HONG KONG, July 28 -- There are deep-rooted interests in the New Territories originating from the governance, development and planning of land. When the British leased the New Territories from the Qing government in 1898, the existing inhabitants – the “indigenous villagers” – fought back in the “Six-Day War.” To govern a piece of land ten times the size of the crown colony of Hong Kong and Kowloon, the British needed to cooperate with the village clans. The rural advisory body, the Heung Yee Kuk, was set up to represent the interests of the indigenous villagers in 1926. After World War II, Hong Kong experienced rapid population growth and industrialization, and new towns were planned in the New Territories. To gain support of the villagers, the government introduced the Small House Policy in 1972. Under the policy, every indigenous male villager would be entitled to build a three-storey, 700 sq ft small house – either on his own village land, by exchanging his non-village land with government land, or through a concessionary grant of land. Rural tradition provided justification for the policy. In turn, the “traditional rights and interests” of indigenous New Territories villagers was enshrined in Article 40 of the Basic Law after lobbying from late Heung Yee Kuk chairman Lau Wong-fat. This April, the High Court struck down the latter two methods of obtaining permission for a small house as unconstitutional, but the ruling will not be enforced pending an appeal.Yet many male descendants of indigenous villages have turned large profits through the Small House Policy by colluding with property developers. Developers are known to buy up swathes of low-cost agricultural land, and transfer them to villagers as trustees. In turn, the villagers obtain building licenses and sell the land back to the developers, who can effectively develop residential land at a far lower cost than had they purchased that land directly from the government. This practice entails the making of a false declaration to the government, but prosecutions are rare. The Liber Research Community has estimated that almost 10,000 small houses (23 per cent of those in existence) have been built this way, including 46 percent of all small houses in Yuen Long. The boom of rural land The rural land economy was given another boost in 1983, when the Full Court ruled in Attorney General v Melhado Investment Ltd that old crown leases to indigenous villagers containing the word “agricultural” would not actually bind them to using their land for farming. It interpreted the word as merely descriptive of the state of the land in the 1900s. Henceforth, the rural New Territories witnessed a large expansion in storage facilities, car parks and light industries – “brownfield” sites – all of which were legal so long as no buildings were constructed. The value of “brownfielded” agricultural land steeply increased, and so did the amount of compensation payable by the government for requisitioning that land. Despite the government’s attempts to slow down changes to the rural landscape through zoning regulations, the Liber Research Community has estimated that New Territories brownfield sites increased from 792 to 1,521 hectares between 1993 and 2017. Allegations of forcible destruction of farmland through the dumping of waste – to create a fait accompli of “brownfielding” or kick out existing farmers – are now commonplace. Over the course of a week this April, unknown men turned the farmland of a 75-year-old Hung Shui Kiu villager into a mountain of rubble. The district had been marked by the government for imminent development. Property developers have also been accused of “hoarding” land for years as an investment, waiting for prices to increase before developing it or allowing it to be resumed by the government. The practice has only added to the city’s ongoing housing crisis. To reform the rural economy, politicians such as Eddie Chu have called for democratising the Heung Yee Kuk. Former assistant director of planning Augustine Ng has even proposed that the government announce the non-renewal of New Territories land leases after 2047 – when most of them will expire – to deflate the property market. The rural-triad nexus Furthermore, it has been suggested that organised crime has established a foothold in the New Territories over time. Nam Pin Wai – where the armed mob moved to on Sunday night – is the territory of the city’s second-largest triad group: Wo Shing Wo, according to Apple Daily. While Chinese triads were historically hired by the Kuomintang government that fled from the mainland to Taiwan, Beijing is known to have established relations with Hong Kong groups long before the 1997 handover. In 1993, then Chinese minister for public security Tao Siju famously told reporters that “some triads love the country and love the party”. Generally, triads do not profess any explicit political alignment. Yet Sunday was not the first time they have been involved in attacking protesters – in October 2014, the Mong Kok encampment of the Umbrella Movement was assaulted by dozens of men. In the rural New Territories, the influence of triads may stem from their involvement in the land economy. They reportedly engage in work such as “brownfielding” and evictions to ensure the smooth operation of vested commercial and clan interests. The media often allude to the alleged personal triad connections of certain rural leaders. In a 2016 Initium Media interview, land researcher Chan Kim-ching explained their role in the context of commercial acquisitions of village land: “The first actor is the village chief, who asks as a consultant for property developers. He will politely discuss with villagers the sale of their land.” “But if you don’t sell, then I’m sorry, the work will be handed to the triads. Once you publicly expose the incident, they will go back to the original method. They will go back and forth between the approaches.” Meanwhile, it has proven difficult to police the vast rural landscape and its semi-private villages, and village elections have been marred by a history of organised violence. “Once the New Territories landlord class have triad backing, it’s like they have an army,” wrote Chan more recently. “They can sway the government’s land policy and ability to negotiate pricing, and influence half of Hong Kong. That’s how the New Territories rural gentry built up their interests.”
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