| Summary: | The premise of this paper is that in order to understand contemporary
concepts and institutions of property in China one needs to be aware of the historical
approaches towards the ownership and management of resources and assets. Legal
institutions are a reflection of the ideological and material conditions of a society. The
persistence or reappearance of these conditions suggests that there may be some
similarities between traditional, primarily Confucian, and contemporary post-Maoist
property concepts and institutions. This paper explores the social, economic and
ideological basis of imperial era concepts of ownership and management of land
resources and investigates the interaction between state and society, or the official
and private spheres. The research here demonstrates that despite officially held
ideas of imperial land ownership, most land effectively was owned by actors within
the private sphere by at least the early to mid-Qing. Nevertheless, the concept of
ownership emphasized the community as opposed to the individual, and thus the
notion of private exclusive rights in resources such as land significantly was minimal.
Property institutions frequently resembled trusts or corporations, which were
characterized by a separation of ownership and management powers or rights. This
does not imply however that the separation was a clear one. Like contemporary
uncertainties surrounding the division of ownership and management rights in state
enterprises, late imperial institutions did not clearly define how a resource was to be
managed. Generally such determinations must be made on a case by case basis. === Law, Peter A. Allard School of === Graduate
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