Chinese cemeteries: last rights? | beyondbrics | News and views on emerging markets from the Financial Times
As Chinese on Tuesday visited cemeteries in their millions to mark Qingming – Tomb-sweeping Day – many were worrying about how long their dear-departed will remain in their final resting places.
There was outcry on internet comment sites last week when word went about that, according to a 1998 government regulation, legal ownership of a cemetery space should expire after 20 years. The ministry of civil affairs on Monday said the leases are now to run for 50 or even 70 years. But even that may not be enough in a land where respect for dead ancestors runs deep.
According to China Daily, the ministry’s regulations only lay down “the principle” of cemetery management – in practice cities and provinces have different rules, with the longest leases in Shanghai (70 years).
With plot rents rising in response to China’s booming property market, many families are concerned about how long a dead relative will be allowed to rest in peace – and at what cost. In Beijing, plot rental run up to Rmb100 monthly, a significant sum in a city where the average monthly wage is around Rmb 4,000.
Qiao Kuanyuan, from the China Funeral Association, told China Daily that with social change it was reasonable to extend the 20-year rule. “The regulation was rolled out more than a decade ago, when the age gap between generations was around 20 years. But the gap has widened ever since, as families delay marriage and childbearing.”
Li Bo, deputy head of the social affairs department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, told the Xinhua News Agency recently that the fee amounts should be set according to the contract provisions agreed to between the buyer of a burial plot and the seller. He noted buyers have leasehold rights, not property rights.
“When I’m alive, I get a 70-year lease on my multi-million apartment,” Li Jing, an office clerk in Shenzhen, a city neighbouring Hong Kong, told China Daily. “But when I’m dead, I get only 20 years for my tomb. It’s outrageous.”
For tradition-minded Chinese, respect for the dead is not measured in decades but centuries. In a separate story, China Daily reports that hereditary clans are renovating family temples abandoned since the Communist Revolution. Some date back 600 years. That’s a lot of 20-year leases.
