Expanding land rights

Land for a farmer is as important as a job for an urban resident, if not more.

That explains why any central government policy on land use has been of historical significance to the country's development.

Just as Deng Xiaoping, the chief architect of China's reforms, did 30 years ago to initiate them that led to the contracting of collective land to individual farmers, the current central leadership has started another round of reform of rural land use.