This study investigates the Central Laboratory of Industry, a ceramics industry research institute established by the Government-General of Joseon, the Japanese colonial administration that governed Korea during the earlier part of the 20 th century. The study focuses on its organization, created to determine key issues facing the Korean ceramics industry and craft as well as structural currents thereof, to understand how the structure of ceramics production in Korea was realigned during the Japanese occupation period, according to the policy demands of the colonial administration. In this paper, to examine how the ceramics industry policy of the Japanese colonial administration evolved over time, I divided the thirty-five years of existence of the Central Laboratory of Industry, the industry research organization providing policy support to the colonial authority, into four phases: 1910-1919 (Phase I), 1920-1929 (Phase II), 1930-1936 (Phase III), 1937-1945 (Phase IV). The investigation revealed that the Ceramics Industry Station of the Central Laboratory of Industry conducted a comprehensive range of activities to support the ceramics industry policy of the colonial administration since its very inception, and in subsequent periods, performed other tasks required by the shifting focus of the latter’ s policy Abstract and changing industry environment. Ceramics materials research, conducted since the 1910s, in particular, appears to have had a tremendous influence on the industry both at that time and for a considerable period of time thereafter. The Central Laboratory of Industry also seems to have played an important role in ensuring a stable transition of the industry from a production model based on traditional pottery-making techniques to one driven by modern techniques. This modernization of the ceramics industry, however, was accompanied by a generalized phenomenon of exploitation of Joseon’ s resources and labor force for Japanese interest. These two different effects produced by the ceramics industry policy of the Japanese colonial administration could be explained by the fact that its aim was from the outset to more effectively exploit the Korean ceramics industry, in a manner to benefit the Japanese ceramics industry. Notwithstanding, a clear-cut assessment of the historical role of the Central Laboratory of Industry is far from easy. The Central Laboratory of Industry is, as a matter of fact, a case in point of how double-edged Japan’ s general colonial policy was in Korea; seemingly aimed at the “economic exploitation of the colony,” but having contributed to the “modernization of the colony,” at the same time. Soon after it took control over Korea, Japan started to call its colonial rule “reform” establishing the Central Laboratory as a means to support the so-called reform initiative. The ceramics industry, for instance, was led onto the path of modernization according to the roadmap drawn up by the Central Laboratory. However, this reform initiative, even as it brought about modernization and growth, had little directly beneficial effect on the Korean ceramics industry, the ultimate goal of such policy being exploitation. Future research should perform an in-depth investigation of the influence of the Central Laboratory’ s ceramics industry policy by region, by analyzing the vast body of research reports produced by the latter.