Taipei Post Office Transitions to Wartime Communications Control

The Taipei Post Office was the principal post office of colonial Taiwan, operating under the communications department of the Government-General (臺灣總督府逓信部). Its present building beside the North Gate was completed in 1930 and housed postal and telegraph services together; the telephone exchange moved to a separate building in 1937. It was the headquarters of northern Taiwan's postal and telegraph network and the main gateway for the island's communications with Japan proper and overseas.

Following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937 and the full-scale outbreak of war with China, Japan's wartime communications control (通信統制) regime was progressively extended to all territories of the Empire, including Taiwan, and the Taipei Post Office became the primary instrument of this control on the island. Outgoing and incoming civilian mail was subject to censorship (郵便検閲), and telegraph lines were prioritized for military and administrative traffic, with civilian use severely curtailed. In October 1941 Japan promulgated the Extraordinary Mail Control Ordinance (臨時郵便取締令), which gave wartime mail censorship an explicit legal basis. The postal infrastructure was also integrated into wartime mobilization, distributing conscription orders, handling war bond and savings subscriptions, and carrying Imperial propaganda.

After December 1941, when the Pacific War expanded Japanese operations to Southeast Asia and Taiwan became a staging base for the southern advance, the Taipei Post Office also coordinated military field post (軍事郵便) for troops transiting through Taiwan. The building itself survived the Taipei air raid of May 31, 1945, which devastated the administrative district. This wartime role continued until Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945.

After the war postal and telecommunications services were taken over by the Republic of China, and the building continued in use as a post office; it is now the Taipei Beimen Post Office, designated a historic monument in 1992. Published information on the specific organization, staffing and working practice of censorship and communications control inside the Taipei Post Office is limited in the sources consulted, and the account above is largely a description of the system as a whole.