Following the case of Dapu (大埔) in Miaoli County’s Jhunan (竹南) Township, the government announced that land expropriation in Siangsihliao (相思寮), Erlin (二林) Township, Changhua County, had been completed legally. That means the government can send in excavators at any time, whereupon they will tear down houses, dig up crops and chase ageing farmers off their land.
The government’s forcible land expropriation came like a bolt of lightning. The elderly farmers of Siangsihliao now find themselves at a loss, not knowing what will become of them. The elderly farmers have gone to Taipei several times to petition authorities — the Cabinet, the legislature and the president — saying that they don’t want to be kicked off their land. They said the government was worse than robbers, because robbers would at least leave them with land on which to grow food.
As it happens, something very similar happened in the same place back in 1947. Following the end of World War II, Taiwan experienced a wave of farmers’ protests against factories owned by Taiwan Sugar Corp. This corporation, which was founded in 1946 by combining four major Japanese-managed sugar companies, had its headquarters in Shanghai and was subordinate to the National Resources Commission. Protests took place at just about every sugar plantation in Taiwan. The reason for the farmers’ anger was that the corporation wanted to forcibly take back farmland it rented out to them, leaving tenant farmers with no land to till. The fiercest clashes took place at the Dapaisha (大排沙) Farm on land belonging to the Sihu (溪湖) sugar factory. This land, which at that time lay in the Beidou (北斗) area of Changhua County, is the same place that has now been allocated for building the Central Taiwan Science Park’s stage four expansion.
At the time, the Youth Liberty Weekly (青年自由報) quoted a farmer attending a congress as saying: “Now that a constitutional government has been proclaimed, of course anything that doesn’t comply with the Constitution should be done away with, but factories keep violating farmers’ interests in illegal ways. It really makes us angry ... Could the factories really be acting legally? We very much doubt it.”
Other farmers complained that they had been locked up and tortured by the factory management, saying: “We hear the sugar factories are now being run by the state. How could the state treat us like this? How could sugar factories that represent the state treat us in this way?”
Sixty-three years later, the elderly men and women of Siangsihliao, with tears in their eyes, say: “The government is worse than bandits. The government looks grand, but it doesn’t care about us. It’s harming us instead. What fools we were to ever believe in it! We ordinary folk have sweated away from youth to old age just to get a place to live. Now these arrogant so-and-sos just want to get us out of there. Who can we old folk turn to?”
Looking at the situation after the war and the one we see today, the anger felt by the farmers of Erlin seems remarkably similar.
Controversy also surrounds a proposed development on the coast by Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co. Many observers say that government policy has reverted to that of 30 years ago, when development was put ahead of any other consideration.
However, when we look at the many instances of land expropriation — in Siangsihliao, Dapu, Erchongpu (二重埔) and other places — it would be more accurate to say that we have regressed not just 30 years, but 60.
Hsu Shih-jung is a professor in the Department of Land Economics at National Chengchi University.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the
Since leaving office last year, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been journeying across continents. Her ability to connect with international audiences and foster goodwill toward her country continues to enhance understanding of Taiwan. It is possible because she can now walk through doors in Europe that are closed to President William Lai (賴清德). Tsai last week gave a speech at the Berlin Freedom Conference, where, standing in front of civil society leaders, human rights advocates and political and business figures, she highlighted Taiwan’s indispensable global role and shared its experience as a model for democratic resilience against cognitive warfare and
The diplomatic dispute between China and Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments in the Japanese Diet continues to escalate. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong (傅聰) wrote that, “if Japan dares to attempt an armed intervention in the cross-Strait situation, it would be an act of aggression.” There was no indication that Fu was aware of the irony implicit in the complaint. Until this point, Beijing had limited its remonstrations to diplomatic summonses and weaponization of economic levers, such as banning Japanese seafood imports, discouraging Chinese from traveling to Japan or issuing
The diplomatic spat between China and Japan over comments Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made on Nov. 7 continues to worsen. Beijing is angry about Takaichi’s remarks that military force used against Taiwan by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” necessitating the involvement of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Rather than trying to reduce tensions, Beijing is looking to leverage the situation to its advantage in action and rhetoric. On Saturday last week, four armed China Coast Guard vessels sailed around the Japanese-controlled Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known to Japan as the Senkakus. On Friday, in what
RSS