本文探究日本統治臺灣時期，臺灣、香港間經濟關係的變化，及其有關亞洲內部或亞洲與世界關係之意涵。全文所用資料包括日治臺灣時期臺灣總督府和臺灣銀行的調查、《臺灣日日新報》、人物傳記、《日本外務省記錄》中的日本領事報告、《通商彙纂》、《通商公報》，即日本駐各地領事的商務方面報告、清末海關報告、英國領事報告、《商務官報》等文獻。研究發現： 1. 臺灣、香港間的經濟關係，清末呈現長期遞增現象。而日本統治臺灣期間，即使有一次大戰期間的強化，但在日本領臺兩年之後，以及一次大戰之後，都呈現遞減現象，尤其就臺港貿易佔臺灣對外貿易的比重而言，長期趨於下跌，由約45%降為約10%。 2. 臺港間的商貿網絡也由華商、外商主導轉見日商、臺商代起。日商在臺港貿易關係中居於領先地位；臺商則在日貨改直接進口臺灣或經臺灣轉口華南中地位日趨重要，在臺灣、香港、華南的三角匯兌關係中更是舉足輕重。 3. 臺港關係二十世紀上半葉，相對於十九世紀下半葉由強轉弱的發展，也見於日港關係。在此同時，臺、日關係在1895年日本領臺之後已趨密切；臺、日、朝（鮮）、滿（滿洲國）關係在一九三○年代，轉趨密切，而中（國）、港關係依然緊密。於是，東亞內部逐漸形成兩大經濟圈。 4. 臺港關係以臺灣輸出煤炭到香港為重點。日港關係以輪船業為樞紐。兩者都是基於香港為東亞至歐美航線交通要道的地位而發展。但臺灣也被日本帝國建造為另一東亞轉運中心。除了臺灣位居東亞的孔道位置之外，臺灣與華南及東南亞華人文化的親近性，亦為重要因素。 5. 太平洋航線在十九世紀末、二十世紀初的快速發展，重整十九世紀下半葉以來，主要透過大西洋航線串連亞洲與世界的關係結構。加上日本殖民帝國的關稅、金本位、航運等等政策和物美價廉的工業品，都深深影響臺、日或臺、日、朝（鮮）、滿（滿洲國）經濟圈，相對於中國、香港經濟圈而崛起。一九三○年代太平洋的發展隨世界經濟蕭條而萎縮，也加強日本本國與殖民地間的結合。 6. 無論是以香港或是以臺灣為中轉站，都是近代日本擴張過程中，倚重歷史悠久的華商網絡的一個證明，但日本帝國以及亞太經濟的崛起，則又見亞洲內部原以中國獨尊的東亞秩序之一明顯斷裂。

This paper reveals that Taiwan was built in the period 1895-1945 by the Japanese empire as an entrepot in East Asia to compete with Hong Kong and Xiamen, the two most important ports through which Taiwan engaged in international economic relations prior to Japanese rule. The entrepot role of Hong Kong in linking East Asia and Europe-America through the Suez Canal by steamship was still stressed by the Japanese empire. Yet Taiwan was also built as another entrepot in East Asia by the Japanese empire, not only because of its geographical centrality between Japan and southern China or southeast Asia, but also because of its cultural commonality with the Chinese of these areas. Through the tariff system, the exchange system, the steamship system (especially the Pacific steamship lines in contrast with the Atlantic lines), and Japan’s cheap and good-quality products, Taiwan became increasingly separated from China and Hong Kong and more attached with Japan proper and its other colonies, particularly in the 1930s when Pacific relations had been shrunk by the World Depression. Japanese merchants and Taiwanese merchants arose to compete with the Western merchants and the overseas Chinese merchants for the remaining trade between Taiwan and Hong Kong. The Japanese merchants became dominant in such direct trade, while the Taiwanese merchants were dominant in the triangle financial transaction among Taiwan-Hong Kong-Southern China. The declining economic relations between Hong Kong and Taiwan in the period of 1895-1940 are also seen in the economic relations between Japan and Hong Kong. In the 1930s, Japanese ports such as Kobe and Osaka beat Hong Kong’s status as the most important port in East Asia in the 1910s. Ports under Japanese influence such as Dalian surpassed Chinese ports such as Niuzhuang. The rise of ports under Japanese influence was actually caused by the rising Pacific steamship lines, particularly after the Russo-Japanese War when Japan started to vigorously expand its Pacific lines. Though several Pacific lines had been developed since the United States extended its territory to California, the Atlantic Steamship lines through Hong Kong were the main avenue to connect East Asia with the United States or Europe. The completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 and that of the Suez Canal in 1869, marked the time sequence for the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean to connect the East and the West by steamship. Before the rise of the Pacific era, even as Japan gradually rose up in East Asia, trade relations among China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan were reinforced, and all centered at Hong Kong for exchange within East Asia or between the East and the West. Yet with the rise of the Pacific Ocean lines and ports under Japanese influence, the existent integration of East Asian order centered on China witnesses eruption. At the same time, main export market for Taiwan’s camphor changed from Germany to the United States, and Taiwan’s Oolong tea added the west coast of the United States to its original east coast market. Even the east coast trade route partly shifted from the Suez Canal to the Panama Canal to buy Taiwan’s teas. The separation of Taiwan from Hong Kong and China for its external economic relations in the period of 1895-1945 is a segment of the entire structural change in the relation between East and West due to the rise of Pacific Ocean steamship navigation.