Zhang Jiacheng, a young entrepreneur, has privatized the entire village of Tongshui in China’s poor, Guizhou province. The village will be the home of Zhang’s new Chinese-medicine business, the farmers will become company employees, and the fields will become company property. The unprecedented move raises legal questions in a country where the Communist Party is still in control, but Zhang justifies his business by promising economic prosperity through tourism and the production of medicinal Chinese herbs.
See "A Chinese Burg Sells Itself Out", Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times, July 26, 2001