1212 The final battle moment has arrived, don't miss the last sprint

What is land expropriation? Let us begin with a historical story.

In early times, people settled down and, after great effort, cultivated a plot of land. One day bandits arrived, armed with knives and guns, gathering their accomplices, driving the residents away and seizing the land. The heartbroken residents cursed, "Vile bandit thieves!" In the end, realizing that being robbed over and over was no solution, they formed a state, paid taxes so the state could build castles and strengthen its forces, and protected the people who did not want to be robbed. This is the history of the origin of the early state, and also the contract theory of the state protecting the people.

So the people thought they could live in peace from then on. Down to the present day, the land-grabbing bandits have disappeared, and they thought all was well under heaven. Unexpectedly, the government transformed itself, brandished statutes, deployed police power, tossed down some expropriation resettlement money, and seized the land just the same. The heartbroken people opened their mouths and cursed, "Evil government bandits," and came to recognize the side of the state that, after entering the era of capitalization, treats land as capital and seizes it by force.

For the people whose land is taken against their will, whether it is a bandit coveting private gain or a state using public interest as a pretext, in the essence of seizing land, the government and the bandit are no different.

Land expropriation has been carried out for a long time. In Taiwan, China, both urban and rural areas often undergo land expropriation under the great banner of public construction. How extensive is the expropriation? Whenever you see a bizarre house sliced in half along the road, or a vast expanse of industrial land suddenly appearing in an agricultural zone, you can be sure the local residents have had their land expropriated.

 

In early expropriations, many were for schools and roads. Since residents wanted convenience for their area, there was not much complaint about land requisition, and some even voluntarily donated land. But today, more and more land expropriation serves only to let conglomerates build factories or developers build luxury homes. With industrial zones of hundreds of hectares and special districts of thousands of hectares being expropriated, the people are already furious, and voices everywhere curse, "Even bandits would not rob this much!"

Land expropriation has become a source of public grievance. In recent years, as land expropriation has been carried out in rural villages and cities across the region, it has sparked endless fury and years of street protests. In 2010 and 2011, the Taiwan Rural Front launched anti-land-expropriation night watch actions twice, with thousands taking to the streets each time. Not only has the number of people opposing expropriation increased year after year, but the expropriation areas have also continued to expand.

Facing public fury, the government promised to push forward with amendments to the land expropriation law, and the Taiwan Rural Front also put forward a civil-society version, hoping to solve the problem at its institutional roots. But this amendment to the land expropriation law, awaited by all the people, was again dashed under a three-swallow maneuver.

 

Conglomerates swallow land

 

In the draft amendment to the land expropriation law that has already passed its second reading, what farmers and civil-society groups are most dissatisfied with is that the government still has not recognized where the problem lies. In the draft amendment, the government is proudest of "market-price expropriation": that is, if agreement cannot be reached, the expropriation mechanism is triggered, and compensation must be based on market price. But the Taiwan Rural Front emphasizes that amending the land expropriation law is not only about the "compensation mechanism"; it must also restrict the "triggering mechanism."

In early land expropriation, the triggering was too arbitrary. Both the central and local governments held the great power of expropriation. If they wanted construction, they simply drew a line on a map, and whichever residents were included were just out of luck. Today, Article 3-1 has been amended to add that specific agricultural zones may not be included in land selected for surveying, yet it grants exceptions for land necessary for national defense, transportation, public utilities, water conservancy, public health, and environmental protection, or for scattered parcels mixed in, or for major construction approved by the Executive Yuan.

In fact, this is only a falsely progressive amended provision. As for the initiation of expropriation, the state taking the people's land is inherently unjust, whether or not it is a specific agricultural zone. The people's land is their personal property. Protecting specific agricultural zones is merely singling out, under the state's indiscriminate expropriation, the areas that are ultimately the most urgent to defend.

Teacher Xu Shirong of the Taiwan Rural Front has always emphasized, "Land expropriation severely infringes on the people's property rights guaranteed by the constitution. In essence it violates the spirit of the constitution. Generally, advanced democratic countries do not initiate it casually. If it is to be initiated, it must meet very rigorous prerequisites."

Land administration scholar Dai Xiuxiong also offered a incisive explanation of the theory of expropriation: "If the party concerned is willing to hand the land over to the state at a certain price, then since compensation is to be paid according to that price, would it not be enough for the state to simply buy it from the landowner? Why then use expropriation? So the use of expropriation is the result of failure to reach agreement. This expropriation cannot be resolved by buying and selling, so public authority has no choice but to force it through. That is the essence of expropriation."

The triggering mechanism of expropriation has become the root of all problems. In the civil-society version of the Taiwan Rural Front, many restrictions on the triggering mechanism are planned in the amendment, including making the evaluation standards for public interest explicit. In the future, when a person needing land wishes to apply for land expropriation, they must prepare a public interest evaluation report according to statutory standards.

Not allowing expropriation to be initiated arbitrarily, or strictly restricting it before it is initiated, has become the source of solving the land expropriation problem. It is also a way to block the state from obtaining the people's land through land expropriation and then transferring that land to conglomerates through leasing, sale, BOT, and other means.

In many current struggles over land expropriation, many people do not care at all about the expropriation fee; rather, they do not want their land expropriated by the state, and they hate even more that the land taken away is handed over to conglomerates.

 

 

Black box swallows the bill

 

The people's anger became a kind of voice echoing through society, and the scholars and representatives participating in the official version of the amendment at the amendment meetings convened by the China Land Administration Research Institute under commission from the Ministry of the Interior had in fact all heard this voice.

At a land expropriation law amendment meeting convened by the Department of Land Administration of the Ministry of the Interior in March 2011, it was like a brilliant constitutional debate meeting. Many scholars present discussed the triggering mechanism of expropriation, and some scholars even said bluntly that there was no need to enact a land expropriation law at all; instead, a land transaction law should be enacted, so that enterprises and organizations needing land would return to market mechanisms and negotiate with landowners.

In the official draft amendment, almost the entire text was heavily revised, and it learned from and referenced the spirit of Japan's land expropriation by strictly limiting the initiation of land expropriation. Among other things, the purposes of expropriation were strictly limited to public undertakings, and a very important restriction was that land expropriation could not be carried out for the land needs of private individuals or conglomerates.

This is also how lawyer Zhan Shungui of the Taiwan Rural Front explained the current state of the land expropriation law amendment, stating that under the current land expropriation law, the triggering mechanism of expropriation carried out in the name of "public interest" has always had serious problems. He said, many advanced countries long ago stopped adopting expropriation for the purpose of "economic development"; instead, land expropriation is used for "planning ecological conservation areas" and for "public facilities" that help residents, such as hospitals and schools.

In addition, in the added draft Article 15, "preparing an expropriation plan," the person needing the land is required to explain the reasons for initiating land expropriation. In added Article 16, "documents for applying for expropriation," and Article 17, "determination of public interest," fairly strict reporting, public hearing, and review mechanisms are adopted for the initiation of expropriation, so that the means of expropriation cannot be triggered so easily.

This added and amended draft land expropriation law contains a total of 76 articles, a full 13 more than the original bill's 63 articles. Although the entire official version of the added and amended provisions is not as progressive as the civil-society version, in responding to the calls of the people, it is truly moving.

However, after this heavily revised draft land expropriation law was sent to the Executive Yuan, many newly revised provisions were removed, and the expropriation mechanism almost maintained the original provisions. Premier Wu Den-yih boasted that the compensation mechanism had been changed to market-price expropriation, but did not discuss the expropriation triggering mechanism that the public valued most, fundamentally returning to the unrestricted starting point.

This is like a Faustian bargain, escaping the question of whether it can be sold and sinking into the question of how much the price is.

 

Cold blood swallows hope

 

In the end, the government still wants to seize land, only spending a bit more money to placate people. Teacher Liao Benquan of National Taipei University attacked this, saying, this is being generous with the taxes of the whole nation, using the people's taxes to expropriate land at high prices and then hand it over to conglomerates for development.

Years of hard struggle in the streets, once the amendment passes, will amount to all previous efforts being wasted and turning into bubbles.

For a long time, Teacher Cai Peihui, Chen Pingxuan, and others of the Taiwan Rural Front have constantly traveled among expropriation areas to understand expropriation problems. Cai Peihui said, resolving one case after another has already left the people exhausted. Before they can deal with the expropriation cases springing up one after another, if the problem of the government arbitrarily initiating expropriation cannot be completely cut off at the rule-of-law level, everything is in vain.

Under black-box operations, the expropriation law lost the mechanism for public participation in discussion, and consequently the Legislative Yuan also lost the procedure of checks and review. It was sent directly to a second reading in package form. Now, in a rush to clear bills before the session ends and manufacture legislative performance, this amendment to the land expropriation law, which the people care about and expect so much, may pass its third reading.

After it passes, there will be wailing everywhere, because once the bill passes, it means the state is re-empowered and has even more reason to carry out expropriation.

Under the above amendment, which provides only compensation and lacks restrictions, more areas will face the crisis of expropriation. This will include not only privately held farmland but also Taiwan Sugar Corporation farmland, which will be in the next wave of land expropriation. With the loss of restrictions on the triggering mechanism of expropriation, Taiwan, China's agricultural system will be severely damaged, and the countryside, cut apart and destroyed by expropriation zones everywhere, will have its future ruined.

Moreover, the switch to market-price expropriation may look like a benefit to farmers whose land is expropriated, but it will give rise to land speculation, letting conglomerates buy land first at low prices and wait for expropriation to profit. And more expropriation and more market-price acquisition will all keep the state's finances filling the black hole of expropriation, increasing the people's tax burden.

December 12 is like the final battle in the long resistance against land expropriation. If this land expropriation law cannot be restricted at its roots, the government will still expropriate arbitrarily, the people will still have no peace, and they will forever rush about in fear of losing their homes.

Fighting one great final battle is better than shouting in the streets day after day and month after month. On December 12, more people need to take to the streets, resist the devouring empire formed by government and business, reclaim the justice that is due, and make the government understand that the state exists to protect the people's land, not to expropriate land to enrich conglomerates.

Further reading

Land Expropriation Law Amendment (1) Farmers to take Ketagalan Boulevard on the 12th  to monitor the amendment
In June last year, the excavator destroying farmland incident in Dapu is still fresh in everyone's memory. To this day, expropriation cases across Taiwan, China, have still not stopped, and dozens of rural villages and communities have suffered forced expropriation. Civil-society groups such as the Taiwan Rural Front have proposed a draft amendment to the "Land Expropriation Act," putting forward "six insistences" to prevent excessive land expropriation. However, the Kuomintang caucus in the Legislative Yuan already resolved on November 11 to send both the Executive Yuan version and the civil-society version directly to a second reading, and the Legislative Yuan will launch cross-party negotiations on December 12, then move to a vote. At this critical moment, civil-society groups call on both the ruling and opposition parties to respond cautiously to the people's demands and properly review the draft land expropriation regulations, and have decided to take to Ketagalan Boulevard again on December 12.

Land Expropriation Law Amendment (2) The civil-society version's six insistences against excessive expropriation
Professor Xu Shirong pointed out that the six requirements of land expropriation include: conformity with legal provisions, public interest, necessity, the principle of proportionality, that it must be a last resort, and finally full compensation. These six prerequisites are indispensable. But the amendment version proposed by the Executive Yuan meets only the first requirement, and none of the other five. As a result, this version was actually sent directly to a second reading. This article analyzes in detail the differences between the civil-society version and the Executive Yuan version of the draft amendment to the "Land Expropriation Act," and Shangxiayu will also continue to track the latest developments in recent days. Please follow along.