The Taiwan Parliament Establishment Petition Movement: A Single Petition, Fourteen Years of Bringing Self-Governance into Public Life

On January 30, 1921, Lin Hsien-tang, Yeh Rung-chung, and 178 Taiwanese students in Tokyo submitted the first petition for the establishment of a Taiwan Parliament to the Imperial Diet of Japan. ¹ This document was subsequently submitted fifteen times, and the movement continued until a decision was made to cease operations on September 2, 1934. ² It did not secure a Taiwan Parliament, but it brought the question of "who can represent the Taiwanese" from study rooms and student dormitories directly into the institutional center of the Empire.

30-Second Overview: On January 30, 1921, 178 individuals submitted the first petition to the Imperial Diet of Japan. Over fourteen years, the petitioners submitted fifteen petitions, navigating the establishment of the Taiwan Cultural Association, the 1923 Political Crimes Incident, the 1927 split along political lines, and the censorship and relocation of the Taiwan Minpao. ^{1 2} In 1934, although the petition movement failed to secure a Taiwan Parliament, it left behind a political technology that framed the contradictions of colonial rule into legal arguments, which were then repeatedly processed by organizations, periodicals, and public discourse.

Image: The 1924 Taiwan Parliament Petition Delegation arriving in Tokyo, posing for a photo with welcoming Taiwanese students. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain. ³

Do Not Withdraw the Sixty-Three Law: Lin Cheng-lu Reframes the Issue as a Parliament

In late 1920, young Taiwanese in Tokyo were discussing an apparently straightforward goal: the abolition of the Sixty-Three Law. This law granted the Governor-General of Taiwan broad administrative and legislative discretion in the colony, and petitioners believed it removed Taiwan's governance from the substantive oversight of the Imperial Diet. ⁴

However, Lin Cheng-lu, a graduate of Meiji University's Law Department, proposed an alternative route. In the December 15, 1920 issue of Taiwan Youth, he published "The Destination of the Sixty-Three Problem," arguing that merely demanding the abolition of the Sixty-Three Law could be interpreted as accepting the "Extension of the Home Territory" principle. His主张 was that while acknowledging Taiwan's special circumstances, a special parliament elected by Taiwanese should be established to check the Governor-General's power through a representative body. ²

This turn was significant. It did not simplify the issue into "whether to Japanese-ize," nor did it directly cast the petitioners as those proposing a modern plan for national independence. The strategy of the petition was to seize the Empire's own constitutional language. Since Taiwan belonged to the Empire, Taiwanese residents should be able to participate through representative institutions in decisions affecting their lives. English-language research on the petitions also notes that the petitioners primarily criticized the excessive concentration of power in the Governor-General's Office, the lack of representativeness in advisory bodies, and the absence of effective channels for political redress for Taiwanese. ⁴

Image: Taiwan Parliament Establishment Petition. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain. ⁵

📝 Curator's Note: The sharpest aspect of the petition movement was not that it positioned "Japan" and "Taiwan" as two abstract enemies, but that it used the constitutional principles claimed by the Empire to question back. If the law was only effective in the homeland, who exactly was the Empire's "unity" unifying?

A Document, First Passing Through the Hands of Legislators

The first petition on January 30, 1921, was not complete simply by delivering the document to the gates of the Diet. According to Article 62 of the then-current Diet Law, a petition required introduction by members of the Imperial Diet. After being introduced by Pastor Masahisa Uemura, House of Peers member Genzoku Ezu and House of Representatives member Kichijiro Tagawa agreed to serve as introducing legislators, allowing the petition to enter the review process. ¹

This detail meant that the petition movement was no longer an abstract "knocking on the door of Tokyo." It was political work that required finding intermediaries, preparing legal texts, obtaining signatures, and waiting for the Diet's procedural handling. The first petition had 178 signatories. For each subsequent petition, participants had to repeatedly find viable paths between colonial police, censorship systems, and the cold responses of the Imperial Diet. ^{1 2}

In March 1921, the Imperial Diet of Japan passed Ordinance No. 3, retaining the Governor-General's delegated legislative power. The route originally demanding the abolition of the Sixty-Three Law thus lost its leverage, and the establishment of a Taiwan Parliament became more concentrated as the goal of the Taiwanese political movement. ²

Fifteen Submissions Are Not Fifteen Repetitive Filings

From 1921 to 1934, the appearance of the petition movement seemed like a straight line. The first document was sent out, the Imperial Diet replied with "not adopted" or "deliberation unfinished," and the petitioners prepared for the next submission. However, the fifteen submissions actually passed through different organizations, media, and political environments. The整理 by the Legislative Yuan Democratic Parliamentary Park indicates that social support remained enthusiastic between the first and eighth submissions, with the 1927 petition signatures reaching the peak. ²

During this period, the subject of the petition was constantly changing. Lin Hsien-tang, Lin Cheng-lu, and others provided leadership, resources, and legal arguments. Chiang Wei-shui, Tsai Pei-huo, and others linked the petition with cultural lectures, political associations, and social mobilization. As the generations, classes, and political readings of participants differed, the petition movement could not maintain a single voice forever.

Therefore, "fifteen submissions" were not fifteen times sending the same document again, but fifteen times re-answering a question: In a colonial system where the Governor-General held administrative, legislative, and police power, what methods could Taiwanese still use to make collective demands? This is why the petition movement, even without success, is worth reading as political history and not just institutional history.

The Cultural Association Brought the Tokyo Petition Back to the Island

If the petition had remained only in Tokyo, it would have been difficult to become a political experience for Taiwanese society. On October 17, 1921, the Taiwan Cultural Association was established in the auditorium of the Taipei Shingiu Higher Girls' School, with over 300 attending members. The association's purpose was "to seek the elevation of culture," promoting reading clubs, cultural lectures, activity photography, seminars, and summer schools. ⁶

Lin Hsien-tang provided resources and prestige, Chiang Wei-shui was responsible for organization and action, and Lin You-chun, Lai He, Hsieh Wen-ta, and others connected culture, education, and periodicals. These activities did not necessarily discuss the Taiwan Parliament directly, but they allowed more people to encounter political vocabulary such as "public opinion," "self-governance," "association," and "public discourse." The petition movement thus gained echoes on the island, no longer just a Tokyo itinerary for a few students and gentry.

On October 10, 1925, the Taiwan Cultural Association Lecture Group posed for a photo at the Taiwan Minpao wholesale office of the Hsinchu Prefecture branch. The figures and venue in the photo pull the abstract nouns of the cultural movement back to a recognizable place. This was not just a collective group photo, but evidence of the overlap between periodical circulation, local lectures, and political organization. ⁷

Image: The 1925 Taiwan Cultural Association Lecture Group photographed at the Taiwan Minpao wholesale office of the Hsinchu Prefecture branch. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain. ⁷

In December 1922, Tsai Pei-huo, Chiang Wei-shui, and others decided to form the Taiwan Parliament Association Outside the Cultural Association to give the petition a more明确 responsible group. In 1923, the Taipei police authorities banned the association's establishment in Taiwan. The association relocated to Tokyo to reorganize, continuing to promote the petition. ⁸

On December 16, 1923, the Governor-General's Office launched an island-wide crackdown, detaining nearly thirty people to the Taipei Detention House; Chiang Wei-shui, Tsai Pei-huo, and others were arrested and tried. ⁸ This "Political Crimes Incident" did not make the petition disappear immediately, but it clearly drew the boundaries of colonial politics. Documents could be sent to the Imperial Diet, but organizations could be cut off in Taiwan by police using association bans.

Newspapers Turned "Not Adopted" into a Public Event

On April 15, 1923, the Taiwan Minpao was founded. It inherited the editorial lineage of Taiwan Youth and Taiwan, printed in Tokyo, and then input into Taiwan after review. Reports covered not only the petition but also island society, politics, economy, and culture. In 1925, the newspaper became a weekly. In August of the same year, circulation broke 10,000 copies. ⁹

Image: Taiwan Minpao front page, January 1, 1926. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain. ¹⁰

A front page allows one to see how a newspaper became an object of political movement. The petition movement existed not only in legislator introductions and official replies, but also in the pages readers flipped through daily, the censorship the newsroom had to face, and the blanks left after text was deleted.

On August 1, 1927, the Taiwan Minpao was permitted to be published in Taiwan, but the cost was written on the page. The phrase "The Only Voice of the Taiwanese" was removed, and content still had to undergo review in both Japan and Taiwan. ⁹ This was not a newspaper that could speak freely, but it was one of the few media at the time that could place the Empire's Diet responses, colonial controversies, and Taiwanese discourse on the same sheet of paper.

The petition was repeatedly met with "not adopted" or "deliberation unfinished." These terms looked like procedural language, but on the newspaper, they became political events that could be discussed. Who was rejected, what were the reasons for rejection, whether to submit again, and whether Taiwanese had other ways to leave their demands in public space—these questions continued to circulate through periodicals.

📝 Curator's Note: The importance of the Taiwan Minpao lies not just in its "support" for the petition, but in its transformation of repeated institutional rejections into public materials that readers could see, retell, and debate. The newspaper did not cancel censorship, but it made censorship itself part of history.

After the Split, the Petition Did Not End Immediately

In the mid-1920s, internal disagreements arose within the Cultural Association regarding class, peasant and labor movements, and the limitations of institutional petitions. In 1927, the Association split. After Lin Hsien-tang, Tsai Pei-huo, and others left, they formed the Taiwan People's Party, while the left wing took control of the New Taiwan Cultural Association. The Legislative Yuan Democratic Parliamentary Park's整理 indicates that the Taiwan People's Party still supported the parliamentary petition, but the New Cultural Association and left-wing figures criticized this route as too weak. ²

This split should not be written as "the united elites suddenly failed later." It was more like political goals beginning to diverge. Some believed representative parliaments could gradually check the Governor-General's Office. Others believed peasants and laborers must first become the subject of the movement. Still others placed the self-governance issue within more radical frameworks of class and national liberation. Supporters of the petition movement decreased, but its core goals were still continuously sent to the Imperial Diet.

What must also be retained is the limitation of the movement's representativeness. Early leaders were mostly male gentry, students who studied in Japan, and intellectuals educated in modern times. They proposed collective political demands for "Taiwanese," but this did not mean every class, gender, and ethnicity at the time could participate equally in decision-making. English research points out that while petitioners criticized the unrepresentativeness of the colonial government, they were also limited by their own class positions and political resources. ⁴ This contradiction does not negate the value of the petition; rather, it reminds us that representative politics never only asks "is there a parliament," but also "who can enter the parliament, and whose lives can be represented."

In 1931, the Taiwan People's Party was forced to dissolve. The petition movement lost an important political fulcrum. During the same period, Japanese militarism and colonial police control strengthened, and the space for legal political associations narrowed further. ² After the failure of the fifteenth petition in 1934, the movement entered its final act.

A Three-Hour Meeting, Ending Fourteen Years

On September 2, 1934, Lin Hsien-tang and over twenty others met in a conference room at the Taichung Dōshin Trust Company to discuss whether to continue the petition. After three hours, they decided to stop the movement. On September 4, Lin Hsien-tang, accompanied by Chen Hsin, reported to Governor-General Nakagawa Kenzō. ¹¹

The stop was not because the petitioners suddenly admitted that Taiwan did not need a parliament, but because they judged that the original political path had been compressed. The Governor-General's Office linked the establishment of a Taiwan Parliament with "plotting for Taiwan's independence" and demanded that the self-governance movement shift to limited reforms within the local system. Under these conditions, the political benefits of continuing to submit the same petition became increasingly small, while risks continued to rise. ¹¹

Image: Lin Hsien-tang. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain. ¹²

📝 Curator's Note: The end of this movement did not have a heroic victory scene, only a conference room, three hours, and a judgment that participants had to make themselves. Political endurance is not just charging forward constantly, but also knowing when to put away a path that can no longer protect people.

The 1935 Vote Is Not Equivalent to a Direct Victory for the Petition

In 1935, the Taiwan Governor-General's Office promoted local system reforms, and local bodies such as the Provincial Assembly, City Assembly, and District/Town/Village Councils saw half of their seats become elected. Academic research indicates that voting rights at the time were still limited by conditions such as age, gender, residence, and taxation, and were not universal suffrage. ¹³

This reform and the Taiwan Parliament Establishment Petition Movement were in the same self-governance political context, but it cannot be simplified as "the petition movement directly brought about local elections." On one hand, the long-proposed arguments for representativeness and self-governance by the petitioners indeed made political participation an issue that could not be completely avoided. On the other hand, the 1935 system only opened limited seats and limited qualifications, with Provincial Governors and local authorities still retaining significant power. ^{13 14}

The 1935 vote was therefore a narrow gate. It granted limited local voting rights to a portion of male taxpayers, but it did not turn Taiwan into a democratic society governed universally by residents. Writing this narrow gate as the "achievement" of the petition movement would erase the official seats and administrative control that the colonial system still retained. Writing it completely as unrelated to the petition would make it impossible to see how long-term self-governance arguments changed the boundaries of political questions.

Therefore, the historical legacy of the petition movement should not be handled with a binary of "success" or "failure." It did not complete its original institutional goal, but it left behind three political capabilities that appeared repeatedly later. First, turning inequality into a testable claim. Second, handing claims over to organizations and media for dissemination. Third, deciding the next step after being rejected. These capabilities later appeared in Taiwan's local self-governance, social movements, and democratization history, but each era had to face its own institutional limitations anew.

The Questions Left by a Single Petition

In 1921, 178 people sent a petition into the Imperial Diet. In 1934, over twenty people in a conference room of a trust company in Taichung decided to stop. Between these two scenes lay fifteen petitions, the Cultural Association's lectures, the arrests of the Political Crimes Incident, the censorship of the Taiwan Minpao, and the split of political lines. ^{1 11}

This history should not be condensed into the four words "seeds of democracy," because the seed metaphor easily obscures colonial rule, class differences, and internal movement struggles. A more accurate statement is that the Taiwan Parliament Establishment Petition Movement made self-governance a public work that could be written, signed, introduced, reviewed, reported, debated, and rejected by the colonial government.

Reading that document today, what is most worth pausing for is not its failure, but that it allowed a governed group to begin repeatedly practicing making governance demands. That petition did not become a Diet bill, but it became a grammar still used in later Taiwanese political life. First, state the demand clearly; then, find people to sign together; finally, let the rejection leave its name.

Further Reading

Lin Hsien-tang: Turning a Study Room into a Public Entrance for Taiwanese.

Social Movements in Taiwan during the Japanese Colonial Period.

Chiang Wei-shui: The Doctor Diagnosing Colonial Ailments with _Clinical Lectures_.

References