Illegal Wealth, Legal Bankruptcy: The Myth of "Zero-Cost" Exploitation in Jiangsu Binhai

Illegal Wealth, Legal Bankruptcy: The Myth of "Zero-Cost" Exploitation in Jiangsu Binhai

The court uses rigorous legal language, essentially completing a disguised "targeted poverty alleviation" for the infringers. Since the land was taken, even if the lawsuit is lost, only a low "occupation fee" needs to be paid at a standard far lower than the market price. The high difference in the middle all goes into private pockets. Who would be foolish enough to do business properly?

The story begins with a highly melodramatic script:

In 2006, "China's Good Person" Zhang Chunyin responded to Jiangsu Binhai County's call for investment and brought in real money to invest in over 3,000 acres of saline-alkali wasteland on both sides of the Huaihe River estuary. From a barren land to a United Nations-recognized salt soil agriculture sample, from wasteland to the country's first coastal salt soil agriculture enterprise academician workstation, Green Yard Company perfectly fulfilled the duties of a pioneer.

However, the script ends abruptly after the successful improvement of the saline-alkali land, seamlessly connecting to a black comedy film. As the wasteland turns into good land, local coveters keenly smell the business opportunities.

Starting from 2008, led by Hu Changjun and Fan Longyan, local people and some villagers, through simple and brutal means such as forced occupation, destruction of facilities, and driving away employees, swallowed up the land that Green Yard Company had painstakingly improved, and then rented it out for profit.

The next plot is an extreme test of the two words "rule of law": the company reported the crime to the police for 17 consecutive years, and the public security organs remained unmoved, refusing to file a criminal case; reluctantly turning to civil litigation, after a decade-long tug-of-war, the judgment of winning the lawsuit finally arrived in 2025 and 2026.

However, although the land was judged to be returned, the high profits earned by the occupiers through illegal land grabbing were "legally" stripped by the court for various reasons. What's even more absurd is that in the latest demolition and relocation, the local town government actually directly gave the compensation for the facilities belonging to Green Yard Company to the person who illegally occupied the land.

The wasteland has been transformed, the academician has been introduced, and in the end, the company's boss can only sigh: "It's better to grab land than to farm, and it's better to break the law than to follow the law."

(Related report: Wasteland turned into good land and then occupied: The 20-year nightmare of the country's first coastal salt soil agricultural enterprise academician workstation)

1

The brilliant "land grabbing economics"

And the invisible "night watchman"

If we treat Hu Changjun and Fan Longyan's behavior as a startup project, this may be the world's unique high-quality asset: zero R&D investment, zero initial capital, and zero operating maintenance.

The core competitiveness is the thickness of their skin and their fists, the profit model is "no capital, high returns" through forced occupation and renting, and the largest moat is the "silent mode" of local public power.

In common sense, if you rob a purse from an old lady on the street, even if it's only a few thousand yuan, the public security organs can still take action and put you in detention. This is called robbery or provoking trouble.

But in Binhai County, a group of people organized to grab over 1,000 acres of agricultural scientific research base that had invested huge amounts of money, smashed the equipment, drove away the employees, and openly collected rent. This is not called a crime; in the local context, it's called an "economic dispute".

17 years of unsuccessful reporting to the police is essentially a "disclaimer" issued by the grassroots law enforcement department to the whole society: as long as you grab the production materials of an enterprise, as long as you wave the flag of "villager" or "historical legacy", the legal sanctions can be suspended indefinitely.

This law enforcement logic is based on a chilling grassroots governance tacit rule: whoever makes trouble has reason, and whoever is tough gets benefits.

The police not filing a case may be to "maintain stability" or may be because they are lazy, but this "inaction" is precisely the greatest encouragement to the occupiers.

It reduces the cost of crime to zero and pushes the responsibility of protecting property rights, which should be borne by public power, to the powerless civil court. This is like your home being burglarized, and the security guard at the door tells you, "Don't make trouble, you can sue him in court."

2

The magical "each gets 50 big slaps" law

And the low cost of illegality

If the police's silence is the failure of the first line of defense, then the court's judgment can be described as a "muddling through" art performance.

Let's look at the logic of Binhai County Court. Hu Changjun forcibly occupied the land, rented it out, and earned millions. The court determined that Hu Changjun was illegally occupying the land but, when calculating compensation, greatly discounted the 566,000 yuan in damages claimed by Green Yard Company, approving only 244,100 yuan.

The reason is that Green Yard Company had rented part of the land to others to grow crops, changing the contract agreement for "research and development of salt-tolerant plants".

The robber robbed your house and rented it to others. The judge does not fully recover the robber's illegal gains but instead criticizes you for originally violating the decoration style, so you can only let the robber compensate you at cost price. This judgment is equivalent to giving the robber a "hard work fee" on the court.

Looking at Fan Longyan's case of forcibly occupying 210 acres of fish ponds, the market transfer price for similar aquaculture beaches is generally over 1,500 yuan per acre. Green Yard Company also produced a third-party agreement as a reference. However, the court, without market research and professional evaluation, "determined" the occupation fee at 600 yuan per acre.

In a country with a mature system of protecting property rights, the judgment logic for such cases is completely different. Taking the Anglo-American legal system as an example, for malicious occupation of others' private property or leased property, the court not only supports the principle of filling the gap (full compensation for actual losses and possible benefits) but also unhesitatingly imposes "punitive damages".

The malicious infringer not only has to return all illegal gains but also faces fines that can lead to bankruptcy, or even imprisonment for contempt of court. Because modern civilized legal common sense is: no one should be allowed to benefit from their own illegal behavior.

But in Binhai County, the law seems to have become a "price limit game". Illegally occupying land for over a decade, with extremely obvious malicious intent, and in the end, the court's judgment of compensation standards is even lower than the legal market rent. This forms an extremely absurd economic formula: the cost of illegality < the cost of legitimacy.

Since the land was taken, even if the lawsuit is lost, only a low "occupation fee" needs to be paid at a standard far lower than the market price. The high difference in the middle all goes into private pockets. Who would be foolish enough to do business properly? The court uses rigorous legal language, essentially completing a disguised "targeted poverty alleviation" for the infringers.

3

Demolition compensation given to the robber:

The "close the door and beat the dog" of attracting investment

If you think the court's judgment is already frustrating enough, then the operation of Binhai Port Town Government is directly pushing this absurd drama to its climax.

At the end of 2024, the Huaihe River estuary second-phase project sea gate construction requisitioned land. Green Yard Company's previously contracted fish ponds were due to expire, and several lessees refused to return the land and facilities.

Green Yard Company had already obtained a supporting arbitration award for the return of the land. However, the demolition office, in order to "promote project construction", bypassed the lawful user of the land and the owner of the facilities (Green Yard Company) and directly authorized the town government to give the compensation to the people who had illegally occupied the land!

This is not "muddling through"; this is public power taking the stage and directly giving cash to the illegal behavior.

In recent years, from top to bottom, numerous red-headed documents have been issued about "optimizing the business environment" and "promoting the development and growth of the private economy". The national level has also repeatedly proposed requirements to protect the property rights and rights of private entrepreneurs in accordance with the law and resolutely correct the practice of treating economic disputes as crimes.

But in Binhai County, policies are being implemented in reverse, becoming another bizarre scene: treating serious provocation and occupation as economic disputes, and treating legitimate corporate rights as trampled rags.

A company, believing in the sweet words of "attracting investment", brings technology and capital to open up wasteland. The wasteland turns into gold, and local bullies start grabbing land. The police don't care, the court lowers the compensation, and finally, the government even directly gives the demolition compensation to the bullies. Is this attracting investment?

Obviously, this is "attracting sheep", and when the sheep have eaten the grass and grown fat, the door is opened to let in the wolves, and a demolition gift package is given to the wolves.

Zhang Chunyin's 20-year nightmare is not just a tragedy for one company. It is a cold warning to all potential investors:

In a place lacking a rule of law baseline, where property rights protection is in name only, your technology, capital, United Nations certification, and even the "China's Good Person" award are worthless in the face of local bullies' iron rods and grassroots "muddling through".

When "grabbing land is better than farming" becomes a real survival rule on a piece of land, this land will become a desert for modern business civilization, even if it is no longer a saline-alkali land.