A demolition team tears down the house of Deng Jinlong, a resident in Changsha, Hunan Province, on October 10. Photo: Courtesy of Deng Jinlong

On the surface it was just a job transfer, but nobody was fooled. Lin Xin was teaching senior high school students English in Minhou county, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, so when she was told on August 15 that she, her husband and her uncle had been transferred to assist in a demolition project in nearby Shangjie village, she knew something was amiss.

Then she found out that the project was targeting her father Lin Muxiang. "They actually wanted us to help tear down my father's house. How could I possibly do that?" Lin told the Global Times, adding that she refused to comply with the order, and attempts to negotiate with the mayor of Shangjie township, Hu Qingquan, failed.

"There was no reason to suspend my classes. We are short of high school English teachers and assisting a demolition isn't related to my career. But I guess my headmaster was also under pressure," said Lin.

The blackmail was aimed at getting her father to relinquish his property in Shangjie village. Lin's transfer order had come from the government of Minhou county, requesting that they help make way for a real estate project entitled "Sunshine Live."

Another very similar case in Changsha, Hunan Province, grabbed headlines recently, when local resident Tan Shuangxi was ordered to leave her classes and persuade her mother-in-law to sign a demolition contract. The twin cases have directed public attention to how far developers and corrupt local officials are willing to go - even targeting people's families - in order to profit.

Destructive spiral

Things haven't gotten any better for Lin. When she returned to school a few weeks later for the new semester in September, she was told no classes had been scheduled for her. Then on Tuesday, she was finally allowed to teach again, but was transferred to the junior high school.

Her colleagues are now more distant. Facing with extreme pressure and fearing that the blackmail from the local government could affect her husband, she got a divorce.

All this started in March 2012, when strangers began visiting her parents, asking them to sell their two houses, both located in Shangjie village.

When the family turned down the request, partly due to the lack of paperwork, the electricity and water supplies to both houses were cut off in December. As yet, water supplies have not resumed.

These were just the opening shots. A more violent move came on October 15, when Lin's mother was dragged off the street and held captive in a vehicle. The house they were targeting had been designated an illegal construction by the local government, and was reduced to ruins before her eyes.

The Global Times contacted the Minhou county government. A publicity officer surnamed Chen answered the phone, but claimed that the newspaper had been calling the wrong number.

Other examples of brutal pressure being brought to bear on those resisting demolition can be seen all around the nation.

Media reports have shed light on several cases since 2005 where family members were either suspended from their jobs or transferred in order to facilitate land acquisitions.

Divide and conquer is another common method. Shen Yawei, a resident in Shanghai, added that households were often turned against each other in his neighborhood, as some were willing to take the money and move, but were prevented from doing so by those who were not.

Other times, brute force is enough. In September, a team of police were dispatched to Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, to suppress a crowd resisting a demolition. In the face of police shields and guns, several civilians armed with scythes were later injured by rubber bullets, the Guangzhou-based Nandu Daily reported.

When direct approaches fail to yield results, developers, often in collusion with local authorities, exert pressure in other ways. In one case, Changsha residents complained that demolition notices were broadcast on neighborhood loudspeakers around the clock, and that negotiations were often scheduled for midnight.

Around 16 percent of households nationwide have been affected by demolition, according to a report from the China Data Center under Tsinghua University on Sunday.

Nowhere to turn

Demolition victims reached by the Global Times said that they understand the necessity of city planning and land acquisition, but said that the compensation offered was often a pittance, and they had not seen legal paperwork regarding the demolition so they refused to cooperate.

But when push comes to shove, there is often nowhere to turn.

Gui Jianping, a Changsha resident whose house was torn down in 2009, told the Global Times that the lawsuits he filed had no hope of receiving a fair judgment, and he was once detained by police for "provoking trouble."

Li Fangping, a Beijing-based lawyer specializing in civil rights, told the Global Times that strategies of using family members as leverage have long existed in the history of demolition in China and the complaints revealed the ruthless competition between private rights and public power. "Civil servants are often mobilized first to assist in demolitions and they always obey the orders. The judicial process for solving these problems is long and bitter and there are no neutral arbiters."

Li noted that authorities must disclose the information on land acquisitions in a timely fashion to protect the rights of the households, and also improve government credibility.

Key source of funds

China's booming property market provides a massive incentive for developers and local governments to cash in. The total revenue from nationwide land transfer charges mounted to 2.88 trillion yuan in 2012, according to data released by the Ministry of Finance in March.

However, experts said that even if the property market slowed down, local governments would still use real estate development as their key method of securing funds.

Li Jingguo, a property research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that China's real estate market is varied across different locations, as major cities like Beijing still have huge demand, but in lower-tier cities, many developments go unoccupied.

"But forced demolitions are still the result of the weak respect for law among local governments and developers," said Li.

Zhang Yuyang contributed to this story