Worldview: Fertile ground for Xi's visit

I wonder what lessons China's future president will draw from his Wednesday visit to Iowa, the state where Republican presidential hopefuls so recently tested their strength.

This was a nostalgia trip for Vice President Xi Jinping, the leader-in-waiting of the world's fastest-rising economic and military power. Xi (pronounced shee) is on a getting-to-know-you visit to America; he was returning to Muscatine, where he'd stayed 27 years ago on an agricultural exchange. Clearly, the visit was intended to show his warm feelings toward the American heartland.

Yet, when I scanned the Muscatine Journal, and read of hearings held by the local planning and zoning commission, I couldn't help but wonder whether Xi was interested in how rural American towns govern themselves.

After all, one of the most intriguing questions about Xi's political intentions is whether he will pursue reforms of China's political system, especially in its vast rural regions.

The level of anger in China's agricultural heartland dwarfs the angst that drove the Iowa caucus. One of the most intriguing tales from China last year concerned a rebellion in the village of Wukan in the southern province of Guangdong. Residents rose en masse against the seizure of communal land by corrupt party officials who sold it to developers - and then beat to death the leader sent by a committee of villagers to protest. Ordinarily, the protest would have been futile, but it wasn't. (More on this later.)

Similar land seizures have sparked protests all around China. According to a 2011 report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 40 million to 50 million farmers have lost their land since agricultural reforms began in the 1970s, with three million more joining the ranks of the landless yearly.

Often, the farmers receive little or no compensation. There are no public hearings, no planning and zoning commission, and no elected officials who must at least listen to concerns of constituents.

A new breed of public-interest lawyers has emerged that dares to represent some victims of illegal landgrabs. I met professors in Beijing in 2005 who taught courses in public-interest law and sent students to inform farmers how to challenge illegal land seizures.

But in recent years, especially after the Arab Spring, a nervous party hierarchy has cracked down on dissenters, even those who seek only the implementation of laws on the Chinese books.