Chinese economic reform may extend to rural land rights

The headline for the NYT story is "China May Allow Sale of Rural Land Rights," and the significance of the news is expressed in this way on the Times' web-page blurb: "The shift could draw hundreds of millions of farmers more firmly into China’s city-centered market economy." (Photo Associated Press).

Here's the lede:

Chinese leaders are expected to allow peasants to buy or sell land-use rights for the first time, a step that could draw hundreds of millions of farmers more firmly into the city-centered market economy.

The new policy, which is being discussed this weekend by Communist Party leaders and could be announced within days, would be the biggest economic reform in many years and would mark another significant departure from the system of collective ownership and state control that China built after the 1949 revolution.