Spies and Explorers

Abstract

This chapter describes the actions of Japanese agents who went to Taiwan before the expedition in order to collect intelligence and lay the groundwork for colonization. The agents’ efforts to translate the government’s plan for colonizing the indigenous territory of Taiwan into practice reveal what the abstract ideas of the plan meant. They hoped to establish bases at several points along the east coast of Taiwan that would become the colonies from which Japanese authority would later be extended to encompass the entire indigenous territory. They believed they needed to act quickly to preempt the exploitation of the territory by Westerners, and they worried that the Chinese might preempt them by establishing civil authority there first, thereby invalidating their justification for colonizing the territory.