Japanese land policies in Taiwan, 1895-1945

Abstract

In the rural history of Modern China Taiwan occupies a special place. Fifty years of Japanese rule left rural Taiwan, on the whole, culturally Chinese, but technologically better prepared for modernization than Mainland China. Occupation also meant an accumulation and preservation of data about rural Taiwan unmatched for any other Chinese society. These circumstances, and the fact that contemporary Chinese villages in Taiwan are more accessible to scholars than those on the Mainland, would seem to make an examination of rural Taiwan valid approach to the historical study of rural China in modern times. In a comparative sense, too, Taiwan is of interest in its own right for case studies of a rural society in transition.