PINGDU, Qingdao, March 26 -- A land dispute in east China's Shandong has claimed one life and injured three people, a warning that strains are starting to show in the urbanization drive.

A fire started at around 2 a.m. on Friday in a tent on a farm in Dujiatuan Village. A 62-year-old villager was burned to death and three others were injured. It did not take long for the police to establish that the blaze had been set deliberately and apprehend those responsible. The four men who started the fire were acting on the orders of a man named Wang, who received his instructions from a real estate developer and a village head, according to the police. All seven suspects are now in detention and the investigation continues.

On March 20, villagers pitched the tent in farmland to prevent developers from starting construction, dissatisfied with the compensation they had received. The local government responded on Tuesday that they observed the law in the expropriation of the 134.37 mu (9 hectares) of land as well as compensation.

According to the Land Administration Law, local authorities must consult villagers before selling land. Staff with the subdistrict office responded that the villagers were well informed at a meeting before the acquisition of the land, but there is no evidence to show that such a meeting took place.

Li Rongmao, the villagers' representative, said that the government should have informed them before seizing the land, and that the compensation did not meet their expectations, as villagers will be more or less left without any income. In line with the law, compensation for each villager was calculated at 31,800 yuan (5,123 U.S.dollars) in all.

"Some of the villagers found the compensation is too low to cover their costs, and what about 17 years later?" Li said.

According to the regulations in Pingdu, where the fire took place, part of the money earned by selling the land should be given to the villagers. A total of 15.28 million yuan was given to the village committee on Feb.27, but the committee believes they have the responsibility to keep the money for the villagers as pensions, an official said. Villagers argue that the committee has no right to decide for them. The official said that they will solicit public opinion on the issue.

"Their decision not to hand over the money is ridiculous. We are losing our land. What are we supposed to do without land?" asked Li.

HUMAN-CENTERED URBANIZATION

The Pingdu case, following similar conflicts of land-grabbing rows, has resulted in violent confrontation and death, and revealed some of the problems with the process of urbanization. Under current rules, the state can nationalize collectively owned land for reasons like "public interest" and transfer farmland to industrial and construction use.

To build homes for migrant workers, local governments have taken a lot of land from farmers over the years, sold it to industrial and housing developers, and given very little to rural residents in return.

"The Pingdu land dispute was triggered by overexpansion of urban areas. Poor control of the pace of city development has resulted in disorderly expansion, "said Yi Peng, of the Pangu Institute, a think tank on urbanization.

"Compensation for farmers is too low, and does not share the benefits of increases in land prices," said Yi, who wants to see better control and planning to limit overexpansion of urban areas.

According to a report by World Bank and China Development Research Institute, urbanization has relied on land conversion and land financing, which is causing urban sprawl.

Reform of land management means strengthening farmers' rights, limiting land that can be requisitioned and market-based pricing, the report suggested. Proactive, steady, "human-centered" urbanization should balance urban-rural development and increase domestic consumption.

Through better allocation of land, labor and capital, the benefits of urbanization can be more widely shared than in the past, said Yi.

The recent policy changes mean more farmers can settle in small cities and become official city residents, and the most important thing is, to allow them to enter cities with their pockets full, said Yi.

"The government should raise one-off compensation to farmers, but establishing a mechanism to guarantee their lives in the long term is even more important," Yi added.