'Zone Fever', the Arable Land Debate,and Real Estate Speculation: China's evolving land use regime and its geographical contradictions

State promotion of export-oriented development in China through a system of special development zones contributed to both rapid economic growth and indiscriminate reproduction of special zones. Land use transformations have resulted in significant losses of arable land, and new state policies to conserve land and control land use through the revised Land Administration Law. Critical comparison of industrial development in the special zone phenomenon and the evolving land use disposition system demonstrates contradictory domestic political and economic policies of land development, land management, and land conservation. This analysis assesses land development trends in the south China coastal zone and adopts a geographical approach to examine the spatialities of the land use regime, across the administrative hierarchy, in the nature of the distinct rural and urban land use markets, and in land monitoring problems. Problems revealed in the land disposition system demonstrate how the state's land use regime has promoted land development. New controls over land use coincided with the need to restrict service sector development in real estate and related industries at the onset of the regional economic downturn in 1997.