Related to my other thread…
Who knows what is “National Land / 台灣國家土地” ?
An open question to test our knowledge about Taiwan
Who wants to start?
I heard about this issue before . Possibly land including forestry areas ? Also military camps although they wouldn’t be easily occupied like the forests.
Up around Alishan there are loads of ‘tea farm squatters’, farmers who illegally setup tea farms many many decades ago, now they complain because the government is asking them what the hell they are doing on national forest land.
How they got away with it before? I don’t know…Madness.
Now we must remember that some/most of those army camps were illegally squatting on govt land. In some cases they were public parks in Japanese times. I heard that Daan was ORIGINALLY a park but not sure of the details. Ask anybody in Taipei…Almost guaranteed they don’t know their own history and have little curiosity about the city around them.
Yes it was the planned to be the 7th city park way back in 1932. Supposedly it was still mostly fields in 1949 when occupied. Wonder if that is true or just face saving.
Hey, you are very brave, Brianjones, and much quicker than the internet police.
Ok
Here is a compilation of the stories I was told at the National Tax office, plus some Wikipedia stuff and some talks with neighbors… and my own story
In 1949, the KMT lost the Chinese Civil War to the rival Communist Party of China, and fled to Taiwan where it continued to govern as an authoritarian single-party state. At the end of World War II in 1945, Japan surrendered its troops in Taiwan to Chiang Kai-shek. On 25 October 1945, KMT general Chen Yi proclaimed that day as Taiwan Retrocession Day.
And then, the KMT confiscated the whole island. Tensions between the local Taiwanese and mainlanders from Mainland China increased in the following years, culminating in a flashpoint on the 28 February 1947. I was told that the KMT would give away pieces of land free of charge to senior military officers and soldiers. There was one condition: to pay a minimal tax every year. Some paid, some others didn’t.
After a few years, as part of a land reform, the KMT lost track of the unpaid areas and the not paying users. The KMT called those areas ‘National Land’, just like a company would compile its unpaid and unaccounted losses into the ‘unpaid losses’ account. And then years passed… national land here and there, especially in the countryside and in the mountains…
Until recently, I have understood it started with the Chen Shuibien government, and continued with Tsai Ingwen, as part of a new land reform, the idea was to send an invoice to these ‘ghost’ owners and ask for the payment of a 1 000 NT dollars per fen (1 000 m2) yearly rent to be paid every 5 years. The main goal is not to really collect a bit of money, but to locate the owners, check their legal papers, define the land and the boundaries much more clearly and legally, and so on…
In my case, the government sent me that invoice… because I was the nearest neighbor! Clever move because I was quick to reject the bill and hand in the name of my neighbor… I estimate he is 70 years old, look at that… do the math… 2018 - 70 = 1949. This 70 years old hardcore KMT was born on that piece of land, and lived there his whole life growing fruit and vegetables! Free! Gratis!
As far as I know, he will need to pay the rent for the last 5 years. No fine. No extra fee… and one more name added to the cadastral map.
I welcome corrections, comments and critics, if documented.
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