Japanese Colonialism In Taiwan: Land Tenure, Development, And Dependency In Taiwan, 1895-1945

250 Pages·1995·6.003 MB·English

by  Chih-Ming Ka, Sidney W. Mintz

Japanese Colonialism
in Taiwan

Transitions: Asia and Asian America
Series Editor, Mark Seiden
Japanese Colonialism in Taiwan: Land Tenure,
Development, and Dependency, 1895-1945,
Chih-ming Ka
Vietnam's Rural Transformation, edited by
Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet and Doug J. Porter
Privatizing Malaysia: Rents, Rhetoric, Realities,
edited by Jomo K. S.
The Origins of the Great Leap Forward:
The Case of One Chinese Province,
Jean-Luc Domenach
The Politics of Democratization:
Generalizing East Asian Experiences,
edited by Edward Friedman
Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir,
Kayano Shigeru
The Political Economy of China's Financial Reforms:
Finance in Late Development,
Paul Bowles and Gordon White
Reinventing Vietnamese Socialism:
Doi Moi in Comparative Perspective,
edited by William S. Turley and Mark Seiden

Japanese Colonialism
in Taiwan
Land Tenure, Development, and
Dependency, 1895-1945
Chih-ming Ka
Foreword by Sidney W. Mintz
a
WestviewPress
A Division cfliatfaGcXSüxaPMitben
For my parents,
K'o Ch'i-hua
K'o Ts'ai A-li
Transitions: Asia and Asian America
Chapter 3 is adapted from "Agrarian Development, Family Farms and Sugar Capital in
Colonial Taiwan, 1895-1945," in Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 18, no. 2 (1991). Reprinted by
permission of Frank Cass 8c Co. Ltd.
All photos courtesy of Library of the Intitute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Copyright <D 1995 by Westview Press, Inc., A Division of HarpeiCollins Publishers, Inc.
Published in 1995 in the United States of America by Westview Press, Inc., 5500 Central
Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301-2877, and in the United Kingdom by Westview Press, 12
Hid's Copse Road, Cumnor Hill, Oxford 0X2 9JJ
Ka, Chih-ming
Japanese colonialism in Taiwan : land tenure, development, and
dependency, 1895-1945 / by Chih-ming Ka.
p. cm. — (Transitions—Asia 8c Asian America)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-8133-8922-4
1. Agriculture—Economic aspects—Taiwan. 2. Japan—Colonies—
Taiwan. 3. Taiwan—History—1895-1945. 4. Sugar trade—Taiwan—
History. 5. Rice trade—Taiwan—History 6. Taiwan—Economic
conditions—To 1945. I. Title II. Series: Transitions—Asia and
Asian America.
HD2017.K3 1995
338.1095124,9—dc20 95-35073
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National
Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Tables and Illustrations ix
List of Photographs xiii
Foreword, by Sidney W. Mintz xv
Acknowledgments xxi
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1
LAND TENURE, CLASS RELATIONS, AND THE STATE IN
PRECOLONIAL TAIWAN (1683-1895) 11
Heritage of Colonial Rule, 11
The Land Reclamation Organization: The Rise and
Decline of the Patent-holder/Perpetual-tenant
(K'en-hu/Tien-hu) System, 16
The Rise of Perpetual Tenants and the Formation of the
Double-Tier Landownership System, 21
State Policies, Class Relations, and the Formation
of the Land Tenure System, 27
Merchant Capital, the World Market, and Transformation
of the Land Tenure System, 35
Conclusion, 38
CHAPTER 2
THE COLONIAL STATE, FOREIGN CAPITAL, AND THE
ARTICULATION OF INDIGENOUS AGRICULTURE 49
The Colonial State and the Installation of Infrastructure
for Economic Growth, 50
Land Reform and the Restructuring of the Indigenous
Land Tenure System, 58
vit
vm Contents
Expansion of Commodity Production and the Penetration
of Japanese Capital, 62
Conclusion, 82
CHAPTER 3
FAMILY FARMS AND THE FORMATION OF SURPLUS
EXTRACTION MECHANISMS BY SUGAR CAPITAL 95
Constraints on Labor-hiring Plantations, 96
The Persistence of Family Farming Under the Dominance
of Capital, 101
The Surplus Extraction Mechanism by Sugar Capital, 109
Conclusion, 124
CHAPTER 4
THE CONTRADICTORY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RICE
AND SUGAR 133
An Anomaly of Colonial Rule? 134
Patterns of Class Domination in Economic Sectors, 146
Unequal Labor Rewards, 159
Conflicts and Alliances of Class Forces, 166
The Weakening of the Indigenous Landlord Class
and the Creation of a Smallholding Agriculture, 172
Conclusion, 177
CONCLUSION 181
Appendix: Prices, Income, and Land Productivity in Rice, Cane
and Sugar Production, 1910-1938 189
Bibliography 193
Conversion of Weights and Measures 211
Glossary 213
About the Book and Author 215
Index 217
Tables and Illustrations
Tables
1.1 Tax Rates on Croplands According to Date of Registration
and Locations 14
1.2 Rate of Rent and Price of Land Tenures in Nineteenth-
Century Taiwan 17
2.1 Sources of Revenue for the Colonial Administration, 1896-
1907 53
2.2 Sources of Monopoly Revenue, 1897-1907 55
2.3 Sources of Tax Revenue, 1896-1915 56
2.4 Sugar Exports in Precolonial Taiwan, 1868-1895 63
2.5 The Composition of Taiwan's Major Exports, 1870-1943 64
2.6 Value of Taiwan's Major Exports to Japan as a Percentage
of Value of Total Exports and Each Export Commodity,
1896-1943 66
2.7 Annual Exports of Sugar and Rice as a Percentage of Total
Production, 1900-1944 68
2.8 Land Use by Crops, 1915-1935 69
2.9 Cash Expenses as Percentage of Peasant's Living Cost and
Food Consumption Cost 70
2.10 Self-Reliance in Fertilizer in Peasant Households 71
2.11 The Sale Ratio of Rice in Colonial Taiwan, 1905-1944 73
2.12 The Number and Kind of Sugar Factories and Their Output 78
3.1 Control and Use of Arable Land by Sugar Companies 99
3.2 The Proportion of Households and Distribution of Cultivated
Area Among Farms of Various Sizes in 1921 102
3.3 Composition of Labor Supply Within Family Farms, 1936 104
3.4 Comparison of Land Productivity Between Sugar
Companies' Capitalist Farms and Family Farms Providing
Cane to Companies 107
3.5 Cane Production Cost per Metric Ton 108
ix
X Tables and Illustrations
3.6 Comparison of Cane Supplied by Capitalist Farms of Sugar
Companies with Cane Consumed by Company Mills 110
3.7 Cost of Raw Materials (Procurement Cost of Cane) as a
Percentage of the Productive Cost of Sugar per Picul 111
3.8 Cane-Purchasing Prices for Six Monopolistic Sugar
Companies, 1929-1930 120
3.9 Composition of Cane Procurement Costs 121
4.1 The Supply and Consumption of Rice in Japan 135
4.2 Rice Prices in Taiwan and Japan 136
4.3 The Percentage of Exports in Ponlai and Chailai Rice 138
4.4 Production Costs of Rice per Metric Ton in Taiwan, Second
Crop of 1930, October 1930 to January 1931 138
4.5 Growth Rate of Agricultural Real Wages for Males in Japan
and Taiwan 139
4.6 Japanese-owned Land as a Percentage of Total Arable Land
in Various Counties, 1939 147
4.7 Landowner Households by Size of Holding 148
4.8 Peasant Households According to Land Ownership 149
4.9 Land Under Tenancy 149
4.10 Cultivated Area According to Crop 151
4.11 The Number of Big Landowners Possessing More Than 100
Chia 152
4.12 Rent Rates in Paddy Land 154
4.13 Rural Debt by Source and Class 156
4.14 Land Prices in Colonial Taiwan 162
Figures
1.1 Land Tenure System in Precolonial Taiwan 20
1.2 The Transformation of the Land Tenure System in Precolonial
Taiwan and Chang-chou, China 26
3.1 Sugar Price, Productive Cost of Sugar, and Procurement Cost
of Cane, 1910-1938 112
3.2 Sugar Price and Incomes in Rice and Cane Land, 1910-1938 116
3.3 Productivity in Rice and Cane Land, 1913-1938 118
3.4 Prices of Sugar, Cane, and Chailai Rice, 1910-1938 119
4.1 Rice Prices In Taiwan and Japan, 1927-1938 137
4.2 Cultivated Areas in Chailai and Ponlai Rice, 1926-1939 140
4.3 Output in Ponlai and Chailai Rice, 1926-1939 141