ABSTRACT
Between 1925 and 1939, rice production, which had eluded the penetration of Japanese capital, expanded rapidly as Japan's market demand for rice drastically increased. In sharp contrast to the earlier prolonged stagnation, expanding rice production enriched native producers and raised peasant living standards. This chapter explores the structural factors, particularly the class structure, that caused the surprising developmental pattern that centered on the Taiwanese landlord-dominated rice production in 1925-1939. It focuses on the Japanese-dominated (capitalist) sugar production, in which the relative stagnation of the rice production was the key to sugar profits. The chapter also investigates how development of the rice sector intensified the contradiction between rice and sugar production and undermined colonial mechanisms of surplus extraction that had previously favored Japanese sugar capital. The colonial administration tightened its control of the circulation of rice and eventually monopolized the rice trade.
