Farmers’ attitude plays a crucial role in the success of land acquisition. To add new insights and theoretical support for the effective governance of land acquisition, this paper examines the effectiveness of administrative power on farmers’ attitude and the mediating role of perceived fairness based on asymmetric dependency theory. The hypotheses were verified using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis conducted with data gathered from 250 questionnaire samples in rural areas of China. The results reveal that the coercion and transparency of administrative power have a significant positive impact on farmers’ attitude while normality’s influence is not significant. The coercion and transparency of administrative power have a significant positive impact on fairness while normality’s impact is not significant. The mediating effect of perceived fairness was insignificant. Therefore, local governments could encourage farmers to embrace a cooperative attitude in land acquisition negotiations by fostering a constructive interaction between the government and the public and pursuing a high-level institutional balance driven by a service-oriented government.