Violent forced evictions are increasing in China as local governments seek to pay off debts by seizing land and selling usage rights to property developers, Amnesty International said in a report on Thursday.
“The pace of forced evictions has only accelerated over the past three years,” said the report, which the human rights group said was based on media reports and interviews with rights activists, lawyers and academics.
It said the increase in evictions stemmed in part from a construction boom stoked by a government stimulus programme implemented to ward off the effects of the 2008 financial crisis.
The loosening of credit allowed local governments to take out loans on an “unprecedented scale”, but local governments soon found themselves unable to continue financing the projects, “so they sank deeper into debt”, Amnesty said.
China’s local-level governments are heavily dependent on revenue from land development projects, causing them to step up evictions to pave the way for such developments, the report said.
“In order to reduce their debt burden, they increasingly find their interests aligned with those of real estate developers,” it said.