How Can the Risk of Misconduct in Land Expropriation for Tract Development Be Prevented and Mitigated: A Study of “Good Land Governance” Inspection in China

Abstract

In the context of China’s new round of land reform, narrowing the scope of land expropriation, standardising the procedures for land expropriation, and building a unified urban and rural construction land market have become the objectives of land expropriation reform. The new Land Management Law of the People’s Republic of China confirms land expropriation for tract development as a new situation for the land acquisition system. However, in the process of implementing the system, the new land acquisition mode is plagued by the dual dilemma of the falsification of public interests and the lack of a mechanism to realise public interests, which leads to the real risk of misconduct in standards. The concept of the coordination of interests and co-operative governance in “Good Land Governance” is a sure way to overcome this structural risk. The article analyses the causes through the lens of “Good Land Governance” and concludes that the risk of failure of the standards can be addressed through the binary public good remedy: On the one hand, from the perspective of coordination of interests, drawing on the principle of proportionality, the system can be built by improving the way of purposeful examination, so as to achieve the effect of preventing the risk of deflating and generalising public interests in order to achieve the effect of realising and reinforcing public interests. On the other hand, from the perspective of synergistic shared governance and drawing on the logic of land justice, institutional insight can be built by way of establishing a pattern of shared public interest, thus achieving the effect of preventing the risk of public interest erosion in order to achieve the effect of shared public interest replenishment.

1. Introduction

The post liberalisation economic boom continues to create a voracious appetite for space to meet the demands of industrialisation, infrastructure building, urban expansion, and resource extraction [1,2]. During the process of rapid urbanization and industrialization, urban–rural integrated development has become an important socioeconomic phenomenon around the world [3,4,5]. Against this backdrop, the demands of economic development have led most developing countries into unhealthy and inefficient patterns of land acquisition in order to attract private investment [6]. For developing countries, the rational use of land acquisition powers to provide land resources for urbanisation on the basis of economic growth and the promotion of human settlements is one of the most important challenges in terms of land management [7].

China’s land ownership system is an urban–rural dualistic land management system, which, combined with the high dependence of China’s public interest expropriation on policy guidelines and administrative discretion, gives its land expropriation issues a strong local character. The long-term preferential urban development strategy in China has led to conflicts such as divided land management, separation of people and land, and urban–rural division [8,9,10]. The rights and interests of rural development have been seriously compromised in the process of urban and rural development. According to the provisions of Article 10 of the Constitution of the PRC, land in urban areas is owned by the state, while land in rural and suburban areas is owned collectively. Collective land is converted to state land through land expropriation. According to the Chinese Constitution, the constitutionality of land expropriation is judged by “public interest needs”, which, as a historical category, are necessarily linked to social patterns [11].

China’s newly revised Land Administration Law clearly divides land expropriation into expropriation for purely public purposes and land expropriation for tract development. This amendment classifies land expropriation for tract development as a form of expropriation that is not purely for public interest into the land expropriation system [12]. According to the “The Standard for land expropriation for tract development (Trial)” formulated by the Department of Natural Resources of of the PRC, land expropriation for tract development refers to the comprehensive development and construction activities on a certain area of land organized by local people’s governments at or above the county level in the concentrated construction areas within the development boundaries of towns and cities as determined by the territorial spatial planning. It has been included in the land acquisition system for economic construction purposes since its inception as an important tool for the construction of new cities, new districts, urban renewal, and the transformation of old cities. The amendment not only reflects the State’s commitment to the reform of land acquisition, but also the law’s consideration of whether “national construction”, especially “economic construction”, can be incorporated into the public interest. The lack of legal control over the land expropriation for tract development, a new legal provision, has led to many problems in the process of implementation: In terms of institutional design, the amendment to the Land Administration Law, while providing for a system of land expropriation for tract development, also clarifies the system of the market entry of collectively owned commercial construction land (Article 63 of the Land Management Law allows collective business construction land to enter the construction land market directly by way of sale or lease). There is a conflict of application between the land expropriation for tract development and the market entry of collectively owned commercial construction land in the interface of the systems: the price of collective business construction land when it is put on the market is a market agreement price resulting from an agreement or a tendering and auctioning procedure. Under such circumstances, if the compensation for the land expropriation of collective land cannot be coordinated and connected with the distribution of the value-added proceeds of land in the field of the market entry of collective business construction land, there will be a large number of contradictions in land management practice: “the farmers (collectives) want to directly enter the market for the same plot of land, but the government wants to expropriate it”, and this contradiction could expose the collective land acquisition and market entry system established by the Land Management Law to the risk of “institutional bankruptcy” due to the uneven distribution of the proceeds of land appreciation. Meanwhile, The involvement of private commercial development has also led to many conflicts and contradictions between public and private interests and between expropriation and development, within the land expropriation for tract development. At the level of institutional implementation, on the one hand, this new type of land expropriation also suffers from an imbalance between public land and commercial land, the waste of land resources, and poverty among landless farmers. On the other hand, the current system of land expropriation for tract development has not yet developed a sound mechanism for safeguarding the public interest. As a result of this, land expropriation has not been as effective as it should have been, and the question of how to interpret the legal reform of land expropriation for tract development and the formation of an operational mechanism for safeguarding the public interest has become an urgent issue to be resolved.

2. Literature Review

The current standard system of land expropriation for tract development is not yet complete. The issue of whether commercial development can be used as a means of achieving the public interest to facilitate the exercise of the right of eminent domain has become a major controversy in the expropriation of tracts of land for development. Analysed from a universal perspective, some scholars argue that economic development and business activities should not be included in the public interest [13] and that tract development expropriation, which includes commercial development, should not be included in the expropriation system. Even under conditions of full compensation, the expropriated person, while receiving a higher than fair market value for the compensation, does not share in the value-added benefits of the land expropriation [14]. The benefit to the public in the expropriation of tract development is a reflexive interest and does not meet the criteria of direct and substantial benefit to the public [15]. If the public purpose is understood to be merely the enhancement of the overall net social good, then almost any socially viable project justifies intervention by the state if there are land-related obstacles to its realization. It would be more appropriate to say that the particular nature of the land required to achieve the public good justifies state expropriation or intervention [16]. The fundamental purpose of the expropriation of tract development is to engage in business activities. Land acquisition and development should be subsumed under the land reserve system [17]. Commercial development can lead to an overlap in the government’s identity as the owner, planner, and investor in the process of land acquisition and development. While this may enable the government to effectively promote urban development, it is also problematic because, by assuming this dual role, municipalities place themselves in a biased position that has the potential to undermine the legitimacy of government action [18]. Analysed in terms of specificity, some scholars argue that, as China already has a market system for collective business construction land, it allows the commercial development of land expropriated for tract development to squeeze the space for the market reform of collective business construction land. This scenario leads to institutional contradictions between land reforms and contradictions in the reform requirement of narrowing the scope of land expropriation in China (Reference Zheng Zhenyuan’s speech at the seminar on “Improving the Expropriation System for tract Development”, 13 June 2020, http://law.suda.edu.cn/c4/f1/c1056a378097/page.htm, last accessed on 12 May 2022). The connotation of public interest should be understood in a broad sense. At the level of legitimacy, scholars have argued that a certain limit of commercial development in the expropriation of tract developments is in line with public interest through the analysis of constitutionality, the supply of public goods, and the values of the times [19,20,21]. At the level of institutional realisation, Hua Ziyan advocates the control of risk in the land expropriation for tract development in three dimensions: content, process, and outcome [22]. Shi Jiayou advocates that the public interest element should be determined to ensure the public interest of the expropriation of land in a tract development [23]. Furthermore, Liu Yuzi proposes to ensure the public interest of the expropriation of land by explicitly listing and limiting the circumstances in which public interest can be applied to the land expropriation for tract development and by strengthening the obligation to assess the public interest and necessity [24]. Patrick Bishop argues for the promotion of a balance between public and private interests in land acquisition by strengthening the courts’ review of public interest criteria such as the democratic process and private rights protection [25]. Johan Svensson argues that the interests of the state can be promoted through the integration and synergy of public and private land use interests [26]. Brightman Gebremichael argues that the achievement of the public interest requires balancing two conflicting interests in the eminent domain: a public need for land and landholders expecting the security of tenure and protection of their private property rights [27].

The discussion of public interests has always been the core of land expropriation. Public interest is a concept that evolves and changes with the times [28]. It is all the more necessary to evaluate the public interest on the basis of national circumstances. The inclusion of commercial development into the scope of land expropriation for tract development is both reasonable and legal. From the analysis of realistic needs, the construction of new urbanisation in the context of urban–rural integration currently requires the reconstruction of the urban–rural pattern. This issue is coupled with the fact that China is facing problems regarding the replacement of old growth drivers with new ones, the construction of industrial zones for the purpose of upgrading industrial chains and increasing added-value, and the construction of urban renewal for the purpose of improving the quality of urban services requiring tract-scale land supply. However, land resources remain scattered, and the market entry of land for collective management and construction is faced with many difficulties, such as collective bargaining and “nail households”. In terms of legal interpretation, Article 45 of the Land Administration Law was established with a bottom-up clause (Article 45 of the Land Management Law of the PRC: Expropriation of land collectively owned by peasants may be carried out in accordance with the law if, for the sake of public interest, one of the following circumstances really requires expropriation: … (5) Where land is required for the development and construction of land expropriation for tract development of urban construction land determined by the overall land use plan and approved by the people’s government at or above the provincial level for implementation by the local people’s government at or above the county level; (6) In other cases where expropriation of land collectively owned by peasants is required by law for the public interest.). If the expropriation of a tract of land includes only public interest construction projects, the subordinate clause is directly applicable, and a separate clause need not be created. The expropriation of tract development, which includes commercial development, is a logical consequence of the “enumeration + underwriting” of the provisions. For example, Article 8 of the Regulations on the Expropriation and Compensation of Houses on State-owned Land includes “old city reconstruction” in the category of “public interest”.

From the literature review, most of the articles discuss the criteria for expropriation and compensation for expropriation from the perspective of the economic value of the land, resulting in a lack of analysis of the ecological and social value of the land. This trend has led to a lack of consideration of the multiple values of land, farmers’ rights, and interests in development and other aspects of “Good Land Governance”. The key to judging the public interest of the expropriation of land for development is whether the comprehensive social benefits generated meet the needs of public interest and whether the negative effects of expropriation are mitigated through regulatory mechanisms, such as the land benefit sharing mechanisms, to ensure that the land rights of farmers, the collective, and the state are realised. The essence of the study is whether the effect is to achieve “Good Land Governance”.

In this regard, the current research endorses an expansive interpretation of the public interest to examine the embodiment of the risk of standard failure in the current expropriation of tract developments through the lens of “Good Land Governance”. Moreover, the study seeks to deconstruct the key factors from the value–function–subject level in a multi-dimensional manner to provide new ideas for the regulation of standard failure in the expropriation of land in a tract development through the reinforcement of public interest actualisation and public interest sharing. It also provides a mechanism for the state to use private and social capital to assist in the sustainable development of land expropriation for tract development on the basis of ensuring that the public interest is realised.

This study will provide an empirical and cross-disciplinary perspective on how to prevent misconduct in land acquisition standards. The rest of the paper is structured as follows: Section 3 is a typological analysis of the risk of standard failure in the expropriation for tract developments; Section 4 is a deconstruction of the main causes of the risk of standard failure in the perspective of Good Land Governance; Section 5 is a new way of thinking about the prevention and resolution of the risk of standard failure; Section 6 is the main conclusions and outlook.

3. Empirical Analysis of the Risk of the Failure Standards of Land Expropriation for Tract Development in the New Situation of Tract Development

In conjunction with the analysis of typical cases and schemes of land expropriation for tract development, such as “urban renewal”, the ”transformation of urban villages”, and the construction of “industrial zones”, the land expropriation for tract development faces problems on mixed public and private interests in the rapid promotion of the system. In the rapid implementation of the expropriation system, a double structural risk of mixing public and private interests emerges, and a conflict occurs among administrative, autonomous, and judicial powers in the implementation of the system. As shown in Figure 1, a number of factors have led to a dilemma in the standard of expropriation of tract developments, which has resulted in the deflation of public interest and has not fulfilled the regulatory function of the standard mechanism.

3.1. Lack of Purpose Review and Insufficient Justification for Land Expropriation for Tract Development Resulting in the Risk of Public Interest Being Squeezed

The public interest purpose is a prerequisite for the exercise of the state’s right of expropriation [29]. From the analysis of the current state of judicial practice, commercial development and market-oriented operation cannot be the direct reason for denying the public interest purpose of the act of expropriation (In the Supreme Court Administrative Ruling No. 612(2015) on Administrative Supervision, the Supreme People’s Court held that “in the process of renovation of old urban areas, municipal and county people’s governments supplement the shortage of funds for renovation of old cities through commercial development, the purpose of which is still to improve the living environment and improve the quality of life of the expropriated people. Commercial development is only a means of land use after the expropriation of houses, and as long as the compensation and resettlement of housing expropriation ensures that the expropriated people get the option to move back, the public interest purpose of expropriation cannot be denied on this basis”. Shandong Rizhao Intermediate People’s Court Administrative Litigation Final Case No. 59 (2016) Administrative Judgment held that “the fact that the urban village renovation project in question is carried out in a government-led, market-operated and village-enterprise cooperation manner cannot be a reason to deny the public interest nature of the project, and the plaintiff’s claim that the project is a commercial development and does not fall within the scope of public interest has no basis.”). In the Supreme People’s Court Administrative Cases Re-examination No. 7046 (2017), the Supreme People’s Court held that “under the conditions of socialist market economy, it is an inevitable trend to establish a mechanism for social and market participation in the supply of public services, and the public interest cannot be defined by whether or not a market-oriented operation model is adopted”. In this context, in the basic structure of “collective ownership - state expropriation - private use”, whether the land expropriation for tract development is in the public interest depends to a large extent on the subsequent private use [30]. How to limit private use to ensure the key point in determining the legality of expropriation lies in how to restrict private use to ensure the realisation of public interest. The current review of the purpose of land expropriation for tract development often presents a determination that “the expropriation is in accordance with the plan”, which directly relieves or exempts the burden of proof of the substantive content of the public interest. For example, in Supreme Law Administrative Ruling No. 14185 (2020) and Supreme Law Administrative Ruling No. 2139 (2019), the courts in the “Xiaoliang Village Area Renovation Project” and the “Panlong District Old City Renovation Project” both stated that the projects were in the public’s interest. This declaration reduces or dispenses with the purposive examination of public interest. This tendency to equate “compliance with planning requirements” with “satisfaction of the public interest element” is in fact based on the doctrine of “ensuring the public interest in accordance with planning”. According to this doctrine, the public character of a specific urban project and the purpose of its implementation in the determination of the public interest need not be discussed because its public character is already ensured in the urban plan [31]. This trend towards judicial review has reduced the burden of proof for the government’s argument that “land acquisition promotes the public interest”. The combination of government dominance in land acquisition and the absence of purpose review has led to an expropriation practice characterised by a high degree of autonomy in government action and a low risk of illegality in the process of expropriating land for development. For example, in the case of urban village renovation projects, public interest has been established to maintain the order of urban land ownership and to promote the urbanisation process. The Regulations on the Expropriation and Compensation of Houses on State-owned Land also recognise the public interest nature of the situation (Article 8(5) of the Regulations on the Expropriation and Compensation of Houses on State-owned Land stipulates that “the reconstruction of old urban areas with a concentration of dangerous houses and poor infrastructure, etc., organized and implemented by municipal and county-level people’s governments in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Urban and Rural Planning Law, falls within the scope of public interest”.). The established public interest causes difficulty for the courts to review the public interest and purpose of redevelopment proposals (In the Supreme People’s Court of China Administrative Ruling No. 2826 (2017), the court of first instance held that the annual plan for national economic and social development was quasi-legislative in nature and that the expropriation decision for the old city renovation in question had been incorporated into the alteration and included in the annual plan for national economic and social development, which was considered by the municipal and county people’s congresses to form a resolution, and that the people’s courts did not have the power to change it through administrative trials. The Court of Re-examination also recognised its public interest nature on the grounds that it complied with procedural requirements, as well as Articles 8 and 9 of the Regulations on the Expropriation and Compensation of Houses on State-owned Land.), and the government lacks a clear explanation of the public interest and purpose of redevelopment proposals when formulating expropriation proposals for land expropriation for tract development (Public interest arguments are lacking for specific expropriation schemes for tract development, such as the Scheme for the Acquisition of Land for Tract Development in Xindian Area, Jinan District, Fuzhou City, and the Public Notice Scheme for the Acquisition of Land for Tract Development in Anyuan County.).

The issue of land in China has its own peculiarities. On the one hand, reviewing the purpose of relying solely on government planning to ensure the public benefit of land expropriation projects for tract development will undoubtedly squeeze out the space for collective business construction land to be marketed. A risk of institutional competition between the current expropriation of land for development and the market entry of collective business construction land emerges. On the other hand, the reasonableness of urban planning is a substitute for the public nature of expropriation projects, which will lead to the expansion of the government’s administrative power and affect the development of the market system for the right to use construction land for business purposes; moreover, evident differences exist between expropriation projects for tract development, and planning or regulatory restrictions often present weak constraints. The lack of a purposive review of planning or regulatory restrictions is likely to lead to the falsification of public interest and imbalance between public and private interests. In urban regeneration projects, such as urban village renovation and urban renewal, the land is relatively scattered, and the development of the project focuses on the rationality of urban planning and the orderliness of urban development (The scheme of land acquisition for tract development in the area around the Second Ring Road 1 in Cangshan District, Fuzhou City, and the scheme of land acquisition for tract development in the central area of Magzao Town, Jinjiang City, are mostly discussed in terms of the necessity of optimising urban planning and enhancing the urban landscape. The land is scattered, and the scale of acquisition is relatively small.). In the case of economic development projects, such as industrial parks and new urban areas, the expropriation of land for tract development is relatively concentrated, and project development focuses on the transformation of economic growth through comprehensive investment and development of land, industry, infrastructure, public services, and financial projects (For example, the Tianjin Jinan Economic Development Zone Industrial Area Land Acquisition and Piece Development Programme, the Huai’an Industrial Park Salt Chemical Industry North Area Land Acquisition and Piece Development Programme, and the Cangnan County 2021 Land Acquisition and Piece Development Programme are mostly discussed in terms of the necessity of facilitating economic development and expanding urban space. Features such as the concentration of land and the large area to be developed are present.). The criteria for determining the public benefit required for different types of land expropriation for tract development are difficult to harmonise. In the absence of a review of the purpose, a system that limits the size of expropriation may easily drive some governments to fall into the perception that they only need to meet a minimum percentage of land for public benefit to safeguard their public benefit, thus expanding the authority to exercise the right to expropriate for tract development. For example, urban residential and commercial construction projects easily become included in the land acquisition plans for tract development (In the “Fuzhou Jinan District Goose Peak Area Land Acquisition into Piece Development Programme” and the “Jishui County Land Acquisition into Piece Development Programme”, commercial finance and commercial residential construction purposes are included in the tract development and acquisition projects.). In contrast, in the case of industrial upgrading, industrial zone construction, and other land expropriation for tract projects, excessive restrictions on the proportion of land for public benefit may lead to restrictions on the construction of parks, to the detriment of the realisation of the public interest.

3.2. The Procedure Is Relatively Closed, and the Mechanism for Expressing Public Interests Is Not Smooth, Which May Lead to Social Risks

Without procedural justice, no substantive justice can be achieved. The fairness and transparency of procedures in the process of expropriation of land for development is a necessary condition for the realisation of public interests and is also the focus of farmers’ demands. In land expropriation, the right of collective land membership in China provides peasants the right to participate in the process of land expropriation [32]. In the judicial precedents, the expropriation cases, and legal regulations collected by the author, the degree of participation and the expression of the will of the expropriated peasants are gradually recognised as constitutive elements of public interest. For example, in Supreme People’s Court Administrative Cases Re-examination No. 1960 (2018), the court, in arguing for the public interest, indicates that it should “respect the expressions of intent formed by the vast majority of expropriated people through due process, and construction projects to which the vast majority of expropriated residents agree should be considered to be in line with the needs of public interest”. The Ministry of Natural Resources issued the “Standards for tract Land Acquisition and Development”, and various local standard documents also include the villagers’ voting procedure in the expropriation procedure (Article 4 of the Criteria for Land Acquisition for Tract Development stipulates that “the proposal for land acquisition for tract development shall fully consult the rural collective economic organizations and farmers within the area of tract development and be agreed by two-thirds or more of the members of the villagers’ meeting of the members of the collective economic organizations or two-thirds or more of the villagers’ representatives. Without the consent of at least two-thirds of the members of the villagers’ meeting of the collective economic organisation or at least two-thirds of the villagers’ representatives, no application for land acquisition for tract development shall be made”. Similar provisions are found in local documents such as the Guidelines for the Preparation of Land Acquisition for Tract Development in Yunnan Province and the Guidance on the Implementation of Standards for Land Acquisition for Tract Development of the General Office of the Jiangxi Provincial People’s Government.). The current public participation of farmers in the expropriation procedures for tract development is mainly reflected in the “two announcements and one registration” system (The “two announcements and one registration” refers to the announcement of land acquisition, the announcement of the compensation and resettlement plan for land acquisition, and the registration of compensation.), the hearing procedures, and the voting system for land expropriation for tract projects. However, the expropriation system lacks the necessary procedural safeguards and remedies for the exercise of the expropriated farmers’ rights to information and participation: at the level of system implementation, farmers’ rights to information are limited in the land expropriation of tract developments. The announcement process is not in line with the regulations and is formalized. In addition, the content of the announcement is evasive, and necessary publicity work is lacking, thus resulting in a poor level of awareness of the content of the announcement (According to the research data in Wang Yakun, Zhao Heng, and Peter Ho’s paper “A Study of Land Expropriation Procedures from the Perspective of Farmers’ Rights and Interests—A Case Study of Five Construction Projects in Hebei Province”, 70.8% of the expropriation announcements in the survey on the degree of regulation of the announcement procedure did not comply with the content and timing of the announcements. In the survey on the effect of public announcements, 89.4% of the farmers interviewed did not understand the statutory process of land acquisition at all, and 46.9% of the farmers interviewed understood little or nothing about the compensation scheme for land acquisition.). The announcement process can hardly achieve the information access required to protect farmers’ right to know. The regulation of farmers’ right to participate is mostly in principle, and concrete and enforceable mechanisms are lacking. Furthermore, among the aspects that remain insufficient are mechanisms to express farmers’ views on the expropriation of land for development, a mechanism for consultation during the expropriation process, and a redress mechanism for violations of the right to information and participation (For example, the Fuzhou Jin’an District Ziyang Area Land Acquisition and Piece Development Programme, the Yongkang City 2021 Annual Land Acquisition and Piece Development Programme Public Notice, the Ganzhou Rongjiang New Area Land Acquisition and Piece Development Programme (2021–2022), the Yunnan Province Land Acquisition and Piece Development Programme Layout Guide, the General Office of the Jiangxi Provincial People’s Government on the Implementation of Land Acquisition and Piece Development Standards, the Guidelines on the Implementation of Land Acquisition and Development Standards of the General Office of the Jiangxi Provincial People’s Government, and other local tract development programmes and standards lack mechanisms for expressing farmers’ views, consultation, and redress.). Poor mechanisms for the expression of public interests not only cause difficulty to achieve the objectives of public monitoring and public participation, but also tend to intensify farmers’ resistance and rejection of expropriation, thus leading to confrontation among villagers, village committees, and the government.

In the process of demolition and development, the development and demolition behaviour of the government and developers is generally unmonitored, and the lack of public participation has led to a lack of proper supervision of the programme implementation process. This shortcoming is coupled with the influence of micro-corruption factors, which has led to the frequent occurrence of misconduct in development, such as renting instead of expropriation (This is an unauthorised expansion of the scale of construction land by renting collective peasant land for non-agricultural construction. In essence, this is an act to circumvent the statutory approval for the conversion of agricultural land and land expropriation and to use land illegally.) and expanding the expropriation area. For example, the shantytown project on Lot 2A in Longshanzi, as indicated in Supreme Court Administrative Decision No. 13199 (2020), had irregularities in the development process, such as expanding the area of expropriation. In another example, in the Liujiaying Urban Village Renovation Project and the Mujwang Village Urban Village Renovation Project, some areas of the project were not developed in accordance with the expropriation plan, such as broken capital chains and illegal development. resulting in rotten buildings and farmers being unable to resettle after land expropriation. This scenario has led to the problem of farmers’ rights being compromised (Reference “A bad specimen of “urban reform”! After the transformation of an urban village, 500 villagers have been rented out for up to seven years and are unable to move back in”, available at http://m.news.cctv.com/2017/12/03/ARTIlOqEmsHT8T8L4ul7E21K171203.shtml, (accessed on 12 May 2022). Among them is the problem of landless farmers in Mu Zhuang Wang village due to a broken financial chain; Reference “Notice of the auction of the land use rights and ground attachments” of the Kunming. The auction project in the “Notice on Land Use Rights and Ground Attachments (Construction in Progress)” of Yunshan Community Neighborhood Committee, Qingyun Street Road Office, Panlong District (First Auction), is the stoppage project in the Liujiaying Urban Village Renovation Project due to the financial shortage of the project developer, Kunming Antai Real Estate Development Co.). The irregularities in the development behaviour not only lead to the defalcation of public interests, but also cause social problems such as difficulties in resettlement and stagnation of project development.

3.3. The Generalised Approach to Compensation for Land Acquisition Has Led to a Lack of Attention to Farmers’ Rights to Development, Resulting in the Risk of Numerous Land Disputes

As the usual standard for compensation for expropriation, the fair market value compensation standard has revealed disadvantages such as social and ecological value neglect in today’s land expropriation and use process. Scholars continue to suggest that fair market value is a desperate choice, and it is not uncommon for the literature to criticise the fair market value standard [33]. The U.S. Federal Supreme Court has very implicitly acknowledged the possible injustice implicit in the fair market value standard at the very beginning of its establishment. Compensation for land acquisition requires an equitable element to intervene to compensate for the current neglect of farmers’ rights of development [34]. Against this backdrop, China’s compensation for farmers has undergone a transition and exploration from a single monetary compensation to a diversified resettlement, social security stage [35]. The No. 1 central document of China (As the first policy statement released by Chinese central authorities each year, the document is seen as an indicator of policy priorities.) has repeatedly stressed the need to increase the proportion of farmers’ share in the value-added proceeds of land and to ensure that the living standards of farmers whose land has been expropriated are improved and their long-term livelihood is guaranteed. Unlike the traditional method of expropriation, the land expropriation for tract development is characterised by high costs, a long payback cycle, difficulty, and a large number of subjects involved. In the development method, the government often adopts a market-based model of cooperation with social capital to develop and build the planned land (Documents such as the Notice of the General Office of the State Council on Further Strengthening the Renovation of Shantytown Areas and Several Opinions on Encouraging and Guiding the Healthy Development of Private Investment show the importance the state attaches to emphasising the cooperation between the government and social capital for tract development and expropriation. Local political documents such as the Office of the Xiangtan Municipal People’s Government on the Implementation Opinions on Encouraging Social Capital to Participate in the Transformation and Development of Shantytown Pieces in Urban Areas of the City and the Notice of the Wuzhou Municipal People’s Government on the Issuance of the Implementation Opinions on the Introduction of Social Capital to Participate in Old Urban Area (Shantytown) Transformation Projects in the City also indicate the importance of local government and the use of social capital cooperation in the expropriation of tract development.).

Based on the financing burden of local finance, the profit-seeking nature of social capital, and the current financial structure and assessment mechanism of local governments, local governments have the direct goal of promoting “economic development” and “urbanization” in the process of land acquisition in a “low-cost” manner [36]. As a result, the compensation for the expropriation of land for tract development presents various risks and problems. On the one hand, the scope of compensation for the expropriation of land for tract development is generalised, thus causing difficulty to compensate for the losses caused by the expropriation. The former includes compensation for land, resettlement grants, land attachment, and seedling compensation, while the latter involves the resettlement of farmers who have lost their land. However, in practice, the loss of land values such as “sandwich land” and “flowering land” due to land expropriation for tract development, as well as the loss of attachments, rent, and business caused by land expropriation are difficult to compensate, and they lead to large costs of litigation to defend their rights (Reference Supreme People’s Court Administrative Retrial Case No. 289(2019) in Lingchuan County Jinmangyuan Agricultural Science and Technology Development Co. v. Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Lingchuan County People’s Government Land Expropriation Compensation. The two parties who were the subject of litigation in the case disputed compensation for expropriation due to loss of production and business suspension, loss of land rent, worker training, and market development expenses. The case went through first instance proceedings, second instance proceedings, and re-trial proceedings, which eventually resulted in a re-trial ruling partially upholding the application for expropriation compensation. Similar cases still exist in Supreme People’s Court Administrative Appeals Case No. 1511(2020), Supreme People’s Court Administrative Appeals Case No. 3677(2017), and Supreme People’s Court Administrative Appeals Case No. 12024(2020).). On the other hand, the current lack of secondary compensation for land value-added benefits from land expropriation causes difficulty for farmers to participate in the distribution of land value-added benefits. For example, in the design of the land expropriation for the tract development scheme of Qingjiang New Area in Lichuan City, the compensation method of expropriation in the scheme is still mainly monetary compensation, and the exploration of multiple compensation methods, such as land share settlement and land retention settlement, is lacking. The content of compensation for the land expropriation for tract development still focuses on compensation for land, resettlement grants, compensation for ground attachment and seedlings, and compensation for housing demolition and resettlement. Moreover, it lacks attention to the rights of expropriated farmers to labour, development, and social security. The compensation and resettlement measures also fail to reflect the participation of farmers in the distribution of the benefits of land appreciation (Reference “The Plan for Tract Development of Land Requisition in Qingjiang New Area of Lichuan City”, “Notice of the People’s Government of Hubei Province on Announcing the Implementation of the Comprehensive Land Value Standard for Tract Land Requisition in Hubei Province”, “Notice of the Provincial People’s Government on Announcing the Unified Annual Production Value Standard and Comprehensive Land Value for Tract Land Requisition in Hubei Province”, “Notice of the Lichuan Municipal People’s Government on the Announcement of Compensation Standards for Attachments and Seedlings on Requisitioned Land in Lichuan City”, and “Implementation Measures for Compensation and Resettlement of Collective Land Requisitioned Houses in Lichuan City”.).

3.4. It Is Difficult for Judicial Review to Intervene, and the Lack of a Supervision Mechanism Has Led to the Risk That It Is Difficult for Farmers’ Rights and Interests to Be Remedied

In an analysis of the cases of land expropriation for tract development, the majority of the cases focus on the question of whether the expropriation decision is in the public interest. From the analysis of the data in

Table 1. Distribution of data on the outcome of judicial decisions (N = 635).

	Overall Data Distribution of First Instance Adjudication Results (N = 351)			Overall Data Distribution of Second Instance Decision Results (N = 284)
Judgement results	Claims dismissed in full	Prosecution dismissed	Claims supported/ Partially supported	Affirmed at first instance	Change the original sentence	Remanding the case
Quantity (pieces)	184	89	78	250	32	2
Percentage	52.4%	25.4%	22.2%	88%	11.3%	0.7%

, the courts tend to adopt a conservative stance in the judicial review process of land expropriation for tract development. On the one hand, the courts tend to consider land expropriation decisions as final and non-actionable. For example, in Supreme Court Administrative Ruling No. 3830(2017), the court held that the land expropriation decision of the Sichuan Provincial People’s Government was an act of final adjudication by the administrative organ as stipulated in Article 30(2) of the Administrative Reconsideration Law of the People’s Republic of China and did not fall within the scope of the court’s jurisdiction. On the other hand, in cases where the expropriation procedure is indeed illegal, it is also difficult for the court to revoke the expropriation decision based on public interest considerations, such as in Supreme Court Administrative Ruling No. 13199(2020), where the court found that the expropriation decision was procedurally illegal, but held that if the expropriation decision in question was revoked, it would leave some of the acquired rights and interests and other rights and relationships derived from them in a new state of instability, which would also result in a waste and loss of public resources. The difficulty of judicial review in supervising the land expropriation for tract development is a reflection of the contradiction between judicial and administrative powers. This contradiction not only affects the supervision of the land expropriation for tract development, but also results in poor access to remedies for farmers’ rights and interests.

Whether land expropriation decisions are actionable is controversial in theory and practice. Some scholars believe that land expropriation is not a strictly legal relationship between the expropriator and the expropriated, “but a political interaction in which the masses cannot resist and can only choose to cooperate from the perspective of obeying the general situation of the state”. Decisions on land expropriation made by the government should be final as stipulated in Article 30(2) of the Administrative Reconsideration Law (Article 30(2) of the Administrative Reconsideration Law of the People’s Republic of China provides that “According to the State Council or the people’s governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government’s decision to survey, adjust or expropriate land in the administrative division, the people’s governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government’s decision to confirm the ownership or right to use natural resources such as land, mineral deposits, water flows, forests, mountains, grasslands, wastelands, beaches and sea areas, the decision of administrative reconsideration shall be final”.), which is not actionable per se, and a large body of jurisprudence in practice holds that land expropriation decisions are not within the scope of the courts (In addition to the aforementioned Supreme People’s Court Administrative Appeal Case No. 3830 Administrative Ruling, cases such as Guizhou High People’s Court Administrative Cases Litigation Final No. 195 (2016), Qinghai Provincial High People’s Court Administrative Litigation Final Case No. 4 (2014), and Gansu Provincial High People’s Court Administrative Litigation Case No. 53 (2015) Final all hold that expropriation decisions do not fall within the scope of the court’s jurisdiction.). The land expropriation for tract development is a complex act that includes a series of links such as land expropriation decision, compensation plan, and implementation plan. The decision to expropriate land is the original starting point for all the other actions that occur later in the process. Once a land expropriation decision is ruled illegal, it not only has an impact on the legality of subsequent acts, but also on the political content of local finances, officials’ appraisal, and even local economic and social development planning. However, the political nature of land expropriation is not sufficient to justify or cause the court to entertain it. From a practical perspective, the absence of judicial review is not only a lack of supervision of land expropriation for tract development, but also a detriment to the smooth flow of rights remedies, which can easily lead to the alienation of public interest. From a contingent perspective, the addition of the “admission clause” in the Administrative Procedure Law also provides a legal basis for judicial review (Article 12(1)(5) of the Administrative Litigation Law states: “The people’s courts shall accept the following lawsuits filed by citizens, legal persons or other organizations: ……(5) Those who are not satisfied with the decision on expropriation or requisition and its compensation decision $\dots \dots$”). The decision on land acquisition as a final act is an analogous interpretation of Article 30(2) of the Administrative Reconsideration Law, which is difficult to reconcile with the basic jurisprudence on the establishment of final acts and should be removed as soon as possible after the addition of the “admission clause” [37].

4. A Multidimensional Deconstruction of the Risk of Misconduct of Land Expropriation Standards for Tract Development under the System of “Good Land Governance”

The land expropriation for tract development should promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas and the harmonious and sustainable development of human-land relations. The perspective of “Good Land Governance” takes the basic attributes of land as the starting point for analysis and good governance at the level of values, interests, and subjects in land governance. “Good Land Governance” is not an empty concept, but has a specific value core, a core argument, and a logic of analysis: The value core of “Good Land Governance” focuses on the analysis of the value core of land justice and the right to land development in order to respond to the basic attributes of land; the core argument of “Good Land Governance” lies more in the transformation of the government’s monolithic management model in the history of land management, the synergistic management effect of non-governmental organisations, and the construction of a multi-level, multi-faceted, multi-directional grassroots governance system between the government and non-governmental organisations. Through this system of grassroots governance, the state achieves a positive interaction between the various elements of governance; the analytical logic of “Good Land Governance” focuses more on the following logical starting point of land value, through the compensation of land development rights and the establishment of a collaborative sharing mechanism to achieve normativism, through further implementation into the functional level of subject rights and interests, thus using the analytical framework of value–function–subject, through the mechanism of the balance of interests, as well as the mechanism of land value realisation, in order to change the traditional important relationships between central and local, farmers and government, and villagers and autonomous organisations, to achieve the implementation of land justice from the value level to the functional level to the subject level, to achieve a multi-level and multi-faceted land governance pattern between government and non-governmental organisations.

In practice, in the absence of a fair and effective mechanism for the distribution of benefits and collaborative management, the distribution of land appreciation benefits will intensify the structural public interest crisis in the land expropriation for tract development, which will not only lead to the deflation of public interest in land expropriation, but will also easily lead to the loss of public interest during the benefit distribution stage. As shown in Figure 2, the dilemma of expropriation is essentially an imbalance among the value level, interest level, and subject level in the process of governance, and the concept of the coordination of interests and collaborative governance in “Good Land Governance” is the key to overcoming the structural risk of public interest in expropriation.

4.1. The Value Dimension: The Loss of the Element of Equity and the Disregard for the Ecological and Social Functions of Land under the “Paradox of Land Acquisition”

Good governance must be based on balancing the multiple value demands of land and maintaining the sustainability of land as a scarce resource. Both equity and efficiency are essential elements of good governance, and balancing them is an important aspect of thinking about how to achieve “Good Land Governance”. The core issue of balancing the interests of the collective and the state in the land expropriation for tract development is the reconciliation of the concepts of equity and efficiency.

The establishment of the system of land expropriation for tract development reflects the conflicting values and contradictions in the implementation of state ownership in urban areas. A tension exists between Article 10(1) of the Constitution, which states that “urban land belongs to the State”, and Article 3, which states that “the State may, in the public interest, expropriate or requisition land and pay compensation in accordance with the provisions of the law”. This tension constitutes the “paradox of expropriation” in the current constitution, i.e., the newly created urban land does not automatically lead to the nationalisation of collectively owned land as a result of the provisions of Article 10(1) of the Constitution, and the traditional expropriation method, which is based solely on the premise of land for the public good, cannot support urban expansion and development. The contradiction between law and reality requires new expropriation systems to be explored to mitigate the conflict. One of the institutional values of the land expropriation for tract development, as a new model of expropriation that includes commercial development, is to attempt to break the “paradox of land expropriation” under the premise of ensuring the realisation of public interests to achieve a rebalance between national interests and collective interests. However, in the process of implementing the system, the current trend of land expropriation for tract development, where the public interest is judged solely on the basis of the efficiency of land use, has not only led to the frequent occurrence of short-sighted land development, but has also deflated public interest. The reason for this trend is the lack of a structure and reconstruction of the value dimension of the land expropriation for tracts’ development in terms of their nature. In addition to its economic function, land also carries social and ecological multi-functional values such as local culture, farmers’ rights and interests, and ecological regulation [38]. The Supreme People’s Court Act Administrative Appeal Case No. 13199(2020) Administrative Ruling is a ruling in which the shantytown project of Lot 2A of Longshanzi, the urban village renovation project of Liujiaying, and the urban village renovation project of Mujhongwang Village, caused by the procedural closure and lack of supervision, resulted in the misconduct of expropriation such as multiple expropriations and occupations, forced demolition and illegal demolition, procedural violation, and failure to resettle farmers. This issue also reflected the excessive pursuit of the economic value of land and disregard for ecological and social functions of land in the expropriation of tract development under the current administrative power. At the value level, the many procedural violations in the approval of shantytown renovation projects in Shaanxi Province Administrative Judgment No. 58(2019) reflect the traditional development mindset of grassroots governments to achieve economic interests through the sacrifice of collective peasant interests, the continuation of which has led to the transfer of risks shared by society to specific peasant collective economic organisations or individuals, resulting in the loss of the element of equity. As the process of urban–rural integration accelerates, the state is bound to strengthen the expropriation and development of rural land. The expropriation of land in pockets of development will balance the paradox of land expropriation and will also lead to the expropriation of rural construction land in pockets. The realisation of the public interest in the expropriation of land in pockets requires attention to the multiple values carried by the land, and the application of the governance concept of “fairness first, efficiency in mind” to increase the adaptability of the system, thus enabling a soft landing.

4.2. Interest Level: The Dispute between the “Political Price” and the “Legal Price” in Compensation Standards, Which Hinders the Formation of a Good Governance Pattern for the Distribution of Land in the Realization of the Right to Development

The trade-offs in “Good Land Governance” are measured in terms of maximising the public interest and meeting the requirements of social equity. Tract development expropriation not only provides public good, but also enhances the value of land. As a land acquisition method that includes both public and private interests, a reasonable division of public and private interests is an important prerequisite for the realisation of the public good of tract development expropriation. Under the land acquisition system, government action plays an important role in the social distribution of the benefits of land appreciation. However, the lack of land value sharing mechanisms makes it difficult to share the huge land premiums held by the government through government policy instruments, thus leading to the phenomenon in which the standard of the expropriation system for tract development is out of line with the original design of the system.

The realisation of the land benefit distribution pattern requires that farmers enjoy not only equal compensation for expropriation based on their land rights and interests in the initial distribution, but also compensation for land development rights in the redistribution. However, the inequality in the distribution of benefits in the process of expropriation and the absence of a sharing mechanism in the area causes difficulty for farmers to enjoy the institutional dividends arising from the reform of land expropriation for tract development based on compensation for land development rights. On the one hand, the prominence of the political nature of the land expropriation of tract development makes the compensation for expropriation generalised, thus depriving the peasant groups of the prerequisite for equal compensation in the land benefit sharing mechanism: against the background of the difficulty of judicial review and the closed nature of the procedure of expropriation of tracts, the administrative power shows a strong autonomy in the land expropriation for tract development. The prominence of political attributes makes expropriation compensation more of a “political price” than a “legal price” [39], as reflected in the Supreme People’s Court Administrative Judgment No. 289(2019), which shows that compensation for land expropriation is mostly a choice of last resort in the process of land acquisition, rather than based on the protection of farmers’ land rights, not based on the protection of farmers’ land rights. Just compensation from the perspective of political action does not mean full compensation for losses or rights and interests. Furthermore, the realisation of farmers’ rights and interests in land development by political means is challenging to ensure, which is likely to result in the neglect of interests such as the expected value-added and selective value of land in the formulation of compensation standards [40]. On the other hand, the absence of a mechanism for the land benefit sharing leads to the difficulty of realising compensation for land development rights. The realisation of the benefits of land appreciation is not only derived from land control, but also from the transfer of land values based on land control. The government, as the leader of the land sharing mechanism, has to capture part of the land appreciation benefits and compensate for the land development rights through policy instruments and government actions. However, the government’s neglect of the ecological and social functions of land development rights, such as farmers’ development rights and interests and ecological compensation for land, has led to an imbalance in the mechanism for sharing land value, thus resulting in a lack of mechanisms for realising compensation for land development rights. The neglect of farmers’ development rights and interests in the land expropriation plan for tract development for the Qingjiang New Area in Lichuan City is a manifestation of the lack of compensation mechanisms for land development rights in the current pattern of the distribution of land value-added benefits, i.e., the lack of compensation mechanisms for land development rights in the secondary distribution of land value-added benefits, thus causing an imbalance in the adjustment mechanisms for benefits in the process of land expropriation for tract development.

4.3. Subject Level: The High Cost of Communication and Management among Stakeholders and the Imbalance between Administrative and Judicial Power Reduce the Effectiveness of Multi-Subject Cooperation and Shared Governance

The state-led approach of development means that the government can plan and manage urban development, and one of the priorities in the defence of the public interest is the distribution of the roles and responsibilities among the judiciary, the executive, the semi-autonomous public sector institutions, and the peasant community [41,42]. The core of “Good Land Governance” lies in transforming the government’s unidirectional management model, bringing into play the effectiveness of collaborative dynamic management among governance subjects and building a multi-level, multi-faceted network of management among governance subjects. The definitions of “public interest” and “land expropriation for tract development” are not simple judgements. They require dynamic management among the stakeholders to ensure that the structural risks of public interest can be overcome in the process of land expropriation for tract development. The overlap of the public participation dilemma, the overlapping roles of villagers’ self-governing organisations, and the imbalance between administrative and judicial powers has hindered the construction of a collaborative governance mechanism for land expropriation for tract development.

Firstly, the lagging transformation of the relationship between the government and farmers has exacerbated the policy risks for farmers in land expropriation for tract development. The government–farmer relationship is highly contemporary. For a long time, urban-biased development strategies and citizen-biased distribution systems have deepened the unequal relationship between the government and farmers, as exemplified by the Henan Province Administrative Judgment of Final Administrative Litigation Case No. 3392(2019), an urban village transformation project in which the expropriated farmers did not obstruct the demolition of the expropriated houses based on their trust in the compensation commitment of the relevant heads of administrative organs. Meanwhile, the administrative organs and their heads did not acknowledge the commitment after the demolition and the compensation. This new type of violent demolition reflects the dysfunctional relationship between the government and farmers. Land expropriation projects of tract development are characterised by strong policies and high technicality. Meanwhile, villagers’ autonomous organisations and villagers, as the subject of demolition and renovation, lack knowledge and experience and have little information, thus resulting in the vulnerable position of farmers in the expropriation process. With the significant increase in China’s economic strength and comprehensive national power, we have reached a stage of development where industry feeds agriculture and cities support the countryside. The realisation of “Good Land Governance” in this context requires the promotion of a new model of public participation, i.e., strengthening the role of individuals and groups with a stake in the public interest in participating in, influencing, and monitoring the formulation and implementation of land expropriation plans for tract development, as well as strengthening the expression of the will of disadvantaged farmers [43]. The current trend of increasing awareness of farmers’ rights has exacerbated the contradiction between farmers’ disadvantaged position and their need for the right to information and participation. In the Administrative Judgment No. 34(2015) of the High People’s Court of Yunnan Province on the final adjudication of administrative litigation cases, Li Yundi’s demand for the disclosure of government information on land expropriation for tract development also reflects from the side the unfavourable position of farmers’ right to information in the current land expropriation for tract development.

Secondly, the overlapping roles of villagers’ self-governing organizations limit the development of farmers’ public participation in the shared governance pattern. In the relationship between farmers and villagers’ self-government organisations, villagers’ self-government organisations play a crucial role in the development of farmers’ public participation. The maintenance of public interests under the perspective of “Good Land Governance” requires villagers’ self-government organisations to play a compatible role in coordinating farmers’ groups with government agencies [44]. At present, villagers’ committees not only play the role of assisting the government in the process of land expropriation by public announcement and registration, carrying out ideological work and mediating disputes over expropriation and development, villagers’ autonomous organisations also play an important role in the realisation of villagers’ land rights by providing feedback, negotiating agreements, and organising guidance. Under the current system of land expropriation for tract development dominated by administrative power, villagers’ self-governing organizations are faced with conflicting roles in the land expropriation for tract development. In the case of Li Sande v. Weibin District People’s Government of Baoji, the Chenjia Village Committee carried out the forced demolition of Li Sande’s house for the progress of the Chenjia Village urban village transformation project, which directly reflects the overlapping roles of villagers’ self-governing organizations and the blurred powers and responsibilities of villagers’ self-governing organizations, thus increasing the likelihood that the government and farmers’ collective interests are in conflict and reflecting the dislocation of functions such as regulating interests and expressing farmers’ rights and interests. The increasing risk has also increased management conflicts and costs in the process of expropriation for large-scale development, and it is not conducive to the maintenance of public interests (Reference Supreme People’s Court Releases Three Typical Cases of Administrative Litigation on Property Rights Protection: Li Sande v. People’s Government of Weibin District, Baoji City, Administrative Compulsion Case, https://www.chinacourt.org/article/detail/2020/07/id/5378768.shtml, (last accessed 12 May 2022.).

Finally, the imbalance between the executive and the judiciary leads to the lack of supervision and the remedy of rights in the pattern of shared governance. The current dilemma of the difficulty of judicial intervention in the land expropriation of tract developments and the lack of review of the purpose lies in the contradiction and conflict between the co-rule of judicial power and administrative power. The lack of judicial review reflects the current trend of “promoting public interests and suppressing private interests” in judicial practice and the strong administrative dominance of the expropriation of tract developments. The blurring of the responsibilities and boundaries of judicial review in relation to the land expropriation for tract development causes difficulty for the judicial power to form effective supervision over the administrative power of expropriation. The contradiction between the co-rule of the executive and the judiciary and the high degree of autonomy of the executive in the process of land expropriation for tract development together lead to a tendency to expand the public interest, thus causing difficulty to form a situation of co-rule between the executive and the judiciary in land expropriation for tract development.

5. Binary Public Good Reinforcement: A New Way of Regulating the Risk of Misconduct in the Land Expropriation Standard for Tract Development under “Good Land Governance”

The essence of expropriation is the social redistribution of the benefits of land appreciation resulting from social progress. Based on the analysis of the many risks of land expropriation for tract development, the involvement of private development and the lack of supervision prevent the standard mechanism of land expropriation for tract development from playing a proper role in regulating the expropriation, thus resulting in the double dilemma of the falsification of public interest and the difficulty of realising public interest in land expropriation for tract development, which determines the duality of public interest reinforcement. The development of infrastructure and construction projects can increase the supply of public goods and generate value-added land. The current lack of a purposive review has led to the falsification of the public interest, thus resulting in the risk of its being squeezed out. To address this risk, the principle of proportionality should be used in a disaggregated manner to ensure the public interest of the expropriation through the review of the purpose to realise the public interest. On the other hand, public interest is not only derived from the land value increase resulting from land use, but also from the transfer of land value due to the surrounding land restrictions. To resolve this risk, the concept of land justice must be drawn, and a public interest sharing pattern must be built through the collaborative governance of the participating parties to ensure that the ecological and social functions of land development rights are manifested and to realise social compensation for the public interest.

5.1. Reinforcing the Materialisation of the Public Interest: Applying the Principle of Proportionality in a Categorical Manner to Ensure That Expropriation Is Carried Out in the Public Interest to Mitigate the Risk of the Public Interest Being Squeezed

Under the current system of land expropriation for tract development, the state has given provincial governments greater autonomy in land expropriation for tract development, which also requires a corresponding review and restraint mechanism to prevent the alienation of power. As the binding effect of planning is often of a principled nature, at present, the restriction mechanism of the law that the land acquisition plan is incorporated into the “overall plan for land use” or the “annual plan for national economic and social development” has a weak binding effect on the public interests in the land expropriation for tract development. Compared with traditional land expropriation methods to alleviate the risk of public interest being squeezed in the expropriation of tract development, public interest can be reinforced through the construction of a purpose review system by means of the principle of proportionality: drawing on the principle of necessity in the principle of proportionality, the purpose of expropriation is justified in order to prevent the falsification of the public interest in the land expropriation for tract development; drawing on the principle of appropriateness in the principle of proportionality, the public interest of land expropriation for tract development is ensured through the certainty of the scope of the act of expropriation; drawing on the principle of least damage, the damage of the act of land expropriation for tract development is ensured through the appropriateness of the means of expropriation.

5.1.1. To Strengthen the Comprehensive Judgement of the Purpose of Expropriation, to Break the Dilemma of Falsifying the Public Interest of Land Expropriation for Tract Development and to Ensure the Legitimacy of Expropriation

Establishing the proper purpose of expropriation is a requirement of the principle of necessity. In the process of land expropriation for tract development, the legitimacy of the purpose is the basis and premise of the decision to expropriate in line with the public interest. It is also the starting point of the purpose review. The current trend of reviewing the legitimacy of the purpose of land expropriation for tract development by simply replacing it with the public interest of urban planning will easily lead to the deflation of the public interest and will hardly limit the administrative power of local expropriation. On the one hand, the review of the purpose of expropriation should be based on a comprehensive assessment of economic, ecological, and social factors. In addition, the government, as the maker of the policy plan, should undertake the obligation to specify the justification of the purpose of expropriation, instead of just stating “promoting industrial development” or “promoting economic and social development” in general, and should strengthen the government’s responsibility and obligation in the process of purpose review through institutional construction. The government’s responsibilities and obligations in the process of purpose review should be strengthened through institutional development, and the corresponding supervision of the government’s powers and responsibilities should be strengthened through the supervision of villagers’ self-governing organizations, villagers’ voting procedures, and judicial review. On the other hand, the judgement of the validity of the purpose of land expropriation for tract development must be strengthened, according to which the risk assessment before expropriation should be performed properly. A risk assessment system should be established with legal risk assessment, social risk assessment, economic risk assessment, and ecological risk assessment as the main contents to ensure that the government can scientifically assess and prevent the risk factors of the land expropriation for tract development before the expropriation decision is made.

5.1.2. Internal Control of the Scope of Expropriation Is Clarified to Address the Imbalance between Public and Private Interests in the Expropriation of Tract Development and to Ensure Certainty of the Scope of the Act

The principle of appropriateness aims to ensure that the public interest is proportionate to the private interest in the structure of expropriation, and the review of the scope of expropriation is the key to ensuring the dominance of the public interest in the binary structure of expropriation. The public interest is closely related to the scope of expropriation, and the “need” for public interest is the only criterion for the scope of expropriation for tract development. Meanwhile, the size of the scope of expropriation for tract development directly affects the public interest output. If the expropriation area is too large, development and construction may be difficult to carry out due to a lack of funds. A land area that is too small may lead to the loss of land assembly effect, thus resulting in the loss of public interest. Given the inconsistency of China’s current economic development and the different types of development projects that can be land expropriated for tract development, merely stipulating a lower limit or range of area leaves too much room for discretionary land expropriation for tract development, thus creating obstacles in achieving the policy’s objective. Therefore, the discretionary factors of the scope of expropriation must be further improved through the construction of a purpose review system to achieve internal control over the scope of expropriation. On the one hand, the area of “tracts” should be based on the planning restrictions and spatial limitations stipulated in the Land Administration Law and should not exceed the total number of tract development expropriation targets within the terms of the overall land use planning. On the other hand, the government should follow a cost–benefit analysis to quantify the input cost and future output revenue of each unit of land. The government should consider and prove the comprehensive factors. These factors include the construction period of the tract development expropriation, the compensation and resettlement cost of land expropriation, the investment and development capacity of private developers, the specific requirements of the land use plan, the specific content of the construction project, the overall supply and demand of land, and the development conditions of the land itself. Through internal control of the scope of expropriation, the dominance of the public interest in the land expropriation for tract development is guaranteed.

5.1.3. The Establishment of a Pre-Marketing Transaction Procedure to Break through the Difficulty of System Convergence between the Land Expropriation for Tract Development and the Market Entry of Collective Construction Land, Ensuring the Appropriateness of the Means of Land Acquisition Practices

The principle of minimal damage requires that the public good be achieved at minimal cost. As a means of realising the state ownership of urban land, the appropriateness of the means of expropriation can be ensured by setting up pre-marketing procedures in the review of the purpose of expropriation to prevent the overly broad definition of public interest from crowding out the space for the market of collective business construction land. From the analysis of land reform, the reform of expropriation is not the only way to realise state ownership of urban land. The market-oriented land reform requires that the reform of the expropriation system for tract development pay added attention to the coordination with the reform of the market entry system for collective business construction land. Compared with the expropriation of land for tract development, the process of putting collective business land on the market is decided and carried out by the peasants themselves, without the government taking the lead, which can better reflect the expression of the peasants’ wishes in the process of expropriation and the realisation of their land rights. In contrast, as part of the reform of the land system, if economic construction is treated as a public interest without restriction, the government is given the right to expropriate for the purpose of economic construction. This scenario will not only lead to institutional conflicts and confusion in the application of the market system for collective economic construction land, but will also harm farmers’ land rights and interests. Thus, effectively limiting local expropriation rights becomes difficult. To prevent the abuse of the government’s right of expropriation and to prevent the transfer of risks that should be shared by the community to specific farmers, a pre-marketing procedure must be adopted to achieve “the lesser of two evils and the greater of two advantages”.

5.2. Reinforcing Social Sharing of Public Benefits: Strengthening the Ecological and Social Functions of Land Development Rights under the Land Justice Logic of “Value-Function-Subject” to Prevent Social Risks, Risks of Disputes, and Risks of Rights and Remedies in the Long Term

The process of land acquisition is also a process of social sharing of the benefits of land appreciation. Moreover, ensuring the realisation of public interest in the process of land acquisition requires social sharing on the basis of the realisation of public interest. The logic of land justice is based on “value-function-subject”: land value appreciation comes not only from the increase in land value brought about by land development, but also from the transfer of value brought about by land use control. The dualistic value attribute of land development rights necessitates the consideration of maintaining the ecological and social functions of land through compensation for land development rights to manifest the pluralistic attributes of land and realise land justice. The theory of land value transfer also determines that the realisation of public interest needs to change from negative protection to positive protection. In the formulation of programme standards, attention needs to be paid to the risk of damage to the ecological and social functions of land development rights and the reconstruction of the pattern of expropriation subjects to realise the sharing of public interest. Through the construction of a compensation mechanism for the benefits of land development rights, we can realize the sharing of land and provide a pattern of benefit distribution for the social sharing of public interests.

5.2.1. Equality of Land Rights: Refining the Construction of Farmers’ Rights Subjects, Activating the Endogenous Dynamics of Public Interest Sharing and Reinforcement, and Effectively Preventing Risks of a Social Nature

The institutional realisation of equal land rights requires that everyone enjoy an equal need for land. Peasants are the endogenous driving force behind the formation of a pattern that breaks the closure of expropriation procedures for tract development and realises the sharing of public benefits. The stability of the internal environment is what stimulates the growth of the effectiveness of land management. As an important endogenous driving force for the reinforcement of the sharing of public interests, the farmers’ need to participate in the expropriation process for tract development is driven by a preference for fairness or an aversion to inequality. At the same time, realising the premise of compensation for land development rights also requires breaking the existing procedural closed-loop, resulting in a single government management pattern by refining the construction of farmers’ rights subjects and resolving social risks to achieve procedural fairness in land acquisition. On the one hand, the institutional construction of farmers as rights subjects should be strengthened. The status of farmers as owners of contracted land management and use rights must be highlighted, and the implementation of farmers’ rights must be ensured through the development of supporting mechanisms. An agreement mechanism on farmers’ rights and interests, compensation, and other issues, led by villagers’ self-governing organizations, should be established. In addition, farmers’ opinions and the results of agreements should be kept in writing by means of negotiated agreements, which should be used as an important basis for the examination of public opinions. Doing so helps to avoid the abuse of the right of expropriation and generalisation of public interests and to make changes in the nature and use of land by planning fully justified. On the other hand, the right of farmers to be informed, their right to participate, and their right to supervision should be effectively safeguarded, and the disadvantage of farmers in the process of expropriation should be compensated thorough institutional development. The government should expand the scope of active disclosure in accordance with regulations and implement functions such as the publication of government land prices and public enquiries into land information to expand information on peasant expropriation and ways to participate in decision-making on land expropriation for tract development, thus ensuring the operability of the right to supervision. It should also involve the public in the main stages of the expropriation system for tract development, such as agreement price purchases, public hearings, and audits, through various forms of agreement negotiation and capital and political hearings.

5.2.2. Sharing of Land: Implementing the Principle of “Land Appreciation Benefits Belong to the State”, Realising the Function of Compensation for the Sharing of Public Benefits, and Continuously Preventing the Risk of Disputes over Land

Justice in the distribution of land revenue is an important part of highlighting the properties and functions of land and realising the sharing of public interests. The dualistic value of land development rights determines the legitimacy of the “public benefit”. in the pattern of land appreciation benefits, new land rights holders can not only obtain benefits through land development, but also earn additional value-added benefits based on the transfer of land value. The allocation of additional value-added benefits to land rights holders disregards the consensus that land value-added benefits are generated by social progress and contributes to the imbalance in the distribution of land value-added benefits. The regulation of the risk of disputes over land profits requires the activation of a compensation mechanism for the distribution of the ecological and social functions of land, based on the principle of land appreciation benefits belong to the state. The construction of this distribution and compensation mechanism should not only focus on the initial compensation received by farmers based on the transfer of land rights, but also pay more attention to the compensation for farmers’ development and social rights and interests in the secondary compensation stage based on the right to land development. In the initial compensation stage, a market-based distribution mechanism based on land rights should be established to realise the initial distribution of the benefits of land appreciation. A compensation mechanism for expropriation based on land loss must be built by strengthening the construction of multiple compensation methods, refining the types of compensation, and raising the standard of compensation. Moreover, the compensation measures for items such as residual land and business losses must be improved, and the construction of a multifaceted compensation mechanism in the form of monetary compensation and social security resettlement must be strengthened as well. At the same time, measures can be taken to leave land for resettlement by allowing farmers or rural collective economic organisations to own part of the land for a certain period in the form of usufruct rights. In doing so, they can participate in the initial distribution pattern of land appreciation benefits to promote the realisation of incentive governance effects. In secondary compensation, a mechanism for returning land appreciation benefits for the social and ecological functions of land should be established. On the one hand, the regulatory role of taxation in the maintenance of social benefits and the sustainable development of land should be brought into play so that the value-added benefits flow into the ecological and social benefits of land through taxation and provide a financial basis for the realisation of public interests. On the other hand, more attention should be paid to the consideration of farmers’ employment training, social resettlement, and other development rights in the compensation and resettlement measures. At the same time, the resettlement compensation scheme should also include sustainable use mechanisms such as compensation for ecological restoration of land and compensation for restrictions on land development intensity from the perspective of inter-generational and inter-regional equity to guide the allocation of land development rights and ecological functions to ensure the realisation of public interests.

5.2.3. Land to the Fullest Extent of Its Benefits: Clarifying the Content and Boundaries of Judicial Review, Facilitating the Remedy of the Right to Share and Strengthen Public Interests, and Precisely Solving the Problem of Remedying Farmers’ Rights and Interests

The prerequisite for the realization of public interest sharing and strengthening is to ensure the normal exercise of land rights on the basis of guaranteeing the smooth flow of rights remedies, to resolve the risky dilemma of rights remedies. Judicial review is not only an important channel for the redress of land rights, but it is also an important factor in breaking the self-imposed limitations of the current standards for the procedure of land expropriation for tract development. To avoid the arbitrary expansion of “land needed for the implementation of land expropriation for tract development” in practice, the reform of the litigability of tract development expropriation must be actively promoted. Moreover, among the other actions that must be taken include expanding the authority of the judicial review, including the tract development expropriation plans and decisions in the scope of the judicial review, strengthening the judgement of public interest in tract development expropriation, and refining the elements of judgement of public interest in tract development expropriation. A system of judging public interest with multiple elements, such as procedural elements, democratic elements, compensation elements, and benefit distribution elements, has been established to achieve innovation in judging methods and elements. Secondly, on the basis of expanding the litigability of expropriation standards for tract development, the responsibilities and boundaries of judicial review should also be clarified. Judicial review is conducted from the standpoint of ex post facto judgement, and the local government has incomplete information and urgency in making decisions on the expropriation of tract development. If the court is overly critical of the local government’s decision, it will make judicial review difficult, which will result in the usurpation of judicial power over administrative power. Therefore, the principle of judicial modesty should be adopted as the principle of judicial review. Thirdly, the burden of proof for the land expropriation for tract development can be refined. By refining the burden of proof on the government and the developer for the public interest of the development of the expropriation project, the government can compensate for the difficulty of judicial intervention due to the professional nature of administrative decisions and development.

6. Conclusions

At this critical stage of China’s socio-economic transformation and development, how to smoothly advance the relationship between urban and rural development and promote the sustainable development of the relationship between people and land is a key proposition that needs to be addressed in land acquisition research in the new era. Although land expropriation for tract development is an important initiative in land acquisition reform, in the process of institutional implementation, there are problems such as insufficient purposive review, insufficient public participation, compensation for land acquisition with unspecific criteria, and insufficient judicial review intervention, resulting in the existing institutional design’s lack of control over land acquisition. This is due to the lack of respect for the multiple values of the land, the poor land benefit sharing mechanisms, and the failure to establish a synergistic mechanism between subjects, combined with the presence of commercial interests to create the risk of alienation and diversion of the functions of land acquisition.

In this paper, we followed the theory of “Good Land Governance” and advocated that, on the basis of respecting the multiple values of land, the strengthening of public interests and the sharing of public interests should be ensured under the framework of dualistic public interest reinforcement, so as to achieve the control of the risk of land acquisition for piecemeal development. Of course, it should be noted that its perfection requires the implementation of specific systems, and this paper only presents a framework analysis of the current risks based on relevant regulations and judicial practice. As a new system, it is necessary to conduct further research on issues such as “how to control the limits of judicial review” and “how to operate social resettlement” in order to prevent and control risks.