President Ma Ying-jeou met on the afternoon of April 15 at the Presidential Office with American members of the Board of Directors of the International Center for Land Policy Studies and Training, led by the Center's Co-Chairperson Kathryn J. Lincoln. The president extended a warm welcome to the visiting delegation on behalf of the government and people of the ROC (Taiwan).
The president noted that the International Center for Land Policy Studies and Training was known as the Land Reform Training Institute up until 2000 when the agency's name was changed. The organization was jointly founded by the ROC (Taiwan) government and America's Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The president lauded the achievements of the organization, noting that over 14,000 people have received training at the center over the years, including civil servants and specialists from a wide range of developing countries.
President Ma commented that land issues are at the core of economic, social and political problems in many nations, and unless they are addressed, various other problems may not be truly resolved. The president said Taiwan was fortunate to have implemented land reform in the 1950s, resolving in a quite reasonable manner an issue that has plagued China for thousands of years. He pointed out that the land reform initiatives carried out by the government included a 37.5% cap on tenant farmer rents, the release of public land, and the land to the tiller program. The land that the government came to acquire from landlords was then released to tenant farmers, and the government encouraged landlords to use the money they received as compensation for their land to acquire shares in state-run enterprises and invest in land bonds, hoping that the landlords would found and operate companies. The president said this package of measures provided a solution to a problem that had gone unresolved in Taiwan and China throughout history. In addition, it marked the most historical change in land policy since the abolition of the well-field system and introduction of crisscrossing footpaths between fields during the Qin Dynasty over 2,000 years ago.
President Ma told the delegation that the book Progress and Poverty penned by American scholar Henry George is not only renowned in the United States, but also influenced Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the ROC. The principle of "Government for the People" is one of the three principles espoused by Dr. Sun, and the land policies advocated by Henry George played an important role in Dr. Sun's philosophies. This was especially the case with regards to the equalization of land rights. This tenet is included in the Three Principles of the People, and is also incorporated into ROC law, he said.