China’s rural transformation under the Link Policy: A case study from Ezhou

Rapid urbanisation in China leads to a dramatic urban expansion and farmland-to-construction land conversion. Aiming to address the tough issue of preserving farmland for food security while providing space for urban development, the central government proposed an innovative top-down land use policy termed “Link the increase in urban construction land with the decrease in rural construction land” (The Link Policy), which calls for land exchanges in urban and rural areas through centralised resettlement and land consolidation. The implementation of the Link Policy has significantly changed urban and rural landscape while also had profound impacts on China’s rural restructuring process. This paper aims to investigate the impacts of the Link Policy implementation on rural restructuring from the perspective of rural residents. To provide Chines a holistic understanding of the policy impacts particularly for the international readers, Link Policy, as an innovative top-down land use policy in China, was first introduced comprehensively through a systematic review of the literature regarding the policy background, progress, typical practice models and the issues that emerged from previous implementation. A case study of Ezhou city in central China was followed to investigate the impacts of the Link Policy on rural restructuring based on the analysis of the feedbacks from rural residents. The results indicate that the implementation of the Link Policy accelerated the rural restructuring process in the way of economic restructuring, spatial restructuring, and social restructuring. Moreover, the related issues that appeared have also been identified and policy recommendations are provided to mitigate the impacts of the Link Policy on farmers’ rural lives.