Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T16:15:30.447Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Business of Survival: Competition and Cooperation in the Shanghai Flour Milling Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

Daniel J. Meissner
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

At the turn of the twentieth century, American and Chinese millers were locked in a fiercely contested battle for control of China’s flour market. Imported American flour had dominated Chinese urban markets since the early 1880s, but the founding of a modern native milling industry in 1900 had initiated a commercial war that pitted the great flour corporations of the Pacific Coast against the independent mill owners near Shanghai. Although the anti-American boycott of 1905 had boosted sales for Chinese mills and sparked growth in the native industry, the period between 1905 and 1909 severely tested the ability of the young industry to survive foreign competition. A high silver/gold rate, low transpacific shipping rates, and bumper wheat harvests in the Pacific Northwest lowered the relative cost and enhanced the market appeal of American flour to Chinese brokers. Conversely, severe flooding in China’s wheat-producing regions forced curtailment or even cessation of production for some native mills. Facing catastrophic reductions in their wheat supplies and markets saturated with American flour, Chinese millers devised alternative business strategies and implemented collaborative measures to ensure the solvency of their mills.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 6 , Issue 3: Special Issue: Business History in Modern China , September 2005 , pp. 364 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2005. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Books

Chang, Chung-li. The Income of the Chinese Gentry: Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society. Seattle, Wash., 1962.Google Scholar
Chen, Zhen, and Lo, Yao, eds. Zhongguo jindai gongyeshi ziliao: minzu ziben chuangban he jingyingde gongye [Historical Materials of China’s Modern Industries: The Establishment and Management of National Capitalist Industries]. 2 vols. Beijing, 1957.Google Scholar
Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service, Statistical Department of the Inspectorate General of Customs. Decennial Reports. Shanghai, 1893, 1904, and 1913.Google Scholar
Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service. Report on the Foreign Trade of China for the Year 1905. Shanghai, 1906.Google Scholar
Coolidge, Mary Roberts. Chinese Immigration. New York, 1969.Google Scholar
Hao, Yen-ping. The Compradore in Nineteenth-Century China: Bridge between East and West. Cambridge, Mass., 1970.Google Scholar
Hsiao, Liang-lin. China’s Foreign Trade Statistics, 1864–1949. Cambridge, Mass., 1974.Google Scholar
Hsu, Frances L. K. Under the Ancestors’ Shadow: Kinship, Personality, and Social Mobility in China. Stanford, Calif., 1967.Google Scholar
Hummel, Arthur W., ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, 1644–1912. 2 vols. Washington, D.C., 1944.Google Scholar
Kong, Lingren, and Dezheng, Li, eds. Zhongguo jindai qiyede kaituo zhe [The Opening of China’s Modern Industries]. Jinan, 1991.Google Scholar
Liu, Dachun. Zhongguo gongye diaocha baogao [An Investigative Report of China’s Industries]. Nanking, 1937.Google Scholar
Rawski, Thomas G. China’s Transition to Industrialism: Producer Goods and Economic Development in the Twentieth Century. Ann Arbor, Mich., 1980.Google Scholar
Remer, Charles Frederick, and Palmer, William B.. A Study of Chinese Boycotts: With Special Reference to Their Economic Effectiveness. 1933; Taipei, 1966. Google Scholar
Rong, Desheng. Le nong ziding xingnian jishi [Memoirs of a Happy Farmer]. Wuxi, 1989.Google Scholar
Shanghaishi, Dang’anguan. Jindai shanghai gongshangye gailan [An Overview of Modern Shanghai Industries]. Shanghai, 1992.Google Scholar
Shanghaishi, Liangshiju. Zhongguo jindai mianfen gongyeshi [The History of the Chinese Flour Industry]. Beijing, 1987.Google Scholar
Sun, Lingren, and Dezheng, Li. Zhongguo jindai qiyede kaishi zhe [Pioneers of China’s Modern Industries]. Jinan, 1991.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Statistics. Monthly Consular Reports. Washington, D.C., 1897–1910.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Statistics. Statistical Abstracts of the United States. Washington, D.C., 1910–1912.Google Scholar
Wang, Jingyu. Zhongguo jindai gongyeshi ziliao [Historical Materials on China’s Modern Industries]. 2 vols. Beijing, 1957.Google Scholar
Wong Sin, Kiong. China’s Anti-American Boycott Movement in 1905. New York, 2002.Google Scholar
Xu, Weiyong, and Hanmin, Huang, eds. Rongjia qiye fazhanshi [The History of the Development of the Rong Family Enterprises]. 2 vols. Shanghai, 1985.Google Scholar
Xu, Weiyong. Rongjia qiye shiliao [Historical Documents of the Rong Family Enterprises]. 2 vols. Shanghai, 1980.Google Scholar
Yang, Jingren. Minguoshi dacidian [Dictionary of Republican China]. Beijing, 1991.Google Scholar
Zhonghua minguo shiye ming jian [A Catalogue of Famous Industrialists of Nationalist China]. Nanking, 1934.Google Scholar
Zhonghua quanguo zhong ri shiyejia xingxin lu (Shanghaizhi bu) [The Xingxin Digest of Chinese and Japanese Industrialists in China]. Shanghai, 1936.Google Scholar
Zhongguo zhengxin suobian, Shanghai gong shang renmin lu [Record of Notable Men of Shanghai Industry and Commerce]. Shanghai, 1936.Google Scholar

Articles and Essays

Bergholz, Leo. “Machinery in South China.” Journal of the American Asiatic Association 9 (1910): 370–75.Google Scholar
Buck, John Lossing. “Agriculture and the Future of China.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 152 (Nov. 1930): 109–15.Google Scholar
Corkery, K. J. “The Chinese Laborer from the Point of View of an American Manager.” In Readings in Economics for China, ed. Remer, C. F.. Shanghai, 1933, pp. 455–62.Google Scholar
Faure, David. “The Rural Economy of Kiangsu Province, 1870–1911.” Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong 9, no. 2 (1978): 365–71.Google Scholar
Faure, David. “Flour Industry in Kiangsu.” Chinese Economic Journal (1944), 32–48.Google Scholar
Fong, H. D. “Industrial Organization in China.” Industry Series of the Nankai Institute of Economics. Bulletin no. 10. Tientsin, 1937.Google Scholar
Heilbroner, Robert L. “Do Machines Make History?” In Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism, ed. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx. Cambridge, Mass., 1994, pp. 53–65.Google Scholar
Hosie, Alexander. “The Foreign Trade of China.” Journal of the American Asiatic Association 7 (1907): 372–74.Google Scholar
Lorence, James J. “Business and Reform: The American Asiatic Association and the Exclusion Laws, 1905–1907.” Pacific Historical Review 39 (Feb. 1970): 421–38.Google Scholar
Meissner, Daniel J. “Imports and Industrialization: China’s ‘War’ against American Flour Imports, 1895–1910.” Twentieth-Century China 28 (April 2003): 1–40.Google Scholar
Nie, Qiwei. “Wo he 1913 nianshide zhongguo yinhang” [Me and the 1913 Bank of China]. In Jiaoshi ziliao xuanji [Collection of Business History Materials], vol. 49. Beijing, 1964, pp. 114–19.Google Scholar
Reed, Christopher A. “Sooty Sons of Vulcan: Shanghai’s Printing Machine Manufacturers, 1895–1932.” Republican China 20 (1995): 9–54.Google Scholar
Rodgers, James. Despatches from United States Consuls in Shanghai, China (Washington, D.C.), No. 167 (1906): 2.Google Scholar
Skinner, G. William. “Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China.” Journal of Asian Studies 24, nos. 1–3 (1964): 3–43, 195–228, 363–99.Google Scholar
Smith, Kingsland. “Around the World for the Northwestern Miller.” Weekly Northwestern Miller, 1903 (first of extended series).Google Scholar

Newspapers and Periodicals

Journal of the American Asiatic Association (New York), 1900–1910.Google Scholar
North China Herald (Shanghai), 1906–1910.Google Scholar
Weekly Northwestern Miller (Minneapolis, Minn.), 1900–1912.Google Scholar

Archival Sources

Allis-Chalmers Company, Sales Bulletins, 1900–1907. Box 3, Allis-Chalmers Collection, Milwaukee County Historical Society Archives, Milwaukee, Wis.Google Scholar
Bao, Peizhi. Shouzhou sunjia yu zhongfu yinghang [The Sun Family of Shouzhou and the Zhongfu Bank]. Shanghai, 1944. Unpaged manuscript, Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo dang’anguan [Archives of the Economic Research Institute of Shanghai Academy of Social Studies].Google Scholar
“Shanghai shangwu zonghui bing yi jian [August 1, 1908]” [A Report of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce, August 1, 1908]. Records of Nonggong shangbu, nongwusi tuhuo quanli [Ministry of Agriculture and Industry, Department of Agricultural Affairs, Administration of Local Goods], vol. 145. Archives of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.Google Scholar
Sun, Zhongsan, and Sun Xisan. “Fu feng mianfenchang lishi” [History of the Fu Feng Flour Mill]. 1930? Unpaged manuscript excerpt from Shouxian sunmin jingying fufeng mianfenchang ji youguan caituan [Records of Shou County’s Sun Family–Managed Fu Feng Flour Mill and Other Enterprises]. Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo dang’anguan [Archives of the Economic Research Institute of Shanghai Academy of Social Studies].Google Scholar