Beyond Setting Sail: How Taiwan’s Fisheries Were Rebuilt by Research Vessels, Fish Markets, and a Community of Technical Experts

In 1909, the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office built the research vessel Rinkai Maru (凌海丸), initiating the use of ships as floating laboratories to survey inshore fisheries. In 1929, institutions such as the Keelung Bonito Processing Experimental Factory, the Tainan Brackish-Water Aquaculture Experimental Station, and the Xiaoli Freshwater Aquaculture Experimental Station merged to form the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office Hydrographic Research Institute. In 1937, the Japanese colonial government constructed the Batousi Fishing Port through land reclamation. ^{1 2 3}

Viewing these three events together reveals that the history of Taiwan’s fisheries is more than just a production curve. Ships need to know where fish are located; experimental stations transform the ocean into measurable knowledge; ports enable ships and cargo to dock; and fish markets channel catches into pricing, cold storage, distribution, and family dining tables.

The modernization of fisheries is never completed simply by sending a new ship to sea. It requires a system that connects sea conditions, fishing gear, ice-making, education, finance, ports, and local trade. This system brings jobs and income, but also places coastal residents within larger administrative, capital, and international markets.

30-Second Overview: The modernization of Taiwan’s fisheries did not start solely on ships. The sea was broken down into data, ports were transformed into equipment, fish goods entered markets and cold chains, and technical expertise was organized into an industry that could be taught, invested in, and managed by the government.

What Remains After the Maritime Ban

The Ministry of Agriculture and Agriculture Affairs’ compilation of fisheries history categorizes the period before 1895 as early fisheries. Prehistoric evidence shows that people engaged in fisheries in Taiwan; during the Ming-Cheng and Qing dynasties, activities were affected by maritime bans, relocation policies, fishing taxes, and piracy. Coastal residents relied on the sea for survival but often faced pressures from restrictions on navigation, taxation, and warfare. ¹

This prehistory should not be dismissed as "backward" prior to modernization. The maritime ban was a method of state management over the ocean. Coastal residents possessed their own navigation and fishing experience, yet their operational space was frequently constrained by military and administrative rules. While officials drew prohibition lines on maps, the lives of coastal settlements continued. Small-scale fishing, salt production, coastal exchange, and seasonal navigation maintained the relationship between the locality and the sea.

Thus, the hydrographic surveys appearing after 1895 were not only a technological advancement but also a process of reorganizing the coastline through power. The Governor-General’s Office needed to know where fish were, who was fishing, and which vessels could travel further, because this knowledge could serve fishermen, but also colonial finance, military needs, and imperial food supplies.

The Rinkai Maru Turns the Sea into an Object of Study

The starting point of hydrographic modernization in the early Japanese colonial period lay in survey and experimentation, which later gradually connected to large-scale fishing ports. The official chronicle of the Fisheries Research Institute records that the Rinkai Maru was built in 1909, hydrographic pilot stations were established in Lugang and Xiaoli in 1913, a brackish-water aquaculture experimental station was set up in Shangqunshen, Tainan, in 1918, and the research vessel Lüwan (Green Pill) was built in 1921. In 1923, the Bonito Processing Experimental Factory was established in Bashimen, Keelung. ²

The issues these institutions addressed were concrete: Where would fish appear? How would fishing vessels catch them? How was bonito processed? Could saltwater fish be farmed? Under what conditions did freshwater fish grow? Fisheries knowledge resided in the sea condition records on research vessels, processing methods in factories, and failure experiences in aquaculture stations; the taxonomic classifications in study rooms were merely the surface that remained.

Chen De-zhi’s research on the Governor-General’s Office marine fisheries survey and experimental projects from 1895 to 1945 indicates that the period from 1895 to 1899 focused primarily on hydrographic prediction surveys, entering practical experimentation after 1899. After 1909, Taiwan joined contact experiments influenced by international hydrographic oceanography, and the 1917 South Seas fisheries survey opened the beginnings of distant-water fisheries. ⁴

This timeline presents a noteworthy contrast. The colonial government sought more efficient fisheries, but researchers had to first acknowledge that the ocean is not a fixed warehouse. Fish schools move, sea conditions change, and seasons and wind directions alter catch results. The more one attempts to make fisheries a planned industry, the more one must confront the uncertainty of the ocean.

Curator’s Note: Hydrographic experimentation did not make the sea obedient, but it enabled people to begin describing the sea’s temperament using a new language.

Ports Changed the Scale of Fishing Villages

The port history of Keelung reveals how engineering altered fishing villages. The National Museum of Marine Science and Technology records that Batousi originally developed from a fishermen’s settlement. In 1937, the Japanese colonial government constructed the Batousi Peninsula port area through land reclamation. After 1979, the modernized Batousi Fishing Port was completed, gradually replacing the status of Zhengbin Fishing Port. ³

Zhengbin Fishing Port was founded by the Japanese in 1934 and once became one of Taiwan’s largest fishing ports. As ship tonnage increased and numbers grew, the original hinterland and waters became insufficient, shifting the port’s center to Batousi. This shift was not merely a port upgrade; it also triggered a rearrangement of fish sheds, processing, transport, crew, and local commerce. ³

The story of Batousi reminds us that a fishing port is not just an empty space by the sea. It must handle ship entry and exit, fish unloading, fuel, ice, ship repair, and human accommodation. The more modern the port, the longer the surrounding industrial chain, and the harder it becomes for residents to rely on a single fishing method for survival.

Hama Xing (Hamaxing) in Kaohsiung presents another combination of port and market. The Kaohsiung City Government Information Bureau’s local history compilation notes that after the first phase of the Takao Port construction was completed in 1912, the Takao Fish Market was established in Couding. In 1920, Takao was renamed Kaohsiung, and the fish market was also renamed the Kaohsiung Fish Market. In 1927, the Kaohsiung Prefectural Office built the Kaohsiung Fishing Port, featuring ice-making, freezing, and fish warehouses; in 1929, the fish market moved to Xinbin Town, becoming Taiwan’s first modernized fish market. ⁵

The emergence of fish markets changed the path from ship to table. Catch volumes were graded and priced in auction halls; fish required ice to be transported further; and wholesalers and retailers converted port prices into market prices visible to urban residents. Fishermen may not have gained more pricing power, but they no longer faced only a transaction that ended upon docking.

Figure: Interior of the Taipei Fish Market. This is a 2017 market image, not a historical photo from the Japanese colonial period. It is suitable for observing how fish markets still manage seafood through sorting, display, and transaction arrangements, but cannot be used to prove the appearance of 1920s markets. Photography: Dudva. License: CC BY-SA 4.0. ⁶

This temporal gap is worth preserving. Historical articles using contemporary photos do not aim to pretend today’s market is the past, but to let readers see that the space left by institutions is still operating. The historicity of a fish market often lies not in an old wall, but in how goods enter, who grades them, who calls out prices, and how they finally leave the market.

Fish Markets as Exchanges and Local Societies

Postwar research on the Dongshi Fish Market offers an observational angle outside the capital or major ports. Lu Qiao-ru, using Dongshi as a case study, interviewed fishermen, wholesalers, retailers, and decision-makers, pointing out that fish market development is influenced by central fisheries policy and, in turn, changes local fish product distribution methods. ⁷

When facing fisheries decline, the Dongshi Fish Market could not wait for fish catches to recover. Local markets developed different sales methods, attempting to combine transactions, local sentiment, and social exchange. The fish market thus became not just a place to sell fish, but a space for acquaintances to meet, exchange news, discuss prices, and gauge local economic health. ⁷

Figure: Fish auctions at Chenggong Fishing Port in Taitung. The people in the photo serve only as part of the market labor scene and are not identified in this article. The image was taken in 2010 and cannot directly represent the appearance of Dongshi or Japanese-era fish markets, but it helps readers imagine how auctions concentrate catches, time, prices, and laborers in the same space. Photography: Lord Koxinga. License: CC BY-SA 3.0. ⁸

The order within the auction hall possesses a certain transience. When fish goods first land, they must be processed quickly; buyers look at size, freshness, quantity, and daily demand; sellers must complete transactions within limited time. This rhythm rarely appears in policy chronicles, yet it is the moment fisheries institutions truly land in localities.

Market vitality is not determined solely by production volume. A decrease in catch volume indeed deprives the market of its foundation, but localities may still preserve market functions through processing, tourism, cuisine, or community activities. This is not packaging decline as success, but acknowledging that the interpersonal relationships accumulated by the market will not disappear simultaneously with the last batch of fish.

The Kaohsiung Fish Market later experienced this turning point. After the fisheries center shifted to Qianzhen Fishing Port, the Gushan Fish Market gradually fell into silence, and its old buildings were repurposed into an agricultural and fishery boutique exhibition center. City government articles preserved the local memory of blackfin tuna, black pomfret, and shark distribution from that era, and recorded the process of the fish market transforming from a transactional space to a cultural and consumption space. ⁵

This repurposing has benefits and risks. Preserving old buildings often allows people to rediscover port history, but if sea views, brick walls, and cultural creative products become the entirety, the labor, prices, and fishing village changes originally involved in the fish market will be flattened. Preservation work must explain who the building worked for, who made money, and who bore the risks.

Postwar Reception: Taking Over More Than Just Ships

After 1945, Taiwan’s fisheries faced the reorganization of institutions and personnel. The chronicle of the Fisheries Research Institute records that in 1945 it became the Taiwan Provincial Fisheries Research Institute, in 1947 it came under the Taiwan Provincial Government, in 1948 it belonged to the Fisheries Branch of the Taiwan Agricultural and Forestry Company, and in 1949 it returned to the Department of Agriculture and Forestry of the Taiwan Provincial Government. ²

Rapid name changes indicate that the postwar government was rearranging agencies and assets. However, fisheries could not wait for all institutional arrangements to be completed before operating. Experimental stations, fishing ports, ships, cold storage equipment, and local technical personnel had to continue working during the reception process.

Tsai Sheng-zhang’s research on fisheries technical personnel from 1945 to 1947 specifically points out that the repatriation of Japanese fisheries talent created a development window, making Taiwanese technical personnel trained during the Japanese colonial period the main force for restructuring fisheries in various regions. Postwar fisheries involved both the reception of Chinese technical bureaucrats and the equipment and customs left by the Japanese colonial system. Taiwanese, Japanese, and Chinese technical and management personnel formed complex collaborations through reception, retention, and deployment. ⁹

This human layer is crucial. Engineering facilities can be received, but knowledge requires people to use it. Who is familiar with research vessels, who knows port equipment, who can interpret past hydrographic records, directly affects whether postwar fisheries can restart. Technical personnel are not background figures in a chronicle; they determine whether institutions can take root in localities.

Curator’s Note: Regime changes can be completed on official documents, but fisheries reconstruction still relies on people familiar with sea conditions, equipment, and local relationships to pick up the work.

US Aid Pushed Fisheries Further Out to Sea

From 1951 to 1965, US aid became a crucial resource for postwar fisheries development. Wu Bo-xun’s research indicates that the government used US aid to restore war-damaged fisheries facilities, increase catch volumes, supplement protein sources, and reduce foreign exchange expenditures on imported salted fish. The US Aid Commission, the Committee on Sino-American Economic Cooperation, the Economic Stabilization Commission, and the Fisheries Production Increase Committee were each responsible for plan coordination and execution. ¹⁰

US aid also pushed Taiwan’s fisheries into distant waters. Distant-water fisheries require large vessels, port equipment, cold storage, and higher capital; private enterprises found it difficult to bear these costs alone. The government therefore used the state-owned China Fishery Corporation to execute demonstrations with 350-ton tuna longline vessels, hoping to first create an operational model before attracting private investment. ¹⁰

This experience should not be written off merely as "aid brought prosperity." US aid hoped the government would not dominate excessively, preferring to use funds to assist private enterprises, but the scale of distant-water fisheries forced the government to intervene first. Thus, policy一方面 (on one hand) demanded marketization, while on the other hand, state-owned enterprises had to bear demonstration and risk. Research also points out that Japanese capital control and US aid repayment became subsequent issues. ¹⁰

Distant-water fisheries thus became both industrial expansion and risk externalization. Ships sailed further, capital demands grew, maritime labor became more dangerous, and fisheries policy was no longer determined solely by local ports. Taiwan’s fisheries began to connect with international waters, foreign exchange, fleet management, and later, regional fisheries organizations.

Rising Production Does Not Mean Everyone Lives Better

The Ministry of Agriculture and Agriculture Affairs’ centennial fisheries compilation indicates that postwar inshore fisheries reached 43,900 metric tons in production in 1952, and nearshore fisheries reached 370,906 metric tons in 1980. The government promoted inshore and nearshore fisheries through four-year economic construction plans starting in 1953, later implementing policies such as restrictions on new vessel construction, vessel reduction, and fishing moratoriums. ¹

These numbers indicate industrial expansion, but cannot alone answer "who benefited." Nearshore fisheries growth may bring opportunities for vessel owners, processing industries, port workers, and wholesalers, but may also intensify resource competition. Distant-water expansion increases value-added, but takes laborers on longer, more dangerous voyages. Aquaculture creates new markets, but simultaneously faces issues of disease, water/soil resources, and pollution. ¹

If only successful production figures remain, fishermen’s lives are compressed into statistical columns. Placing the Dongshi Fish Market, Batousi fish sheds, Gushan auction halls, and the Hydrographic Research Institute back into the narrative allows us to see how people behind the production figures work, trade, wait for policies, and seek new livelihoods during industrial decline. The unloading time of fish markets, ice supply, auction order, and routes to cities often reflect the reality fishermen face daily more than an annual production table. When ports expand, who can obtain berths and loans, and who must switch to processing or retail, also affects whether a family can remain by the sea.

The Costs of Ocean Modernization Ultimately Return to Shore

Japanese-era hydrographic experimentation left institutions and knowledge for later fisheries; US aid accelerated the development of fleets, ports, and distant-water fisheries. These two historical periods cannot be described solely as "progress." Colonial government surveys served imperial economics; postwar US aid plans brought fisheries into larger capital and international markets. Each expansion simultaneously changed the working methods and risk distribution of coastal residents. When research institutions designate certain fish as priorities, when ports invest in large equipment, localities must also adapt to new seasons, vessel types, and transaction rhythms. Fishermen gain new tools, but often also bear new loans, fuel, and market price risks.

The Fisheries Research Institute still exists today; the port spaces of Batousi, Zhengbin, and Gushan still bear traces of the past. However, the preservation of research institutions, ports, and fish markets does not mean the original industrial relationships are naturally preserved. Tourists see sea views and old buildings; local residents may remember unloading times, fish shed odors, crew returns, and market prices.

The most valuable aspect of Taiwan’s fisheries history to preserve is not the slogan "surrounded by sea, therefore fisheries are important," but how the ocean was rearranged by people of different eras. Some measured it into hydrographic data; some built it into reclaimed ports; some sent fish goods into auction halls; some used technical education to bridge postwar fractures; and some continued searching for reasons why a fishing village could remain after markets shrank.

The sea does not stop changing because policies are written. What truly needs to be remembered is that every industrial transformation involves ships and fish, and also involves who can stay on shore, who must go to sea, and who has the power to decide where the next fisheries phase goes.

There is another often-overlooked layer: the work of women and families on shore. After crew members go to sea, fish sorting, retail, bookkeeping, borrowing, childcare, and waiting for ship schedules are often borne by those remaining by the port. Official production statistics rarely record this work, but market research can see its traces in wholesale, retail, and local relationships. Cold storage equipment is not just technology; it changes how far fish goods can be sent, how much food families can preserve, and whether small vendors can avoid the pressure of loss if they cannot sell everything that day.

Similarly, the roads, ice-making, electricity, and warehousing brought by port modernization connect fishing villages to urban supply chains, but also make localities more dependent on fuel prices, external buyers, and government construction sequences. When fish markets decline, what remains is not a standalone architectural issue, but a loosening of an entire rhythm of life. This is why fisheries history deserves re-reading beyond production figures: offshore catching is only the beginning; the truly enduring history occurs after ships dock.

Further Reading

• The Modernization of Taiwan’s Fisheries — The second half of the same sea: distant-water fleets, exclusive economic zones, and flag state responsibilities
• The History of Taiwan’s Agricultural Associations — Institutional changes in rural organizations, finance, and local public windows
• The History of Taiwan Post — Another public infrastructure connecting localities, logistics, and state administration
• The History of Taiwan Water — How engineering, hygiene, and urban daily life jointly formed institutions

References

This article was cross-written using official chronicles from the Ministry of Agriculture and Agriculture Affairs and the Fisheries Research Institute, dissertations, local cultural articles, and fish market research. Japanese-era hydrographic experimentation, postwar reception, US aid-driven distant-water expansion, and local fish markets are treated separately to avoid forcing colonial construction, postwar government policy, and local social experience into a single linear route.

References