When Zhang Renjie became the Chairman of the Government of Zhejiang Province, he took over the Dayouli Electric Power Company and renamed it the Hangzhou Electric plant. Roughly three years later, due to a shortage of funds, the Provincial Government of Zhejiang sold the plant to the Qixin Group of Bankers. This paper discusses the sequence of the events at that time and analyzes the causes and consequences of them. Zhang Renjhieh, an important figure in the Guomindang, had abundance of political resources. He believed in four ideologies of economic construction, the most significant of which was his promotion of privatization of great enterprises. He also believed that success or failure is ultimately determined by men’s abilities and the efforts they put in. These beliefs show his personal characteristics.

     Zhang did not promote privatization of enterprises unconditionally. Sometimes the situation forced him to do the opposite – taking over private electric companies for the benefit of society. His belief in ability and effort was not without challenge. When he was short in funds, he had to sell the Hangzhou Electric Plant to a group of bankers. The experience of taking over a private electric company paved the road for the success of taking over the Dayouli Electricity Company. And selling this plant later on also became a precedent for selling the Capital Electric Plant and the Qishu’an Electric Plant to the China Development Finance Corporation in 1936. This was consistent with his belief in privatization of enterprises. Zhang devoted himself to building up Zhejiang’s infrastructure, hoping that electric power supplies would encourage economic development.

     However, the demand for electricity increased more slowly than expected. Zhang’s efforts did not show any great results right away. This was due to Zhejiang’s geographic location. At that time Shanghai was China’s economic center, and Zhejiang merely a periphery of Shanghai. According to the center-periphery theory, manpower, funds, and natural resources flowed from Zhejiang into Shanghai. Many famous merchants and entrepreneurs in Shanghai were Zhejiang natives. In the electricity market, the demand drives the supply, and so it would take a long time to form a new economic center. When the peripheral area becomes a new center or a subsidiary center, this would then create greater demand for electricity. In addition, better knowledge of electricity also helps the acceptance of it. Today’s Hangzhou is a good example of this transition. Therefore, in retrospect, we can conclude that Zhang Renjie was a man of vision.

     The frontier regions of Taidong (Taitung) and Hualian (Hwalien) in eastern Taiwan developed belatedly due to their geographical isolation, inconvenient transportation, and poor natural environment, as well as their ethnic composition and state policy. This situation continued under early Japanese colonial rule. Such developmental efforts as there were, were by private companies and did not produce significant results. The level of productivity and the degree of modernization remained low until the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Given Japan’s increasing needs for military resources, the colonial government aggressively devised new schemes for business development that transformed the landscape of eastern Taiwan.

     The Taiwan Development Company (TDC) was established in 1936 under a national policy to execute the economic policies of the Government-General and local authorities. Starting from 1937, the enterprises of the TDC represented the new frontier business policy in eastern Taiwan. The geographical features of the colonial government’s wartime business development in eastern Taiwan can be seen through the investment projects of the TDC. In 1937, Taidong became a core area of tropical agriculture, largely due to its superior natural environment. The management policy of the TDC was to “pay more attention to Taidong than to Hualian.” Major investment companies of the TDC such as Taidong-kinfa, Taiwan Cotton, and Hoshigina all established businesses in Taidong. Following the lead of the TDC, Japanese tropical enterprises with the huge capital invested in droves to reclaim the land in eastern Taiwan. In this way Taidong grew to be a new business center.

     The focus of the TDC turned to Hualian in mid-1938 following this burst of productivity expansion and industrialization. With the completion of a new harbor, Hualian became a base of wartime military industry thanks to its abundant hydraulic power and mineral resources. The investment companies of the TDC—such as Dongbang Metal, Shihshing Nitrogenous Fertilizer, and Taiwan Asbestos—could be regarded as major new industrial and mining enterprises not only in Taiwan but also in the whole Japanese Empire at that time. The wartime industrialization of Hualian transformed the traditional rice-sugar agricultural economy in eastern Taiwan. Thus gradually emerged a new image of “Industrial Hualian vs. Agricultural Taidong.” And Hualian surpassed Taidong to become the new industrial center and the most important metropolis in eastern Taiwan.

     If we consider the militarization of the body in modern China from a genealogical perspective, then the “Military Education Decree for Secondary and Higher Schools” issued by the Kuomintang (KMT) government in 1928, seems to be just one critical stage in its development. It was not the starting point of a particular sequence of events, nor did it represent an innovation unique to China. Although the decree was tied directly to the status of the KMT government, it was also related, in the sense of a genealogical progression, to the military reforms and soldier-citizen education that had begun in the late Qing. In addition, the construction of the militarily trained body also had a close logical connection to the concepts of total war, economic planning for wartime, and conscription that had developed out of the First World War. This article thus offers an overview of how and why the Chinese body began a process of militarization, the specific role of the KMT, and the influence of new forms of warfare and military service.