However, the paradox is that these homebuyers made their purchases fully expecting to make a quick profit from hikes in price. With this, they consider their property a common commodity that can help them make money. When people harbor the hope of making a fortune by buying a house, they actually accept the public conception of justice on this matter alone as feasible and rational.

If the price rises and they make profit as they expect, they would have hailed the decision they made as great and the real estate market as an opportunity the market economy has brought them.

So on this specific matter, not only is the public concept of justice problematic but also those homebuyers' understanding of the concept is based on shaky foundations.

Local governments depend on land sales for local revenues, which has pushed the rise in house prices in the past decade. It goes without saying that they should be held accountable for the rocketing housing prices and accumulation of babble in the sector.

Yet, once the residential buildings are built and enter the market as a commodity, how can homebuyers expect the price to only rise without any chance of falling?

It may not be fair to those who have saved for many years to buy a home for housing prices to rise nearly 10 fold in the past decades. And it may be miserable for a homebuyer to suffer a great loss when the price of a house he or she bought a month before falls by 10 percent. But there is still no reason for him or her to consider the deal as unfair and unjustifiable and it is even ridiculous and illegal for him or her to vandalize the properties of the real estate developers.

When it comes to the real rule of law, on which a well-ordered society with social fairness and justice depends, there is still much to be desired. It will take time to make desirable laws that can regulate people's relations in a fair manner and it will need even longer time for these laws to be enforced in a sound way. It depends not only on quality law enforcers, who can do a good job in implementing the laws. The majority of residents, who have developed right understanding of the public conception of justice, also make a difference.

The author is a senior writer with China Daily. zhuyuan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/22/2014 page5)