CPC moves to solve land disputes amid rising protest

BEIJING, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- After it became the country's only ruling party 63 years ago, the Communist Party of China (CPC) is now looking back to where it started on its way to the national power: solving the land problems for farmers.

In his keynote report to the 18th CPC National Congress on Thursday, Chinese President Hu Jintaohas pressed the Party to reform the land expropriation system and increase farmers' share of gain in land value.

"We should give more to farmers and take less from them," Hu told the Party in his speech at the opening of the congress, which was televised nationwide Thursday.

Hu promised the CPC will ensure equal exchange of factors of production and balance allocation of public resources between urban and rural areas.

The pledge, the first of its kind the CPC has ever made in its national congress reports, came at a time when massive protests by farmers over land seizures erupted in multiple villages across the country over the past years.

The reform of the land expropriation system, if proceeds as promised, means that the Chinese government will no longer sacrifice the property rights of farmers to reduce the cost of the country's industrialization and urbanization.

According to China's existing land system, rural collectives, usually a rural village committee, rather than farmers themselves, own the land in rural areas, a systematic arrangement that came into being in China after several land reforms initiated by the CPC lifted it to national power.

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