@JanJal

You may want to brush up on your Chinese history.

The law of the land wasn't always red,

ipso facto, let us not trigger any more land mines so as to bring down the house.

Generally, foreigners are not allowed to buy land in China. The land in China belongs to the state and the collectives.

Obtaining land use rights gives the

user only the land use right, ipso facto, not the land or any resources in or below the land. A land grant contract shall be entered into between the land user and the land administration department of the people’s government at municipal or county level.

@bilingualexpat: "The law of the land wasn't always red,"

No it wasn't, but at some point the laws changed so that all land in China became owned by state and collectives, never individual people or families and most certaintly not foreigners.

If you try to imply that however the change happened did not include the land owned by you or your family in middle of Beijing, I just don't believe it.

That land stopped being owned by you or your family when the red law took over.

Both Geezer & JanJal need to refresh history of land ownership ex post facto CultRev... lets just say modern China is a lot more civilized than their "spirited" heydays.

First of all,OP, I'm sorry to hear what happened to you.

I was trying to buy land in a large village/town in Yunnan. I was refused outright because 1. I'm a 老外 and 2. my family don't live in the village (even though it's my wife's 'hometown'). The more things change...
Finally, the village chairman approved a sale to another local. Unfortunately, as 'outsiders' we will always be the last in line and the automatic losers in any dispute. Even migrants are often seen by 'officials' as above us.

Please educate us about that.

It is my knowledge that AS OF NOW, nobody except state and collectives may own land in China. Correct?

As a non-history student, it has been my understanding, that the land that was previously privately owned, was confiscated in land reform in 50s and divided to farmers to use, but it was never given theirs to own. Is this incorrect?

In urban areas such as you case in Beijing, state continued to hold absolute ownership of all land, but state's role was considered so absolute across everything that no formal law about it was ever considered necessary until after Deng.

Property Law implemented post-Deng still only makes it legal to lease land and own property sitting on it, but not the land itself.

My point with your case is, that somewhere along the history the state DID confiscate all land in China (including yours even if you apparently didn't know about it), and the state most certainly did not buy this land from the land-owners - it was taken.

Without being too nitpicky with semantics, lets connect back to original discussion for our fellow comrades...

Per OP's compensation request... even rightful, private land owners/landlords are retroactively compensated disproportionately and unfairly for the blatant, unlawful confiscation of land in the early years of the CPC, foreigners who merely lease rights to use residential (70 years)/commercial (40 yrs) estates, yet expecting just expropriation compensations, is an exercise in futility.

The 70 year land use rule for apartments is the same for both Chinese or foreigners. The apartment is yours but the joint user rights of the land it sits on is for an initial 70 years and is shared among all the complex owners, it doesn’t reset when the apartment is sold.

The apartment owned by the OP was in such an excellent position that I am sure it would be very expensive to buy a similar apartment so close to the lake. I am not sure how big the apartment was but I have heard that many of those older apartments were very small, some only had 20 to 30 SQM so even if the government compensated at several times over the market rate it would be impossible for people to buy in the same area as apartments built in the last 10 to 20 years in the valuable Green Lake area are much bigger.

Just be nitpicky, words mean something and definitions count when it comes to history and law.

Collectivization of the countryside began in the 1950s with a violent land reform. Since 1949, land ownership in urban areas was slowly removed by government policies and in 1982, all urban land was declared to be state owned consistent with Chinese socialism principles.

In 1994, China it began selling long-term leases to urban land, known as land-use rights. This was done to promote marketization and raise money hence the 70 and 50 year leases. No one is sure what will happen when the land use rights expire.

Characterizing as unlawful the conversion of land ownership from private to state ownership is to wholly misunderstand Chinese socialism. Even the property law introduced in 2007, which protects the interest of private owners to the same extent as that of national interests, is far from full property rights.

Opinions as to the fairness of compensation for property interests is not a question of law but depends on whose ox is being gored. The state owns the land and thus determines the best use according to national interests.

Clearly, any look at the history of property rights post 1949 to date shows consistent and progressive movement toward Chinese socialistic principles.

@bilingualexpat

I'm just trying to understand your situation, so I think semantics are important.

Was this about CPC taking your family's land to begin with, or local authorities not respecting your/your family's rightful lease (not ownership) much later? Or both?