In addition during this period, under the law governing the sharing of revenues, most tax and monopoly revenues went to the central government, which then distributed them as it saw fit at the provincial and local levels. Various organs of the central government (the central bank; the Department of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics; the General Personnel Administration; etc.) also assumed direct control over their counterparts in the provincial government.A hand in everything
Mention the provincial government, and any Taiwanese person today will think of Chunghsing Village in Nantou County. But until 1955 it was actually located in Taipei, right next to today's Executive Yuan, Control Yuan, and Legislative Yuan. Hsieh Tung-min, who was secretary-general when the provincial government was moved to Nantou County, states in his memoirs that the move was made primarily because "the Chinese communists were deploying strong military forces along their coast, and seemed to be preparing for an invasion of Taiwan." Some scholars argue, however, that in addition to these security concerns the move to distant Nantou County also served to lessen the degree of duplication between the functions of the central and provincial governments.
When it was first established, the Taiwan Provincial Government had a hand in the great majority of the province's administrative affairs, including financial and banking regulation, tax collection, law and order, traffic and transport, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, animal husbandry and education from kindergarten through university. The main exceptions to this pattern were aviation, military matters and foreign affairs.
For a long time, many departments in the provincial government were either combined with their central government counterparts, or the provincial government took primary charge over administrative affairs. There was a time, for example, when agricultural and forestry affairs throughout Taiwan were mainly administered by the provincial Department of Agriculture and Forestry, and the central government's Ministry of Economic Affairs had only one section to deal with agriculture. Later, however, the central government established a bureau of agricultural affairs, the forerunner of today's Council of Agriculture. A similar pattern can be observed in government agencies dealing with health issues, land policy, water conservancy, local government, etc.
After the Taiwan Provincial Government moved from Taipei to Nantou, the late President Chiang Kai-shek made a tour of inspection at the new location. He is pictured here with Governor Chou Chih-jou. (courtesy of Taiwan Film Culture Company)