Land Reform in Taiwan, 9th Nov., 2010.

I read further into Professor Wu's book on economic transformations.  There were similar currents running through economic reforms in Taiwan and the Mainland.

The first was that both Leninist parties, the KMT and the CCP, had complete control over their respective domains.  The CCP had just vanquished the Japanese and the KMT.  Those not loyal to General Chiang did not follow him to Taiwan. (Page 141.)

"On the one hand, the KMT monopolized political power at the national level, suppressed dissent, controlled the mass media, and preempted social organizations that might constitute bases for opposition. On the other hand, the party-state paid utmost attention to improving the material well-being of the population and considered economic performance the ultimate source of legitimacy for the regime." (Page 142.)

"The party-state monopolized political power because presumably it knew what was best for the country and needed concentrated authority in order to overcome obstacles when implementing its policies. Economic reform thus advanced much faster than political reform. People were asked to accept the enlightened rule of the technocrats, backed by the supreme leader, because by so doing they could expect economic prosperity in return." (Page 144.)

"Reform began in agriculture, through different approaches were used in the two cases. In Taiwan, a land reform eliminated the traditional landlord class and redistributed lad to the tillers. On the mainland, the state decollectivized agriculture and allotted land among peasant households. The results were similar. Both reforms created a large number of peasant proprietors farming smallholdings. The production motive was maximized as income power was transferred to individual producers. As it turned out, the land reform laid the foundation for Taiwan's rapid economic development over the following four decades, and the restoration of family farming intitiated the whole reform process on the mainland in the 1980's." (Page 147.)

Speaking of accidents of history, the Lion Rock Institute, Hong Kong's leading free-market thing tank, has been providing support for this project.