Ministry of Colonial Affairs

The Ministry of Colonial Affairs (拓務省, Takumushō^?) was a cabinet-level ministry in the government of the Empire of Japan from 1929 to 1942.

The original Ministry of Colonial Affairs was the short-lived Hokkaidō Colonization Office, established in the early Meiji period by Prime Minister Kuroda Kiyotaka to protect Japan's sparely populated northern frontier against encroachment by Imperial Russia by encouraging the settlement of ex-soldiers as militia-farmers in Hokkaidō. This was followed by the even shorter-lived Colonial Administration Department within the office of the Governor-General of Taiwan. Established on 2 April 1896 by General Takashima Tomonosuke, it was intended to encourage Japanese investment and settlement in Taiwan, after the acquisition of that island by Japan as a result of the First Sino-Japanese War. The office was abolished on 2 September 1897.

The Japanese government continued to provide sporadic encouragement of overseas emigration to help relieve overpopulation of the Japanese home islands and to help spread Japanese influence overseas. During the late Meiji and early Taishō periods, large numbers of Japanese emigrated to Hawaii, California and the Philippines, and lesser numbers to China, South America and Southeast Asia. However, the emigration of Japanese to foreign countries did nothing to help secure the peripheral areas of the Japanese Empire itself.

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