The Puppet Regime, Rent-Collecting Groups, and Rent-Tax Relations in Changshu County, Jiangsu Province, during the Japanese Puppet Regime Era

Abstract

Abstract The land tax was a major source of local fiscal revenue in southern Jiangsu during the Japanese puppet regime era. It involved a complex tug-of-war between the puppet “central” and local governments and was closely tied to rent affairs. At the onset of the “Rural Pacification,” the simultaneous imposition of rent and taxes by the Japanese puppet regime infringed upon various stakeholders’ interests but did not aid in increasing land tax revenue or stabilizing the economy. Instead, the regime could only profit from local surcharges via the embezzlement case in Changshu County. In the process of grabbing land taxes and constructing tax collection standards, both the puppet regime and the rent-collecting groups pursued their own interests, colluding and competing with each other. In the meantime, the puppet regime, aiming at extracting land output, disrupted the existing rent-tax management method, thereby reconstructing the urban-rural relationship in southern Jiangsu and increasing the peasants’ burden. The rent-tax issue in Changshu County during the occupation period reflects the entanglement of the three-fold relationships – “central” vs. local, “official” vs. civilian, and landlord vs. tenant – under the Japanese puppet regime. Yet, the acute landlord-tenant contradiction was ultimately replaced by social conflicts provoked by the Japanese puppet regime’s intervention in land ownership and usage rights.