Study Of Legislation Of Nanjing Government

Kuomintang’s policies ended in the mainland with its retreat to Taiwan. Its land reform was not a success, failing to resolve the entrenched land problem and only making things worse. The economy of the KMT area, before the end of the liberation war, almost collapsed which was a blow to the land problem, but the continuity of policies and measures of land reform in Taiwan yielded sound resulted and helped KMT to get a firm foothold. It is thought-provoking whether the land reform of KMT was a success or failure. This paper tries to analyze and comment on the land law of KMT government from its philosophy behind the legislation, campaign and practices.This paper includes five parts.The first part is a brief introduction of the land legislation in China before the establishment of KMT government. After the success of1911Revolution, what was waiting for Beijing Government was not unification or stabilization but one war after another between warlords. The land-related laws did not have much effect. After the establishment of Nanjing Government, there was neither enough land nor labor in the agriculture sector.The second part is about the philosophy behind the land legislation of KMT. Even though Chiang Kai-shek was the leader of the Nanjing government, Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Republic, was a heavyweight who could not be left out. Equalization of landownership was the great principle proposed by Sun Yat-sen at the beginning of the revolution, which was also the cornerstone of Nanjing Government. Sun’s measure "state ownership of land and equalization of landownership" was an experiment to solve the land problem. Based on Sun’s philosophy, Chiang proposed the idea of leveraging land to transfer capital to commercial sector, an effort to fulfill the industrialization. If the philosophy of Sun was a guideline, then, that of Chiang had exerted actual effect on the land legislation of Nanjing Government.The third part explores the land legislation system of Nanjing government, the Land Law of1930in particular and also introduced the amendment in1946. After the establishment, Nanjing Government, aware of the land crisis, tried to explore a path of land reform. It established a land legislation system with Land Law as its core covering KMT congress resolutions, constitution and civil laws. This part, with the focus on Land Law, elaborated the land ownership and taxation etc. The author also comments on the losses and gains of the legislation.The fourth part is the land reform practices taken by the Nanjing central government and the local ones. With the establishment of land regulations comes experimental land reforms of both the central and local governments, which have been elaborated in this part. These practices included efforts from the central government, major political and military figures and local powers. This paper tries to elaborate the land legislation and reforms at that time and why they failed.The fifth part is about the land reform after KMT retreated to Taiwan. The land reform in the mainland did not rescue the KMT government, but the continuity of the Land Law and other measures proved to be a success in Taiwan. This part analyzes, the lesson from the failure in the mainland the success in Taiwan and comments on the land legislations from the beginning of the KMT government to the end.To sum up, this paper explores the land-reform related background, philosophy, legislation and practices of both the central and local governments and introduced the practices and measures from the period of KMT’s ruling of the mainland to its retreat to Taiwan.