That’s the Daily Mail, which will never let a few inconvenient facts get in the way of a good story. Caveat lector.
That said, I wondered whether the owner of a 5 story building might have sufficient pull in city hall to avoid getting thrown in jail on trumped up charges by some provincial administrator. It might be easier just to build the bloody road around him- which they did. More generally recall that the Chinese enjoy greater freedoms today than in any time over the past thousand years. There’s a tug of war between various factions and its not clear to me how much power the opponents of those landowners actually had.
Anyway, if you want a definitive answer, try emailing James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly. He might enjoy blogging on the subject.