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The Surface—Subsoil Form of Divided Ownership in Late Imperial China: Some Examples from the New Territories of Hong Kong
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
Extract
This paper is a study of certain aspects of land tenure in late imperial China. An extensive literature has evolved in recent years on the relationship between traditional forms of landholding and rural social structure in the irrigated rice-growing areas of southeastern and central China. In particular, the pronounced separation of‘rights to the surface’ (tianmianquan) and ‘rights to the subsoil’ (tiandiquan), which was common in many regions until its elimination as a result of the land reform campaigns of the People's Republic during the early 1950s, has attracted the interest of a growing number of sinological historians and anthropologists. I analyze here some of the principal characteristics of this traditional Chinese method of dividing property rights in land as they were found in the pre-British New Territories of Hong Kong. I also give consideration to those areas of the existing literature which seem especially relevant to my interpretation of the local manifestations of this extremely important feature of Chinese social life.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987
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