Taiwan in Japan's Empire-Building

An Institutional Approach to Colonial Engineering

Hui-yu Caroline Tsai

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415447386
• eBook ISBN: 9781134062683
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

This book explores the institutions through which Taiwan was governed under Japanese colonial rule, illuminating how the administration was engineered and how Taiwan was placed in Japan's larger empire building. The author argues that rather than envisaging the ruling of the society and then going on to frame policies accordingly Japanese rule in Taiwan was more ad hoc: utilizing and integrating "native" social forces to ensure cooperation.

Part I examines how the Japanese administration was shaped in the specific context of colonial Taiwan, focusing on the legal tradition, the civil service examination and the police system. Part II elaborates on the process of "colonial engineering, " with special attention paid to "colonial governmentality", "social engineering" and colonial spatiality. In Part III Hui-yu Caroline Ts'ai provides a more in-depth analysis of wartime integration policies and the mobilization of labor before making an evaluation of Japan's colonial legacy.

Taiwan in Japan's Empire-Building will appeal to researchers, scholars and students interested in Japanese Imperial History as well as those studying the history of Taiwan.

Part I

Law, order, and colonial governance

1 “Rule by law”

As soon as Japan took over Taiwan in 1895, the Meiji government was confronted with the question of how to define the colony in her empire. How was Taiwan to be defined in Japan’s imperial structure? How did the 1889 constitution regulate a land that was to be turned over to Japanese rule in 1895? What were to be the fundamental principles of Japanese rule in Taiwan? That is, how did the Japanese government regulate in political terms the operation of this new territory? As Japan’s first colony, Taiwan played a key role in redefining Japan’s prewar constitution, which had come into effect only six years earlier. Essentially, to make colonial rule in Taiwan effective, Japan had to grapple with implementing colonial administration from scratch. And since Japan had no prior experience in colonial rule, she had to consult Western models. The Government-General of Taiwan, on the other hand, was left to grapple with colonial rule in its daily operations, and an effective rule was both a factor and a reflection of colonial administration. In this chapter, I focus on the legal tradition of modern Japan, paying specific attention to prewar administrative law and its introduction to Taiwan.

The last five years (1895–9) of the formative period of Meiji

Japan’s bureaucratization coincided with the first five years of Japanese rule in Taiwan. It was during this transitional period that Japan’s colonial modernization on the island came to be personified in Gotō Shimpei. The timing in itself is significant, as the colonialists of modern Japan were themselves the products of three great traditions, not only of Tokugawa

but also of both the West and China, as Gotō’s life and career exemplified. This was complicated by the fact that, in the Meiji legal tradition, law-making followed complicated procedures that involved many bargains and compromises but also gradually turned into a highly formalized routine, as the bureaucracy became institutionalized after the turn of the twentieth century. Once policies became bureaucratized, they also became increasingly abstract over time. This problem of institutionalization tended to be further complicated—and undermined—by the distance between Japan and her overseas possessions at a time when the lack of communications could be critical (especially during wartime). A major genre of policy making undertaken by the colonial government was the constant reform of the bureaucratic system. Common view holds that it was the Japanese who “steered” the direction of local reforms to achieve the goal of social integration. Social engineering was indeed to be accredited to the dexterity and sagacity of the colonial government. The implied premise of this argument is that there was a special need for social engineering in the first place.

The legal tradition of modern Japan

Prewar Japan’s administrative law can be divided into two categories. One was administrative organization (gyōsei soshikihō

), such as the administrative organization of the state and public organizations, and the other was administration in real terms (jitsushitsu gyōseihō

), such as colonial administration. Four features can be identified in colonial administration. To begin with, it was divorced from the administrative organization of Japan proper, that is, all colonial affairs were delegated to colonial offices. Lack of the principle of legislative authority was a second feature. Colonial legislation was exercised by the administrative authority, with the exception of the assistance and approval of the Diet (gikai kyōsan

). The third feature was lack of the principle of “rule of law” (hōchi shugi

), since there were no systems such as administrative trials or hearings (gyōsei saipan

). Exercise of the “law of governance by person” (zokujinhō

) was the fourth feature. To go further into the categorization of colonial administration, it is not difficult to identify four subdivisions with regard to the legislation thus made. “Legislation of emergency” (hijō rippō

) was issued in accordance with Article Eight of the 1889 Constitution, the effect of which was equivalent to laws promulgated by imperial ordinances (chokurei

). “Supplemental or auxiliary legislation” (fuku rippō

), such as orders issued by the police for the punishment of violations (ikei bappō

), was issued in accordance with Article Nine but had no power to override the existing laws. Also based on Article Nine was “legislation by power delegation” (i’nin rippō

), such as “decrees as laws” (ritsurei

) issued in Taiwan, but this type of legislation could override the existing laws. International treaties constituted the fourth category, based on Article Thirteen (Sano Sen 1931: 14–17, 33–4).

This abundantly rich source of legal and administrative laws and regulations were multi-layered and hierarchical. It constituted the operational framework of modern Japan’s legal tradition. Significantly, laws (hōritsu

, required approvals from the Diet) were differentiated from administrative orders (meirei

), revealing a conceptual world in Meiji Japan’s legal constitution on which was based the division of power in the West. Powers and rights were conceptually constructed along a “lineal,” “progressive,” and “evolutionary” process, generating a discourse parallel to the debates over the issue of “legal reception” – via the implementation of the new legal system. This is a problematic discourse, not only because it was premised on nation-making as the conceptual framework, but also because such a perspective excluded other perspectives, reducing history into ideology.

A new turn to legal studies

Archives are a contested field for memory and knowledge production. They not only serve as storehouses for collective memory or documentary heritage but also as sites of transformation where competing discourses are generated. In the past two decades, the availability—and partial digitalization—of these valuable sources has made the study of Japan’s colonial empire in general, and the examination of the colonial government in Taiwan in particular, much easier than before.¹ The archives of the Government-General of Taiwan are the single surviving set of governmental documents among prewar Japan’s five overseas possessions. These largely untouched documents, some in bad condition, span fifty years. One organized attempt to index, compile, and analyze these texts has been led by Hiyama Yukio

of Chūkyō

University, Japan, who, since the late 1980s, has successfully mobilized a group of volunteers (researchers, librarians, and graduate students). Suffice it to say that the archival studies provided by the “Chūkyō school”² have inspired closer examination of the institutional history of Japan’s colonial rule. The increasingly available data and the digitalization projects still in process have spurred a renewed interest on Taiwan studies. A look at the archives of the Government-General of Taiwan reveals how policy decisions were made and implemented. Even more importantly, the archives also include many reports submitted by various organs of the state, which form a key source for understanding the Japanese official view of colonial governance and problems involved in each locality.³ In addition to the archives of the Government-General of Taiwan, there are many other source materials available for research on socio-legal issues.⁴ It should be noted that oral history is a feature of the genre of Taiwan studies, and the very fact of its lively activities points to the role it has played in unearthing the part of history and voices that had, until recently, been long due, suppressed, or ignored. If used with care, it can help fill the lacunae left by official data and elite writings.

In addition, an increasing number of works in the form of case studies have served to enhance our understanding of Taiwan under Japanese rule as to how the colonial laws and regulations were actually put into practice in the colony. While it is beyond the scope of this book to look into how the legal tradition actually worked, the “rule-by-law” approach provides the basic means to grapple with knowledge production ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of figures
• Maps
• List of tables
• List of appendices
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I Law, order, and colonial governance
• Part II Colonial engineering
• Part III War, mobilization, and legacy
• Appendices
• Notes
• References
• Glossary