Research on Business Networks of Overseas Chinese Textile Importers in Colonial Korea

Abstract

This article emphasizes the relative independence from state regulations for Chinese businessmen in arranging their trading across national borders. In the 1920s, Japanese power to undermine the access to Korean markets of British and Chinese textiles did not result from state support to Japanese trading firms, as has been generally assumed thus far, but on the flexibility of Chinese business firms, who changed from British and Chinese to Japanese corporate partners in order to sell textiles in Korea, especially cotton and silk, and not only profited from changed market circumstances, but also from import duties imposed by the Japanese on the import of Chinese silk to Korea. (This article is in Chinese.)