China's leadership has suggested it is now ready to tackle that anomaly by making it easier for peasant farmers to trade their land titles. The party's Central Committee stopped short yesterday of announcing a reform that would enshrine the right of people to transfer, rent or possibly borrow against 30-year land leases.

That reform, if it comes, will give welcome legal backing to what already sometimes occurs in practice. It is an important step towards laying to rest the disastrous experiment of collectivisation which, at worst, led to mass starvation. Yet the transition towards eventual privatisation must be carefully handled if it is not to provoke new injustices and social upheaval.

One danger is corruption. Local party officials already have huge opportunity to enrich themselves by “readjustment” of land rights. One ruse is to pay meagre compensation and then change the status of farm land to residential or industrial, increasing its value at a stroke.