Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2015

 

The Nationalist Government’s “Fostering Peasant Proprietors”

(Abstract)

 

Huang Zhenglin

 

 “Fostering peasant proprietors” (自耕农zi geng nong) was one of the important land reform policies adopted by the Nationalist government during and after the War against Japanese Aggression. The idea originated from Sun Yat-sen’s theory of equalizing land rights and drew on the theories and methods of land reform in Europe and America. In the 1930s and 1940s, as the land issue became more prominent and social conflict intensified, the government began to draw up land reform policies and institutions. In 1942, it designated a trial zone for fostering peasant proprietors and began to implement this program. Rights to land were equalized, bringing social and economic change to rural areas. Due to the nature of the Kuomintang regime, social inertia, and the opposition of bureaucrats and the top echelons of the Kuomintang, the reforms failed to be introduced nationwide during the War against Japanese Aggression period. After victory of the war, the Nationalist government, based on the experience gained in the trial area and taking into account the regime crisis faced by the Kuomintang, intensified its efforts to implement land reform policies and planned to expand them nationwide. When the Kuomintang lost power on the mainland, the land reform for “fostering peasant proprietors” met a premature end.