Assimilation, Association and French Advice to Japan on how to Rule Taiwan

What trans-imperial connections existed between the French and Japanese Empires? One example that is frequently recounted in Japanese colonial historiography involves the 1895 advice of French legal expert Michel Revon over what administrative system Japan should adopt in Taiwan. According to these accounts, Revon advocated a French assimilationist system for the island in a policy brief that would strongly influence future Japanese Prime Minister Hara Takashi. This article demonstrates that this account is not entirely accurate, offering a new analysis of the primary source material in the context of the prevailing French colonial theories of the 1890s. It argues that Revon was in fact an advocate of association and that Hara’s program of colonial assimilation was only superficially influenced by French models.