The mandatory power and Japan's trade expansion into Syria in the inter‐war period

Abstract

Japan's rapid trade expansion in Syria took place, as in most of the Middle Eastern states, during the (extended) depression years, 1929-34. Japan rose from being a small supplier in the late 1920s to one of the principal suppliers in the 1930s.' She therefore played an important role in the foreign trade of the French mandated territory in the inter-war period. Unfortunately, however, as far as I am aware, there exists no specialist study on the subject. Those who make passing references to Japan's trade expansion into Syria during the period under study merely call it 'Japanese dumping', and talk about the ruinous effects of exceptionally cheap Japanese textiles on the local textile industry and Japan's huge trade surpluses with the country.2 They then ascribe these to the 'Open Door' provision of the French mandate for Syria (Article 11), which was granted to all the League members including Japan, and to the French commercial policy after Japan's formal departure from the League of Nations in 1935. Yet, none of them goes on to examine the ways and means by which the Japanese trade expansion took place, or to assess the real effects of 'Japanese dumping' on various sections of the community. Nor does any of them analyse the underlying factors for the adoption by the mandatory power of the policy of non-discrimination against imports from Japan in the second half of the 1930s. In this article, I shall therefore attempt to fill that gap.