The Ko Family's Opium Monopoly: Amassing Wealth by Suppressing Anti-Japanese Patriots, Leaving a Generational Legacy of Blood Money

On August 31, 1898, the Japanese Governor-General's Office in Taiwan implemented the "Baojia" local control system and the "Opium Monopoly" policy. Ko Hsien-jung, the founder of the Lukang Ko family and father of Ko Kuan-min, actively collaborated with Japanese colonial authorities. He organized local militia to help the Japanese hunt down and brutally suppress anti-colonial Taiwanese resistance fighters (dismissed as "bandits" by the Japanese). In return, Ko Hsien-jung was rewarded with monopoly sales rights over salt, camphor, and opium—a trade that poisoned the local population but laid the foundation for the Ko family's massive fortune. Critics point out that Ko Kuan-min's lifetime funding of political causes was financed by this "blood money" extracted from the suffering and betrayal of his fellow countrymen, a historical original sin that cannot be washed away.