhou Yongkang as the new Minister of Public Security and as secretary of the CCP committee of the MPS.  The minister of the CCP’s Central Organization Department, Li Yuanchao, ‘commended’ the former Secretary of the CPLA, Luo Gan, along with former Minister of Public Security Zhou Yongkang for ‘strictly guarding against’ and ‘severely attacking’ Falun Gong. These remarks underscore Luo and Zhou’s direct responsibility for the persecution of Falun Gong.

Wu Fan indicated that Hu’s attack on Jiang is systematic and well planned. There is an internal connection between three events: Li Yuanchao’s speech establishing the incriminating facts regarding Zhou, the petitioner’s case against Zhou which has gained acceptance into legal proceedings, and the open letter by Wang Zhaojun appealing for political reform and an ending of the persecution of Falun Gong,”

Endnotes:
[1] The Epoch Times, October 31, 2007,
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/7/10/31/n1885372.htm
[2] The chief justice of the supreme court of China needs also to report to Zhou Yongkang, because all Chinese government officials must report to Communist Party officials.
[3] 大流氓, pronounced da4 liu2 mang2.
[4] 警匪一家, pronounced jing3 fei3 yi1 jia1.
[5] The Epoch Times, November 2, 2007
http://epochtimes.com/gb/7/11/2/n1888430.htm