| Abstract |
In April 1906, Kodama Gentaro, who had served as Governor-General of Taiwan, became the chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office. He was succeeded in his position by Sakuma Samata. Goto Shinpei, who had been serving as the Civil Administrator of the GovernorateGeneral of Taiwan since 1898, remained in his position as head of Civil Affairs. The central government of Japan subsequently invited Goto to serve as President of the South Manchuria Railway Corporation. Following close negotiations with the central government, Goto agreed to take on the new job, after it agreed to a set of conditions he had laid down. In November 1906, Goto traveled to Manchuria while concurrently serving as consultant of the Government-General of Taiwan and the Kwantung Governor-General. In 1908, Goto attempted to resign from his consultant position. In July of that year, a new cabinet was formed, and Goto was invited to serve as Minister of Communications. This allowed him to resign from his consultant position, which he had held for less than two years. Although his tenure was brief (from November 1906 to July 1908), Goto was able to retain his influence in Taiwan by directing the actions of his successors. This paper, by exploring personnel affairs in the Government-General of Taiwan in the first decade of the twentieth century, seeks to understand the rise and fall of Goto’s power, as well as its significance. It looks closely at how Goto was able to step down from his position as head of Civil Affairs, while remaining in his role as consultant of the Government-General of Taiwan. This paper, which regards Goto as a case study, also aims to shed light on how the Japanese colonial consultancy system of the time operated. |
