The Guangdong directive gives rural residential landholders the formal right to sell (or "transfer") their land to residents of the same township, rather than only to residents of the same village — thus providing legal protection for an already common phenomenon. Theoretically, this will encourage the growth of more robust rural real estate markets and, in turn, help boost rural incomes. Through small measures like this one, which steadily boost the legal rights and economic opportunities available to rural landowners, Guangdong's (and the nation's) leaders hope to mitigate the growing rural unrest over issues of land expropriation, local government corruption and the urban-rural wealth divide. But just as important as what the mandate provides is what it leaves out: the sale of rural land by the rural landowners themselves to urban residents and, by extension, to urban property developers and speculators. The omission is not accidental.