BEIJING, March 14 (UPI) -- China's premier reaffirmed Monday that state ownership would continue to take precedence over private ownership of rural lands.
Wen Jiabao sidestepped a question linking social instability and land rights issues at a press conference in Beijing at the end of the National People's Congress, China's legislature, which ended its 10-day session Monday.
Noting that Chinese reforms in the late 1970s began in the countryside by giving farmers greater rights in land management and use, including choosing what they would grow, Wen said, "Their rights have been continuously extended."
The premier reaffirmed "collective ownership" of land, but added that "peasant land decisions are an autonomy that will not change."
There were a number of disturbances in China last year over rural land rights, including the issue of eminent domain and compensation for appropriated land.
One incident in Hanyuan, Sichuan province, in late October 2004 involved an uprising of 100,000 peasants in one of the poorest areas of the country.
