During Taiwan’s colonial era (1921-1945), the Governor-General’s Office established the position of Taiwan Advisory Councilor due to pressure from the Japanese Diet as well as repeated petitions by local elites to establish a Taiwan Council of elected representatives. Lin Hsien-t’ang was a leader of the movement to establish this Council, yet the Governor-General, Den Kenjiro, decided to appoint Lin to serve as a Councilor as a ploy to alleviate elite agitation. This project has utilized the diaries of Lin and Den, as well as the Archives of the Governor-General’s Office, to investigate how Lin was appointed to the position of Councilor a total of five times, made every effort to resist such an appointment due to his own convictions as well as pressure from his peers, yet in the end had no choice but to accept the appointment, only to resign as soon as possible. In short, Lin made every effort to resist, yet ended up being forced to submit. Previous research on Taiwanese resistance during the colonial era has emphasized a simplistic dichotomy of resistance vs. submission. In fact, nationalist movements during the colonial era were highly complex, and embedded with contradictions. This case study of Lin Hsien-t’ang experience can shed light On this important era of modern Taiwanese history.