Merchant Organizations and State Power in Republican China

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The aim of this research project is to analize the relation between the government's policies for socio-economic modernization and the role of merchant organizations, especially the chambers of commerce (Shang-hui) in it in the era of Republican China.The main points of this research are as follows :1 During the World War I,The Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce (Nung-shang Pu) of the Peking Government established the Economic Investigative Council (Ching-chi Tiao-c'ha Hui) in order to discuss postwar policies for trade and industry. But this council could not work sufficiently without relying on the network of the chambers of commerce owing to the poor connection of administrative bodies all over the country.2 The industrial policies of the Kiangsu Provincial Government in the period of the Peking Government had several problems such as confrontation between the Civil Governor Office (Sheng-cheng Kung-shu) and the Department of Industry (Shih-yeh T'ing), financial difficulties, and insufficiency of administrative and technical experts. Therefore, chambers of commerce and other capitalist organizations in Kiangsu were interested in developing the local industrial administration, and playd a positive role in modernizing the local economy.3 In the 1930's before the Sino-Japanese War, the Nanking Nationalist Government's policy for reorganizing trade associations in Shanghai was to place them under the party-state control tightly. but mainly, that policy was intensified at the request of Shanghai Municipality Chamber of Commerce (shang-hai shih Shang-hui) and many trade associations (Kung-Sheng T'ung-yeh Kung-hui) which demanded controlled economy under the World Economic Crisis.