The Logic of Urban Land System Reform in China—A Policy Analysis Framework Based on Punctuated-Equilibrium Theory

Abstract

Land system reform is inseparable from land policy evolution in the reform process. Understanding land system reform from the perspective of policy evolution is crucial for the further deepening of the reform. Based on a review of policy documents on urban land system reform over the past 70 years (1949–2021), this paper applies a policy analysis framework based on punctuated-equilibrium theory to analyze the process of China’s urban land system reform and its inner mechanism. We conclude that under the framework of punctuated-equilibrium theory, the reform process of the urban land system can be divided into three equilibrium periods and two punctuated periods: Equilibrium Period I (1949–1978), Punctuated Period I (1979–1990), Equilibrium Period II (1991–2000), Punctuated Period II (2001–2007), and Equilibrium Period III (2008–2021). The reform of China’s urban land system shows a non-linear change that alternates between gradual change and punctuated evolution. Further analysis demonstrates that the change of the policy image, the transfer of the policy venue and the shock of focus events are the vital driving factors resulting in the alternation between equilibrium and punctuation.

1. Introduction

The land system is the most fundamental arrangement of political and economic systems in a country. Since the reform and opening up in the late 1970s, China has undergone tremendous changes in urbanization and industrialization. The massive growth of the urban population, the extensive expansion of urban space, and the rapid changes of infrastructure construction are reflections of China’s urban economic boom [1]. Local governments play a leading role in urban economic development, for which urban land supply provides crucial support. Therefore, the urban land system, which determines urban land supply, has become even more important [2]. Over the past 70 years, since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the unique arrangement and reform of the urban land system have given a boost to economic growth and social transformation [3]. However, as China’s economy development enters a “new normal”, the drawbacks of land-driven urbanization have emerged, and problems such as the diminishing effectiveness of economic development, increasing debt and financial risks have accumulated. China’s urban land system has been confronted with new contradictions and challenges [4]. There is an urgent need to deepen the reform of the urban land system to meet the needs of economic development and social transformation at the new stage.

In recent years, China’s urban land system reform and policy evolution have aroused the intensive attention of scholars worldwide, whose studies have mainly focused on three aspects. Some studies pay attention to a single system in the land system set, such as the land expropriation system, land reserve system, or land use regulation system, then analyze its formation, evolution process and reasons, and propose its future direction and measures to deepen the reform [5,6,7]. Some studies sort out the characteristics, objectives and performance of China’s urban land system and explore the motives of system reform at different stages, by taking major historical events as the timeline, including the founding of the Communist Party of China, the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and the reform and opening up [8,9,10]. The rest study discusses the relationship between the urban land system and economic fundamentals, which reveal the contribution of urban land system reform as a policy instrument to China’s economic development, social stability and urban governance [11,12]. The previous studies provide valuable experiences for understanding China’s urban land system reform, but most of them are brief summaries of land policy or reviews of the process of the urban land system only from a historical perspective, in which a single analytical perspective and similar stage division are common problems. However, land system reform is not only a historical issue but also closely related to the economy, politics and public administration. Therefore, the application of a theoretical framework of public policy change should be considered for the study of urban land system reform.

This paper looks into the reform of the Chinese urban land system from the perspective of policy evolution, and applies the “punctuated-equilibrium” framework to analyze the process of urban system reform and policy change in China. In the 1950s, American political scientists such as Simon and Lasswell proposed the idea of establishing policy science, and created the “stages heuristic” [13], which was a useful method of policy analysis in the 1970s and early 1980s. As the external policy environment changed dramatically, the shortcomings of the “stages heuristic” were subjected to theoretical and empirical criticism. In order to reconstruct policy science theory, more and more scholars attempted to put forward new theoretical frameworks from different perspectives. Thus, a series of representative theoretical models have been constructed. Some scholars have used path dependency theory to describe how a wide variety of political systems has evolved. These studies pay more attention to path dependence, positive feedback effects, patterned processes and critical junctures of institutional change, which provide a theoretical framework and a set of analytic tools for the analysis of the continuity and gradual institutional change in public policy [14,15,16]. Other typical literature on the political dynamic and process have proposed that economic growth or political behavior is not in a linear process where booms and busts occur alternately, and explained how changes emerge and are maintained for a sustained period, which offers new insight into the changes of political process [17,18]. However, in contrast to path dependency theory and political dynamic study, the “punctuated-equilibrium” framework—which combines long-term incrementalism with short-term punctuation—has become the most influential theory of policy science since the 1990s because of its stronger explanatory power for different public policies [19]. Subsequently, the “punctuated-equilibrium” theory has been applied to China’s public policy study, and its explanatory power has been verified in the Chinese context.

In terms of its contributions, this paper sheds light on understanding the reform of China’s urban land system from the perspective of public policy evolution. In addition, we provide a new case for the “punctuated-equilibrium” theory in order to verify its feasibility in China. Due to the differences in the political context between China and America, the application of the punctuated-equilibrium theory in China’s political system needs localization. The conclusion of this study reflects the fact that there are policy changes in which gradual changes alternate with punctuated evolutions even in a socialist country with one-party governance, and further proves the explanatory power of the punctuated-equilibrium theory in China’s political system.

In the following sections, this paper first introduces the connation, conduct mechanism and key variables of the “punctuated-equilibrium” framework. Secondly, a comprehensive review of policy documents that have had an important influence on urban land system reform over the 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China is carried out to identify the punctuations of policy evolution in accordance with the change of key variables. Then, the whole reform process of the Chinese urban land system is divided into five periods according to the punctuations, and the characteristics and policy changes of each period are analyzed in detail. Finally, the paper reveals the inner mechanism of urban land system reform in accordance with the change of the key variables and their interactions.

2. Analytical Framework and Method

2.1. The Conceptual Framework of Punctuated-Equilibrium Theory and Its Application

The punctuated-equilibrium theory was first proposed by Baumgartner and Jones in their book ‘Agendas and Instability in American Politics’ [20]. Previously, policy change study was considered to be dominated by incrementalism. As social contradictions became more intense and complex, sharp and punctuated changes often occurred in many policy-making processes [21]. The linear incrementalism model cannot account for both gradual change and sharp change. Baumgartner and Jones conducted numerous case studies of America’s budgetary policy, which took the process of policy agenda change as an entry point to describe the phenomenon of policy evolution characterized by long periods of policy stability and short and dramatic periods of policy change [22]. Since then, the punctuated-equilibrium theory—which combines gradual change and occasional sharp bursts—has become the dominant paradigm in the study of policy change [19]. In this framework, the process of public policy change is divided into two policy states: punctuated and equilibrium. “Equilibrium” reflects a state of long-term policy stability or gradual change, while “punctuated” indicates that policy change occurs rapidly and dramatically at certain points in the policy-making process, and periods of stability are punctuated by fitful bursts of mobilization [23]. There are three key variables that influence the alternation between two states: policy image, policy venue, and policy monopoly [20]. The punctuated-equilibrium theory precisely uses the interaction of the three variables and other factors such as the shock of focus events to explain the process of policy change in which “punctuated” and “equilibrium” states alternate (Figure 1).

Policy image is how the public and the media understand, discuss and evaluate a certain policy. Policy venue is the authority or interest groups, such as state legislatures, that have the power to make authoritative decisions on relevant policy agendas. At the beginning of policy-making, the centralized and closed system composed of policy venue tends to exclude other participators or outsiders, resulting in gradual or little change. Under that condition, the policy always gets positive understanding and comments in the public and media, which is called “positive policy image”. Policy monopoly consists of a closed policy venue and positive policy image [20]. Faced with external pressure, policy monopoly may result in positive or negative feedback. With less pressure and internal stability, policy-makers can solve problems in the original policy system and use resources such as lobbyists, litigation, and public relations campaigns to ward off sharp policy changes caused by political outsiders [21]. The policy will reveal gradual change and stay long periods of equilibrium, which can be considered as the Equilibrium Period (EP) of system reform. As the policy takes effect, policy monopoly will be confronted with strong pressure when it fails to adapt to the change of the social environment and gradually loses support of the public and authorities. Then, the policy will gradually evolve into negative understanding and discussion in the public and media, which is called “negative policy image”. Under this circumstance, the policy equilibrium may be punctuated by focus events or exogenous shocks [21]. When new policy experts and specialists participate in the policy-making, the original policy venue will be transferred and policy monopoly will collapse. The policy equilibrium is punctuated and the punctuation emerges; thus, system reform moves from an Equilibrium Period (EP) to a Punctuated Period (PP). However, the inertia of policy monopoly will resist new policy. Only if the new policy image proves its effectiveness will the new policy system move to equilibrium. A new policy monopoly will emerge and persist until a focus event that can change policy image occurs again. Therefore, policy change is actually the process of the breaking and reconstruction of policy monopoly [26].

The punctuated-equilibrium theory originated from abundant case studies of public policy change in America, and has been widely used in public policy study in Western countries, such as public budgets for major projects, environmental policy changes, the evolution of civilian nuclear energy policy, and tobacco policy-making [21]. Earlier studies on punctuated-equilibrium theory in China focused on theoretical reviews and citations. In recent years, more scholars have applied this theory to explain the process of public policy change in China, such as the household registration system [24], the rural pension insurance system [27], the farmland protection policy [28], and the policy of the linkage of land increase and decrease [29]. The results have shown that the process of incremental change interspersed with occasional sharp bursts of policy change will also occur in some cases of Chinese public policy change, which reflects the fact that this theory also has strong explanatory power in a Chinese political context. Therefore, the general applicability of punctuated-equilibrium theory across different political systems has been proven.

However, due to the difference between the mechanism of decision-making and the operation of the Chinese political system and those of western countries, the incentives of policy image change and policy venue transfer will differ widely. Consequently, the punctuated-equilibrium theory cannot be indiscriminately applied in specific case studies; it must be modified locally based on the Chinese political context.

2.2. Materials and Methods

The materials used in this study are land policies and legal documents that have had an influence on China’s urban land system reform from 1949 to 2021. We selected 26 typical documents from the Laws and Regulations Database of Peking University1, the State Council policy document database2 and the China reform information database3. Some clauses in these documents regulate the supply, use and ownership of urban land, which determine the direction of urban land system reform. The detailed analysis of these documents will be conducted in the following section.

When applying the punctuated-equilibrium framework to analyze the process of China’s urban land system reform, the identification of punctuations of policy change and the division of punctuated and equilibrium periods are two most important points. Hall’s “policy paradigm” [25] is the most common instrument used to identify the type of policy change in America’s public policy analysis system. As mentioned above, given China’s political environment of one-party governance and a top-down decision-making system, this “policy paradigm” cannot be applied mechanically in the analysis of China’s urban land system reform, and must be modified according to the particular case. Therefore, based on the concept of Hall’s “policy paradigm” [25] and the revision of the punctuated-equilibrium framework in practical use by domestic scholars [24,27,28,29], we set the criteria to identify the type of policy change in this study (

Table 1. The criteria to identify the type of policy change.

Type of Policy Change	Policy Image	Policy Venue	Policy Objective
gradual change	changed	unchanged	unchanged
	changed	changed	unchanged
punctuated change	changed	changed	changed

).

According to these criteria, the type of policy change can be identified according to three components: the change of policy image, the transfer of policy venue, and the consistency of policy objectives [25]. The process of policy change is likely to display the feature of incrementalism when one or two variables change, which is called “gradual change”. Only if all three components of policy change simultaneously can punctuated policy change be considered to have occurred. Thus, the first step of analysis is to indentify the type of policy change. Then, the punctuation of policy change–which is taken as the symbol of transition from an equilibrium period to a punctuated period—can be found in the interspection of gradual and punctuated changes. Furthermore, the equilibrium and punctuated periods can be divided by the punctuations. This is the method used in the following analysis of China’s urban land system reform.

3. Analysis of China’s Urban Land System Reform in the Punctuated-Equilibrium Framework

Based on the review of policy documents that have had important impacts on urban land system reform over the past 70 years (1949–2021), we found that the alternations of long periods of policy stability and short periods of policy change, the changes of the three key variables, and their interaction with the shock of focus events, which are described in the punctuated-equilibrium theory, can all be traced in the process of the urban land system. According to the method mentioned above, we conclude that the first punctuation occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, while the second punctuation appeared in the late 1990s. The changes of the three components in the two punctuations will be further explained in the following analysis. Then, the initial point of the two punctuated periods can be confirmed, while the point of transition from a punctuated period to an equilibrium period is decided by the introduction of the last influential policy. Thus, the process of urban land system reform can be further divided into three equilibrium periods and two punctuated periods (Figure 2), and the characteristics and policy change of each period can be analyzed in detail.

3.1. Equilibrium Period I (1949–1978): From the Nationalization of Urban Land to the Free Use of Urban Land

3.1.1. 1949–1956: The Formulation of Policy Monopoly

Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, land was privately owned in China. Farmers had ownership of land, and urban land accounted for a small proportion of the land area [30]. In order to liberate rural productive forces, develop the social economy, and abolish the ownership of land exploited by the landlord class, China launched a nationwide agrarian revolution between 1949 and 1953 [31]. The Agrarian Reform Law promulgated in June 1950 first established the public ownership of rural land. At the same time, the State Council adopted the Regulations of Suburban Land Reform, which stipulated that “all rural land obtained by confiscation and expropriation in the suburbs shall be state-owned and managed by the municipal governments”. This was the first policy paper that nationalized urban land and authorized the governments to manage it. The regulations also stated that suburban land must be equitably distributed to farmers by peasant associations with the approval of municipal governments. This is the prototype of the administrative approval system of state-owned land use rights and the system of collective ownership of rural land under the planned economy system, which had a profound influence on the establishment of the urban–rural dual land system [32]. Thus, the nationalization of urban land was initiated. With the implementation of a series of policies, urban land ownership consisted of state ownership, private ownership and village collective ownership in the three years of economic recovery.

As the national economy recovered and the land reform was completed after 1953, the central government gradually nationalized most of the urban land by means of redemption and expropriation. The ownership of urban land was fundamentally changed. The Procedures of Land Expropriation for State Construction issued by the State Council in December 1953 was the first official regulation that specified the approval process of state-owned land for public use and the compensation plan for expropriated land. It pointed out the methods of expanding urban space, and laid the foundation of the current land expropriation system. As the first constitution of new China promulgated in 1954, the Constitution stipulated that the state can expropriate or nationalize urban and rural land for public interest in accordance with the law, which provided a legal basis for the nationalization of urban land [31]. In the meantime, the fifteenth document issued by the Ministry of Finance indicated that organs, troops and schools need not pay rent for the occupation of urban land with the approval of the governments, where the free use of state-owned land approved by the governments received policy guidance. Since then, the free use of urban land continued for decades. The Circular on Basic Situation of Private Properties in Cities and Socialist Transformation proclaimed in 1956 emphasized that all private properties must be nationalized, marking the beginning of all-round nationalization [32].

In general, the nationalization of urban land and the free use of urban land were supported by both the law and policy document at this stage, which promoted the formulation of policy monopoly. However, the policies were mainly adapted to the demands of public use and economic recovery, and the policy objectives and instruments remained consistent, which belongs to conventional policy-making. Consequently, the policy evolution shows a gradual change.

3.1.2. 1956–1978: The Emergence of Positive Feedback

Under the guidance of the above policy documents, the nationalization of urban land and private real estates was slowly advanced. The former State Administration of Real Estate officially declared the completion of private real estates’ transformation in 1964 [33]. All cities and one-third of towns in China had completed the transformation of private real estates, and more than 90% of urban land had been nationalized in 1958. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), the National People’s Congress and its standing committee had not promulgated any new policy document on the nationalization of private land [32]. The previous policies continued to be advanced, and received positive feedback. The policy monopoly was continuously strengthened. As policies took effect, the urban land was allocated without payment or time limit for a long time, and the urban land system was further consolidated.

The planned supply system of urban land was the product of the planned economic system, where urban land was completely state-owned and allocated by the governments according to national economic planning, while the land transfer and trade were prohibited according to the Constitution. Under the circumstances of the weak economic foundation after the founding of new China and the urgent need of urban land for socialist economic construction, the allocation of land resources by mandatory plans, which was a copy of the allocation model of other productive resources, was aimed at the provision of the necessary productive factors for the recovery and development of the national economy. Therefore, in the whole period of planned economy, central government controlled the land supply in accordance with plan targets, and local governments at various levels acquired the amount of land they needed for economic construction within the planned target system set by the central government. Policy decision-making power entirely belonged to the central government, and local governments hardly participated in it. The policy system was faced with less external pressure and maintained a long term of stability, which belongs to a typical equilibrium period.

3.2. Punctuated Period I (1979–1990): The Establishment of the Paid Land Use System

3.2.1. 1978–1986: The Change of the Policy Image

The planned supply of urban land without payment, time limit and transfer had survived for more than twenty years. However, this urban land system, which ignored the law of value and the commercial property of land, was increasingly difficult to adapt to the needs of economic system reform. In 1978, the third plenary session of the eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) opened the prelude of China’s reform and opening up; its report declared that the comprehensive reform of the social, political and economic system would be carried out. With the deepening of the economic system reform, the shortcomings of the traditional urban land system became increasingly evident, and the policy image changed from positive to negative. The original policies were encountered with exogenous shock due to the rapid change of the social system. There was an urgent need for urban land system reform in order to meet the demands of absorbing foreign investments and conducting economic construction. The first punctuation of policy change in the process of urban land system reform occurred at this time.

The State Council promulgated the Law on Chinese-foreign Equity Joint Ventures in 1979, which charged Chinese-foreign joint ventures a land use fee for the “right to use the site”. Subsequently, the Interim Provisions on Construction Land of Chinese-foreign Joint Ventures detailed the criteria for charging fees for land use in Chinese-foreign joint ventures, which was considered as the beginning of paid land use. It is noteworthy that the provisions emphasized that the Chinese-foreign joint venture enterprises had only the right to use but not the right to own the approved construction land. Later, the Constitution promulgated in 1982 added an article that “urban land is owned by the state”. It was the first time that the state’s ownership of urban land was certificated by the Supreme Law, which signified that the nationalization of urban land in China was officially completed. At this stage, while the state ownership of urban land was deepened at the legislative level, the restriction on the right to use urban land was reduced in order to meet the demands for land of foreign-owned enterprise and make up for the shortage of funds for urban infrastructure construction. The separation of land ownership and land use rights allowed by the law broke the traditional pattern of urban land supply under the planned system.

With the issue of the Interim Provisions of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone on Land Management in 1982, Shenzhen took the lead in the pilot reform of charging land use fees, and the total revenue reached CNY10 million in the first year [32]. Two years later, the charge of land use fees according to land grades was initiated in Fushun and Guangzhou. According to incomplete statistics, the cumulative land use fees from 1982 to 1986 in Shenzhen amounted to CNY38.48 million [34]. Driven by tremendous economic interests, some cities—such as Dalian, Wuhan and Chongqing—also started to charge for land use.

Although the administrative allocation of urban land had not been essentially changed and the commodity attribute and value had not been revealed, the change of public comments on free land use promoted the charge of land use fees, which was a sharp shock to the original policy monopoly. This could be considered as the focus event in the first punctuated period. The transfer from free land use to paid land use was a critical step in policy evolution.

3.2.2. 1986–1990: The Collapse of the Policy Monopoly

The report of the 13th Party Congress in 1987 proposed to establish a socialist market mechanism on the basis of a planned commodity economy, and pointed out that “the socialist market system includes such productive factors as capital, labor, technology, information and real estate”, which released the signal of land marketization. This significant breakthrough had a great influence on the collapse of the policy monopoly. The reform of the urban land system evolved to the legislative stage.

In November 1987, the State Council approved the pilot reform of the paid leasing and transfer of land in cities such as Shenzhen, Fuzhou, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Shanghai and Shenzhen, respectively, promulgated the Procedures for the Paid Transfer of Land Use Rights in Shanghai and the Regulations of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone on Land Management, specifying the conditions and procedures of the leasing and transfer of urban land use rights and the criteria for land use fees. Subsequently, the governments of other cities also issued relevant policies and regulations. The Constitutional Amendment adopted in 1988 added the article that the right to use land can be transferred in accordance with the law, which provided a legal guarantee for the transfer of urban land use rights by the supreme law. The Law on Land Administration was also correspondingly modified in 1988, and stipulated that “the state introduces the system of paid use of land owned by the state according to law”. Since then, the urban land use system without payment has been withdrawn from the historical stage. The policy monopoly of the first equilibrium period had collapsed.

The promulgation of the Interim Regulations on the Leasing and Transfer of State-owned Land Use Rights in 1990 demonstrated that the paid use of urban land had evolved from the pilot reform by local governments to recognition by the central government. There were two important clauses which completely changed the original pattern of urban land allocation in the regulations: “the transfer, lease, mortgage or use for other economic activities of land use rights are permitted and can be conducted by agreement, bidding and auction”, and “all the land transaction fee must be paid within sixty days from the date of the contract signing”. Market mechanisms were introduced into urban land supply, and the substantial market value of land as both a productive factor and a fixed asset had been unlocked.

During the two decades from 1979 to 1990, the dramatic changes in the social system led to the change of the policy image and contributed to the collapse of the policy monopoly. The policy venue was no longer completely monopolized by the central government, and local governments were given a certain range of decision-making power. First, the provisions issued by the central government broke the policy monopoly where the charging of land use fees was permitted. Then, local governments launched corresponding measures, rules and regulations to carry out pilot reform within the law. Finally, central government provided legislative support at the level of the supreme law. The policy-makers continually proposed new policy agendas to solve problems, which resulted in several dramatic changes. As a consequence, this stage is a typical “punctuated period”.

3.3. Equilibrium Period II (1991–2000): The Coexistence of Paid Use and Free Allocation

The transfer of land use rights within the law enabled urban land to be allocated in a way that realizes its market value. The amounts of land market transactions largely increased. The economic value of urban land use rights was realized, which provided large funds for national finance and urban infrastructure construction. However, the paid use system of urban land had not been established for a long time, and its operation mechanism was not perfect. The inertia of original policies caused resistance to the new policy. There was still a dual system of urban land supply in this transition period, in which paid land use coexisted with free land allocation.

Although the rights to use the allocated land were still obtained with little or no payment, the transfer and mortgage of land use rights in the secondary market had to be conducted with payment according to the Interim Measures for Allocated Land on the Management of the Rights to Use, which was promulgated by the State Administration of Land in 1992. The Law on Urban Real Estate Administration, published in 1994, indicated that state-owned land in rural areas, except the allocated land within the law, must be used with payment and for a limited term. The Law on Land Administration, revised in 1988, once again underlined that the use of state-owned land, except that obtained by legal allocation, must be acquired by paid means, such as leasing and transfer. This shows that under the circumstance that the vast majority of state-owned land in urban areas was used with payment, there was still practical room for the free allocation of urban land within the law.

In general, the new policy documents were mainly promulgated by the central government in this period, and were the supplement to previous policies, further regulating the detailed procedures of land use. The policy objectives and instruments fundamentally remained consistent. The new policy monopoly was being further strengthened, which was a gradual change. When the effectiveness of new policy was confirmed by positive policy image, as reflected in the adaption of the new policy to the development of the socioeconomic system, the policy evolution of this period tended to maintain stable. This is in accordance with the characteristics of the equilibrium period in the punctuated-equilibrium theory.

3.4. Punctuated Period II (2001–2007): The Monopoly of Land Supply and the Advancement of Land Marketization

Due to competition among local governments and land rent-seeking, local governments preferred to conduct land transactions by agreement, rather than by auction or bidding, which are more market-oriented. The proportion of land leased by agreement was too high in the late 1990s. Meanwhile, a large amount of allocated land illegally entered the market through stealthy transactions under the dual land supply system, resulting in a large amount of wasted land and a massive loss of land revenue. Because the market value of urban land was not fully realized, the existing policies were questioned by the public and the media. The policy image of “paid land use” changed from positive to negative. Under external pressure, policy-makers have to seek for some new solutions to reinforce the governments’ control of the urban land market and increase land revenue. Towards that end, the reserve system was introduced in China, which became the second punctuation that broke the monopoly of the dual land supply system.

The land reserve agency first emerged in Shanghai and Hangzhou in 1996 [11]. The Circular of the State Council on Strengthening the Management of State-owned Land Assets released in April 2001 appealed to qualified local governments for the implementation of the land reserve system. With the approval of the central government and the achievements of pilot cities, other cities soon implemented a land reserve system. There were more than two thousand land reserve agencies nationwide until June 2002 [35]. The land reserve agency is a specialized organization authorized by local governments, the assignments of which are to obtain urban land legally by expropriation and replacement, carry out preliminary land development, stockpile a land supply, and put the reserved land into the market according to the annual land supply plan. The land reserve system, which integrated acquisition, development, reserve and transfer, and can be used as a land-use regulatory tool to control the land supply, promoted the monopoly of local governments on the primary market of urban land in China [35].

In the meantime, in order to maximize the market value of land and increase land revenue, a series of policy documents were intensively issued to accelerate land marketization. The Ministry of Land and Resources promulgated the Regulations on the Leasing of State-owned Land Use Rights by Bidding, Auction and Quotation in July 2002, which demanded that all types of commercial land must be transferred by market-oriented means such as bidding, auction and quotation. The Decision of the State Council on Deepening Reform and Tightening Land Management, launched in 2004, was the first policy paper to put forward a prohibition on illegal investment-attracting by undercutting the land price, and the first to state that illegal land transactions resulting in the loss of land assets should be investigated for legal responsibility. In the same year, the Decision on Law Enforcement and Supervision of the Leasing of Commercial Land Use Rights—launched by both the Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Supervision—declared that commercial land must be traded by the means of bidding, auction and quotation after 31 August 2004, and the leasing of land by agreement was officially abandoned. The upgrade of a series of policies revealed the urgent need to promote urban land marketization. What is more, the promulgation of the Property Law of the People’s Republic of China in 2007 was a critical step in the advancement of land marketization by way of legislation. It was shown in the law that the right to use urban construction land must be leased by public and competitive means such as bidding, auction and quotation, and obtaining land use rights by allocation must be strictly restricted.

In this punctuated period, new policies were frequently introduced by policy-makers to solve problems in the short term. The policy venue was transferred from local governments to central government. Local governments played an active role in the reform of the urban land system, as the achievements of the pilot reform facilitated the introduction of new policies by the central government. The new policies reinforced the local governments’ monopoly on urban land supply and advanced land marketization. Rapid and punctuated changes occurred in the policy system.

3.5. Equilibrium Period III (2008–2021): Centralized Control of Land Supply by Central Government

The Outline of National General Land Use Planning (2006–2020) issued by the State Council in October 2008 was a programmatic document for the implementation of the strictest land management system, in which the land quotas of all of the provinces (autonomous regions or municipalities) from 2006 to 2020 are detailed, including the amount of cultivated land, the area of basic farmland and the construction land quota [36]. Local governments at various levels make the general land use plan of provinces, cities or counties according to the general plan of the central government. Meanwhile, the annual quotas of the land use plan are allocated to each local government through the national annual land use plan. The central government achieved highly-centralized and strict control over land supply through the top-down quota system [36]. The Ministry of Land and Resources issued the Specification for the Preparation of State-owned Construction Land Supply Plan in 2010, in which the departments of land and resources management of all of the municipalities and counties were required to compile documents including the amount, structure and distribution of state-owned construction land within the planning period, and then submit them to superior governments for approval. Under the dual constraints of the “planning quota” and “plan quota”, the central government realized a high monopoly of the urban land supply, which was a new policy stability in the process of urban land system reform.

Under the vertical management of urban land by the central government, the general idea of land supply policy made by local governments was to dig up the increment land, make good use of the stock land, and reasonably control the total amount of construction land under the restriction of general planning and annual plans. The policy objectives remained consistent.

Farmland conversion is the main way of digging up the increment land, and was limited under the restriction of the red line of cultivated land and basic farmland protection. With the issue of the Interim Measures of Chongqing for the Administration of Rural Land in 2008, the Chongqing government launched the securitized land exchange system according to the principles of “linkage between urban and rural construction land usage” [37]. After the reclamation of rural construction land into arable land that meets the requirements, an equivalent area of urban construction land quota can be exchanged with the approval of land management departments. Chongqing was officially approved to carry out the pilot project of the linkage of increase–decrease between urban and rural construction land by the State Council in 2009. As the first market-oriented attempt at the linkage of land increase and decrease, the securitized land exchange system in Chongqing was achieved. However, it remains to be seen whether this system can take effect in other cities, and whether the pilot exploration of local government can lead to a nationwide policy breakthrough.

There are two main trends of policy in making good use of the stock land: to strengthen the supervision on “approved but unsupplied” and “supplied but unused” land through the Measures for Disposal of Unused Land, and to activate the potential value of “used but inefficient” land by shantytown transformation and the comprehensive improvement of “villages” in cities. Since the State Council published the Suggestions on Accelerating the Renovation of Shantytowns in July 2013, policy documents about shantytown renovation have been successively introduced every year. Villages in cities and old communities were listed as key objects of renewal after a three-year transformation plan of shantytowns was adopted in the executive meeting of the State Council in 2017.

At the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in March 2021, the establishment of a nationwide inter-regional trade system for construction land, additional arable land quotas, the acceleration of urban renewal, and the renovation of old communities, factories and blocks were incorporated in the 14th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives through the Year 2035, which indicated that the future reform of the urban land system will be deepened in these two directions.

Overall, the policy monopoly in this period had the highest intensity. The policy venue was almost controlled by the central government. Under the constraints of two programmatic documents on land use planning and the annual plan, policy-makers still seek for new measures to solve the problems, which showed a gradual change. The policy image of the central government having a high monopoly of urban land supply was continuously intensified. The policy monopoly was stable over long periods, which belongs to a typical equilibrium period.

4. The Inner Mechanism of Urban Land System Reform in China

According to the analysis in the previous section, the reform of China’s urban land system over the 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China showed a non-linear change that alternated between gradual change and punctuated evolution. Gradual change occurred in the equilibrium period, in which policy monopolies maintain stability over long periods. With two punctuated evolutions coming “quickly and dramatically” in short periods, the reform process was divided into three equilibrium periods and two punctuated periods.

Here, we should ask the question of how such non-linear change and punctuation occur in the process of urban land system reform in China. The punctuated-equilibrium theory holds the view that policy changes are caused by the interaction of the policy image and policy venue. Specifically, the change of the policy image is the precondition of urban land system reform; the transfer of the policy venue is the key to the collapse of policy monopoly; the shock of focus events is a driving factor resulting in the change of the policy image and the transfer of the policy venue; the interaction of these key variables ultimately promotes the reform of the urban land system. Further analysis of these key variables and their interactions will be conducted in this section to reveal the inner mechanism of urban land system reform.

4.1. The Change of the Policy Image

As mentioned above, policy image is how the public and the media understand, discuss and evaluate a certain policy, which can be considered as the tendency of public opinions regarding the policy in the social environment [20]. A positive policy image shows that the policy can be well received by the public, and is usually associated with the establishment and stability of policy monopoly, while a negative policy image reflects the public’s doubts about the effectiveness of the policy, or even opposition to the policy. When the negative comments on the policy last for a long period, the policy monopoly will be easily weakened by sharp exogenous shocks. Once outsiders participate in the policy-making or original new policies proposed by policy-makers take effect, the policy monopoly will collapse, accompanied by sharp and punctuated policy changes [21].

In the first punctuation, the drawbacks of the previous pattern of allocating urban land in accordance with administrative mandates under the planned economy system were exposed. Administrative allocation and the prohibition on land transaction made it impossible for urban land to be distributed according to its demand, resulting in waste and the inefficient use of land resources. Land use without payment holds the tremendous economic values of land back from full realization, which is a huge loss for both local governments and enterprises. In this case, the original land polices were inevitably opposed by the public, especially a large number of enterprises in urgent need of urban land. The failure of the original policies in Equilibrium PeriodⅠto adapt to the comprehensive reform of the social, political and economic system greatly hindered the development of the socialist market economy, which brought about the change of the policy image from positive to negative.

The second punctuation occurred in the transition period from free land use to paid land use. Although the system of paid land use had been established and developed, the land use rights obtained by administrative allocation were still protected by the law. There was not a clear boundary between paid land leasing and free administrative allocation in actual land use. Using land rent-seeking or other means, a wide range of enterprises obtained commercial land by allocation rather than market transactions. Moreover, there was a high proportion of land leased by agreement, and land bidding and auction was hard to implement in the process of paid land use. The policy monopoly in Equilibrium Period Ⅱ had not been completely broken down, which affected the implementation of new policies and slowed down the formation of positive policy image.

4.2. The Transfer of the Policy Venue

The policy venue is the authority that has the power to make authoritative decisions on a given policy issue. The transfer of the policy venue is generally caused by the participation of new policy-makers. The change of the policy image can also affect the decisions made by the policy venue. The interaction of a positive policy image and a fixed policy venue can maintain the policy monopoly and long periods of equilibrium in the political system, and policy-makers can solve problems without new participators [20]. When new problems arise and the policy image changes to negative, the attempt of outsiders to participate in the system leads to the transfer of the policy venue. The equilibrium of the policy system will be broken, which will accelerate the collapse of policy monopoly [38].

In the highly-centralized administrative system of China, the central government has the supreme power. The procedure of the introduction of a new policy is as follows: the central government promulgates mandatory or guidance documents, and then lower-level local governments put them into effect. Local governments, as direct managers of urban land, will pay more attention to self-interests, which may affect the effects of the policy to some extent. When the central government strictly restricts the power of local governments, the policy-making is controlled by the central government, and local government are only in charge of implementation; thus, the policy venue is monopolized by the central government. When the central government decides to decentralize power and give certain decision-making power to local governments for the pilot exploration of system reform, the policy-making power is shared by the central government and local governments, and the policy venue is partially transferred to local governments [29].

The policy monopoly is stable over long periods in the equilibrium period of urban land system reform, where the decision-making power of land policies is completely monopolized by the central government and local governments have little participation in decision-making. During Equilibrium Period I (1949–1978) under the planned economy system, urban land supply was completely subject to the allocation of central administrative orders, and local governments only had executive power. Equilibrium Period III (2008–2021) was a period of the macro-control of urban land supply (2008–2021). The central government had achieved the highly centralized and top-down management of urban land by land use planning and the land use annual plans. Local governments could carry out construction in strict accordance with land quotas [36]. The policy monopoly was continuously strengthened. It can be seen that there was no transfer of the policy venue in the equilibrium period.

In contrast, in the two punctuated periods, the central government delegated power to local governments for policy innovation. Motivated by the huge policy dividend, local governments positively participated in the pilot reform. The policy venue transferred from the central government to local governments and then back to the central government. Local governments carried out a pilot exploration of charging land use fees in Punctuated Period I. The land reserve agencies were established by local governments to solve the contradiction between the government’s dominance and the market mechanism in Punctuated Period II. The decentralization enabled local governments to participate in decision-making and gain the power to conduct pilot reform. The achievements of the pilot reform of local governments were finally recognized and supported at the legislative level by the central government, which is the key to breaking the policy monopoly. These attempts of local governments can be considered as the punctuated and dramatic changes in the punctuated period.

4.3. The Shock of Focus Events

In the punctuated-equilibrium theory, the focus event occurs at the key point of the policy venue transfer, which constitutes the constraints or incentives of policy punctuation [38]. The public attention on the focus event can affect public opinions, which is a sharp and short-term exogenous shock to the policy monopoly and may punctuate the equilibrium of the policy system. On the one hand, the shock of the focus event may directly result in punctuated policy changes; on the other hand, given the inertia of the original policy monopoly, which hinders new policies from taking effect, the focus event may trigger conflicts between original and new policies. When gradual changes in response to the exogenous shock to a policy system cannot get positive feedback, the equilibrium of the policy system will be punctuated. The concurrence of the change of the policy image with the transfer of the policy venue ultimately leads to the collapse of the policy monopoly.

There were two punctuated policy changes led by a focus event in the process of the reform of urban land system. The focus event in the first punctuation is the charge of land use fees. The establishment of the socialist market economic system and the demand of the comprehensive reform of urban land accelerated land marketization in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As the pilot cities achieved huge benefits, the focus event received positive public opinions. Under the urgent economic system reform, the full realization of land’s market value perfectly met the requirements of the socialist market commodity economy. The positive policy image of paid land use was strengthened. In the meantime, the pilot reform of paid land use was approved by the central government in some cities. The transfer of the policy venue from the central government to local governments, together with the change of policy image, formulated the policy monopoly.

The focus event of the second punctuation was the establishment of land reserve agencies. Due to the dual land supply system in the late 1990s, local governments failed to realize the maximum land revenue and powerfully regulate urban land supply. Under this circumstance, the land reserve system—which realized the complete monopoly of local governments over urban land supply in the primary land market and ensured paid land transactions by the market mechanism—was generated, and was widely used over long periods. The new policy monopoly maintained stability.

4.4. Brief Summary

Based on the above analysis, the inner mechanism of the reform of the urban land system in China can be summarized as follows. In general, the process of urban land system reform is characterized by incremental changes interspersed with occasional sharp bursts of policy change and alternations of equilibrium and punctuation. When the effect of the existing urban land system and policies cannot meet the demand of the comprehensive reform of the social, political and economic system, the original policy image changes from positive to negative. Local governments obtain certain decision-making power by the decentralization of the central government, and seek for appropriate means of urban land supply that adapts to changes in the social, political and economic system using pilot reforms, in which the policy venue is partly transferred from the central government to local governments. The successful experience and positive achievements of pilot reforms were recognized by the central government and the public, which can be considered as a focus event. Due to the exogenous shock of the focus event on the original urban land system and policies, the policy image changed from negative to positive, and the policy venue transferred from local governments to the central government. The change of the policy image and the transfer of the policy venue, together with the shock of the focus events, ultimately contributed to the collapse of the original policy monopoly, which belonged to a punctuated change in the process of urban land system reform. When new policies take effect and gain a positive policy image, the new policy monopoly is reestablished and maintained, in which incremental changes often occur and eventually enter into equilibrium.

5. Conclusions and Discussion

5.1. Conclusions

Based the review of important policy documents in the process of urban land system reform over the past 70 years, this paper applied the punctuated-equilibrium theory to the analysis of urban land system reform, and drew the following conclusions.

Firstly, under the framework of punctuated-equilibrium theory, the process of urban land system reform in China shows a non-linear change that alternates between gradual change and punctuated evolution, which can be divided into three equilibrium periods and two punctuated periods. Typical policies occurred in each period; their time of issue, the policy venue, and the stage characteristics of each period are summarized in

Table 2. The stage characteristics of five policy periods during the process of China’s urban land system reform (1949–2021).

Period	Typical Policy Document	Time of Issue	Policy Venue	Stage Characteristics
Equilibrium Period I (1949–1978)	Regulations of Suburban Land Reform	November 1950	The Government Administration Council	Nationalization of urban land and establishment of the system of urban land use without payment, time limit and transfer
	Procedures of Land Expropriation for State Construction	December 1953	The Government Administration Council
	Constitution	September 1954	The National People’s Congress (NPC)
	Circular on Basic Situation of Private Properties in Cities and Socialist Transformation	January 1956	The Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
Punctuated Period I (1979–1990)	Law on Chinese-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures	July 1979	The State Council	The pilot exploration and legislation of the system of paid use of urban land
	Interim Provisions on Construction Land of Chinese-Foreign Joint Ventures	July 1980	The State Council
	Interim Provisions of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone on Land Management	January 1982	The Standing Committee of Guangdong Provincial People’s Congress
	Procedures for the Paid Transfer of Land Use Rights in Shanghai	November 1987	Shanghai Municipal People’s Government
	Regulations of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone on Land Management	November 1987	The Standing Committee of Guangdong Provincial People’s Congress
	the Constitutional Amendment	April 1988	The National People’s Congress
	Law on Land Administration (revised in 1988)	December 1988	The Standing Committee of National People’s Congress
	Interim Regulations on the Leasing and Transfer of State-owned Land Use Rights	May 1990	The State Council
Equilibrium Period II (1991–2000)	Interim Measures for Allocated Land on the Management of the Rights to Use	March 1992	The National Land Administration Bureau	A transition period in which paid land transfer coexists with free allocation
	Law on Urban Real Estate Administration	July 1994	The Standing Committee of National People’s Congress
	Law on Land Administration (revised in 1998)	1998	The Standing Committee of National People’s Congress
Punctuated Period II (2001–2007)	Circular of the State Council on Strengthening the Management of State-owned Land Assets	April 2001	The State Council	The establishment of land reserve system and the legislation of land leased by bidding, auction and quotas
	Regulations on the Leasing of State-owned Land Use Rights by Bidding, Auction and Quotation	July 2002	The Ministry of Land and Resources
	Decision on Law Enforcement and Supervision of the Leasing of Commercial Land Use Rights	March 2004	The Ministry of Land and Resources & The Ministry of Supervision
	Decision of the State Council on Deepening Reform and Tightening Land Management	December 2004	The State Council
	Property Law	March 2007	The National People’s Congress
Equilibrium Period III (2008–2021)	Outline of National General Land Use Planning (2006–2020)	November 2008	The State Council	The highly-centralized management of urban land supply by the central government through land use planning and annual land use plan.
	Interim Measures of Chongqing for the Administration of Rural Land	December 2008	Chongqing Municipal People’s Government
	Specification for the Preparation of State-owned Construction Land Supply Plan	August 2010	The Ministry of Land and Resources
	Measures for Disposal of Unused Land	July 2012	The Ministry of Land and Resources
	Suggestions on Accelerating the Renovation of Shantytowns	July 2013	The State Council
	14th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives through the Year 2035	March 2021	The National People’s Congress

. In the process of the reform of the urban land system, urban land has undergone changes from privatization to nationalization, from free use to paid use, and from administrative allocation to market-oriented transfer. What remains constant is the monopoly of the central government on urban land supply, and the degree of monopoly has been deepened with system reform.

Secondly, the change of policy image and the transfer of policy venue, together with the shock of focus events, contribute to the gradual changes and punctuated evolutions in the process of urban land system reform. The inner mechanism of urban land system reform in China can be summarized as follows. The existing urban land system and policies could not adapt to the rapid changes in the social and economic system, resulting in the change of the policy image from positive to negative. The change of the policy image affected the policy effect of the local government and the central government. The central government gave certain decision-making power to the local government under the strong demand of development, which lead to the transfer of the policy venue. The focus events in which the pilot reforms produced a positive effect occurred at the transfer of the policy venue, leading to the change of the policy image from negative back to positive. The achievements of the local pilot reforms were recognized by the central government, and the policy venue was transferred from local governments to the central government. The original policy monopoly collapsed, and punctuated change occurred in the reform process. When the effect of the new policies was proven by a positive policy image, the policy system entered into equilibrium and maintained stability by incremental changes in the equilibrium period.

Compared with previous studies, our paper pays more attention to the dynamic process of urban land system reform in the punctuated-equilibrium framework, in which gradual changes intersect with punctuated and sharp changes. The results further shed light on the inner logic of urban land system reform over the past 70 years, which can provide a direction for policy-making to deepen the reform in the future.

5.2. Scientific Contributions and Limitations

This paper attempted to create a dialogue with two aspects of theoretical literatures. On the one hand, most of the previous studies on urban land system reform have been conducted from a historical perspective. As land system reform is a complex issue related to the economy, politics and public administration, our paper expanded the perspective to public policy study by the application of punctuated-equilibrium theory—a dominant paradigm of the study of public policy changes, which enriches the understanding of China’s urban land system reform. On the other hand, this study expanded the application of punctuated-equilibrium theory. As a study paradigm rooted in public policy evolution in America, China’s urban land system reform was taken as a new case to verify its explanatory power in the Chinese political system. The results showed that combined with a common policy paradigm in Western policy study and the revision in practical use by domestic scholars, punctuated-equilibrium theory can be used to suitably explain policy changes which occurred in the process of China’s urban land system reform. It was further proven that there are also punctuated changes alternating with gradual evolutions even in the system reform of a socialist country with single-governance and a top-down decision-making system.

Although this study made some contributions in the study of system reform and public policy change in China, there were still shortcomings that need to be supplemented by further research. First, as we were limited by the availability of data when sorting out relevant policy documents, some older policies could not be found in the original text but were obtained from literature reviews. Second, urban land system reform is a dynamic process, and policy documents are updated every year; this paper may not have covered the latest policies. Future studies can be improved in these two aspects.