Literally the same thing. All land in every country is owned by the government of that country. That’s what being a sovereign state means. If you stop paying your land (property) taxes the government can take it away from you. That is literally a lease.
If the government needs that land for a purpose it deems sufficiently important (such as building a military base), they can and will take it away from you with eminent domain. If a state does not exercise control over its own land, it is not sovereign.
China simply explicitly recognizes this basic fact about the nature of statehood and land.
However, unlike in the “democratic” West, there is no land tax in China. You just pay a fee when you “lease” the land. You can lease it for essentially your entire life. And the lease can be easily renewed when it expires for far less than you pay in land taxes.
There is no practical difference between this and western “ownership”. The difference is purely semantic.
Literally the same thing. All land in every country is owned by the government of that country. That’s what being a sovereign state means. If you stop paying your land (property) taxes the government can take it away from you. That is literally a lease.
If the government needs that land for a purpose it deems sufficiently important (such as building a military base), they can and will take it away from you with eminent domain. If a state does not exercise control over its own land, it is not sovereign.
China simply explicitly recognizes this basic fact about the nature of statehood and land.
However, unlike in the “democratic” West, there is no land tax in China. You just pay a fee when you “lease” the land. You can lease it for essentially your entire life. And the lease can be easily renewed when it expires for far less than you pay in land taxes.
There is no practical difference between this and western “ownership”. The difference is purely semantic.