A leading French trade house in China: Olivier (1900s–1930s)

Abstract

The history of the forces of capitalism in pre-Communist China regained momentum at the turn of this century because present Chinese authorities commenced to enhance the valuation of local entrepreneurialism. It had been for a long time identified with a mere form of imperialism or some kind of companionship with the economic offshoots of the Powers having imposed their rules along several Unequal Treaties. Historians can therefore reinterpret the developments of foreign business in the China of the 1900s–1940s to reconstitute the interlocking between actual imperialist forces and more and more strong Chinese houses.