ABSTRACT
The combination of Chinese immigration and deliberate Qing efforts to Sinicize the plains aborigines rapidly gave rise to the establishment of Chinese rural communities, similar to those of China's coastal provinces, in the western administrative districts of the island. Farming, fishing, and forestry were the principal means of earning a living. Chinese customary law, as it was practiced throughout the Ming and Qing periods, was enforced in all Chinese provinces, including Taiwan. Customary law provided the guidelines or rules which governed contractual relationships between households in regard to such activities as land sales and purchases, the mortgaging of land in order to obtain credit, and the transfer of land to male heirs. The main source of institutional fragility was moral hazard or cheating on contracts and their weak enforcement. The most important element of Taiwan's economy was the customary economy.
