Interesting piece in The Economist on the troubles with China's land policies (no sub req'd for this one). It discusses the corruption and problems of rural property rights, for example the recent riots (captured on video) in Shengyou. It includes this key passage:

In the village of Maxinzhuang in Shunyi, one of Beijing's rural districts, hundreds of peasants have been protesting for the past month over compensation for the requisition of their land to build a water-sports complex for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. “There are no human rights,” muttered one protester, after local police ordered your correspondent to stop interviewing them. Several Chinese journalists have visited the village, but their reports have not been published. The authorities are clearly anxious to avoid tarnishing the image of Beijing's Olympics preparations.

Maxinzhuang's villagers are clearly aware of the high value of their land. Early last year Shunyi's Olympics venue supervisory body agreed to give the village nearly 95m yuan ($11.5m) for its 90 hectares (222 acres) of land, much of which had been used for growing maize and wheat. This is around twice as much per hectare as was offered to Shengyou village. But in both cases, peasants worry that only a small fraction of the cash will trickle down to them through the greedy grasp of corrupt officials.

Time for the IOC to put its mouth where its money is.