Six years since democratically taking power, President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) administration has failed to redress the injustice done to tens of thousands of small landowners whose land was seized as a result of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Land Reform Act (實施耕者有其田條例) implemented in 1953.
Transitional justice is an academic term that enjoys a great deal of currency in the Chen administration. It refers to the attempts of newly democratic countries to right wrongs committed by earlier authoritarian governments.
While the Chen administration has managed to render some transitional justice to the victims of the 228 Incident and to at least publicize the issue of the KMT's stolen assets, nothing has been done for the victims of the KMT's land reform.
To implement its land reform program, the KMT government classified Taiwanese farmers as landlords or tenant farmers. The term "landlord" became a synonym for a class of exploiters who were to be eliminated, while "tenant farmer" referred to the vast numbers of the poor who were being exploited.
Research on the KMT's land policy in China, however, shows that the KMT classified and defined farming households very differently before it came to Taiwan.
In 1928, the Central Land Commission issued a survey on land holdings in rural China. The survey divided farming households into five classes: poor peasants, middle class peasants, rich peasants, small and medium sized landlords and large scale landlords.
It defined a small landlord as one who owned the equivalent of 3.07 hectares of land. By this standard, only 6.77 percent of Taiwan's peasant households in the early 1950s qualified as small landlords.
In 1933, the Cabinet issued another study defining Chinese landlords as those who owned at least 5.12 hectares. By this standard, just 2.88 percent of Taiwan's landowners would have qualified as landlords.
And in 1941, the Bureau of Statistics defined a landlord as someone owning 18.41 hectares. By this standard, just 0.9 percent of Taiwan's farming households would have qualified. The Bureau of Statistics identified 1,545 such landlords in its study covering 89 counties in 11 Chinese provinces.
The results of these studies showed that the vast majority of Taiwanese farming households owned less farmland than landlords in China did.
But when the KMT carried out land reform in Taiwan, it reclassified farming households and redefined the meaning of landlord. In effect, practically anyone who rented out land was classified as a landlord, no matter how little land he actually owned.
The result was that a total of 106,049 households were classified as landlords. The vast majority were in fact land owners who rented out land that they owned. Most owned no more than a few thousand square meters. Nevertheless, if these owners had rented their land out, it was appropriated and they lost their titles.
Deprived of the title to their land, many of these former landowners fell into poverty. A contemporary team of observers estimated that more than 2 million people were affected.
Those in power controlled and manipulated land reform in Taiwan by controlling and manipulating the classification and definition of agrarian households to suit their changing needs. The Taiwanese landowners who held titles to their land were of course given no say in the matter.
More than 50 years later, those small landowners -- unfairly labeled landlords -- are still waiting for justice.
Hsu Shih-jung is a professor in the Department of Land Economics at National Chengchi University.
Translated by Michael Fahey
The Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises, the largest naval exercise in the region, are aimed at deepening international collaboration and interaction while strengthening tactical capabilities and flexibility in tackling maritime crises. China was invited to participate in RIMPAC in 2014 and 2016, but it was excluded this year. The underlying reason is that Beijing’s ambitions of regional expansion and challenging the international order have raised global concern. The world has made clear its suspicions of China, and its exclusion from RIMPAC this year will bring about a sea change in years to come. The purpose of excluding China is primarily
War in the Middle East, global terrorism and the Ukraine war pose significant threats to the global economy. However, according to Global Guardian, a leading security solutions firm, a conflict between China and Taiwan would cause the greatest disruption since World War II. Its Taiwan Shock Index (TSI) analyzes the potential global impacts of such a war. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) rhetoric about rejuvenating the People’s Republic of China heavily emphasizes “reunification” with Taiwan. Experts differ on when this might happen. Some point to 2027, the centenary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as a symbolic and strategic milestone. Others
Midnight on Monday marked the 27th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from British to Chinese sovereignty. Under the terms of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, an international treaty lodged at the UN, China promised that Hong Kongers’ way of life would remain unchanged for 50 years and the territory would have “a high degree of autonomy” under the so-called “one country, two systems” framework. Beijing’s crushing of the 2019-2020 anti-extradition law protests and imposition of the National Security Law in 2020, overriding even the pretense that Hong Kong’s autonomy would be respected, is a profound reminder to Taiwanese —
The geopolitical balance in the South Caucasus is shifting. Azerbaijan and Georgia, once clearly aligned with the West, have started drifting back toward Russia, while Armenia, which has been allied with the Kremlin since the Soviet Union’s disintegration, seems to be sidling up to the West. Since gaining independence, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia have all generally sought to distance themselves from their Soviet pasts and strengthen their relationships with the West. However, each has moved at its own pace, with Azerbaijan and Georgia rejecting Russia much more quickly and definitively. In fact, within a few years of the Soviet Union’s