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Peasant Mobilization, the 'Land Question' and Spatial Egalitarianism in an Urbanizing China: A Genealogical Assessment and a New Research Agenda

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Kean Fan Lim

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Abstract

© 2023 The Authors. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Urban Research Publications Limited.Urbanization has become a core strategy for the Communist Party of China (CPC) to reinforce its authoritarian rule over China. Its roll-out is replete with tensions, however, because the extent to which urbanization can replicate spatial egalitarianism, the foundation of CPC sovereign rule following its victory in the Chinese civil war (1946–49), remains unclear. To advance research on these tensions, this article first presents a genealogy of the multiple conditions that underpinned large-scale peasant mobilization to drive landownership redistribution. Rarely discussed in urban and regional research today, the logic and implications of landownership redistribution are crucial for comprehending and conceptualizing Chinese urbanization. Specifically, the genealogical analysis demonstrates how peasant mobilization engendered a de facto CPC-peasantry social contract that consolidated CPC rule. Rather than dissolve unproblematically as the Chinese political economy evolves into an urbanizing era, this contract has engendered path-dependent effects that constrain attempts at urban-rural integration. The article then adds a fresh historical-geographical dimension to existing research on Chinese urbanization and regime durability by introducing a new research agenda to examine why contemporary peasant mobilization across China not only differs from but is also shaped by the peasant mobilization of the late 1940s.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Lim KF

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

Year: 2023

Volume: 47

Issue: 6

Pages: 1030-1051

Print publication date: 01/11/2023

Online publication date: 25/10/2023

Acceptance date: 12/07/2023

Date deposited: 10/11/2023

ISSN (print): 0309-1317

ISSN (electronic): 1468-2427

Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Inc

URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13210

DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.13210

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