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Americans in the China Market: Economic Opportunities and Economic Nationalism, 1890s-1931*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Michael H. Hunt
Michael H. Hunt
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History, Yale University
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Abstract

Historians of various “schools” have seen quite different things in the United States’ long years of business activity in China. The “realists” as Professor Hunt calls them, deny that significant business opportunities existed for Americans and point to obstacles that the Chinese put in the way of trade; the “Wisconsin school,” he says, emphasizes the public rhetoric of officials and businessmen who saw China as an outlet for capitalist surpluses. Citing three case histories — kerosene, cigarettes, and textiles — Professor Hunt shows that generalization is dangerous; that success depended more on businessmen's own skill, resources, and control of their domestic industry than on help derived from an imperialistically minded government.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1977 , pp. 277 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1977

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References

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A look at the share of the China trade controlled by Americans reveals a more dramatic advance — a quadrupling between 1891 and 1931. The American share of China's imports increased from 4.5 per cent (1891-1893 average) to 19.2 per cent (1929-1931 average). The values were $4,500,000 in 1890, $16,400,000 in 1910, and $107,000,000 in 1930, near the peak year for China's overall foreign trade.

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4 Varg, “The Myth of the China Market.”

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9 Cotton cloth and kerosene made up 80 per cent of the value of U.S. exports to China in 1895. By 1909 those same two products together with tobacco accounted for 84 per cent. By 1922 those three products had fallen to 49 per cent due largely to the decline in cotton cloth exports (off from 47 per cent in 1895 to 2 per cent in 1922). The drop was only partially offset by the increased export to China of raw cotton and tobacco products from the United States. Shu-lun, Pan, The Trade of the United States with China (New York, 1924), 59–60, 110-111Google Scholar; and Ping-yin, Ho, The Foreign Trade of China (Shanghai, 1935), 74–75Google Scholar.

10 The following picture of Standard Oil operations comes primarily from Hidy, Ralph W. and Hidy, Muriel E., Pioneering in Big Business, 1882-1911 (New York, 1955), 122–123, 147, 152-153, 237, 261-263, 265-268, 531, 547-548, 552-553, 750 n. 46Google Scholar. See also Chen, Ch'enet al., comps., Chung-kuo chin-tai kung-yeh shih tzu-liao, ti-erh chi [Historical materials on modern Chinese industry, second series] (Peking, 1958), 324–326, 335Google Scholar; and Allen, G. C. and Donnithorne, Audrey G., Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Development: China and Japan (London, 1954), 100–101Google Scholar. On pricing, see Williamson, Harold F.et al., The American Petroleum Industry (2 vols; Evanston, Ill., 1959, 1963), I, 495, 728Google Scholar. On sales, see Williamson, I, 742, 752; Williamson, II, 277-278, 725; Remer, Charles F., The Foreign Trade of China (Shanghai, 1926), 56Google Scholar; Hidy and Hidy, Pioneering in Big Business, 415, 528; Yang, C. and Hau, H. B.et al., Statistics of China's Foreign Trade During the Last Sixty-Five Years (Shanghai [?], 1931), 45–46, 67Google Scholar; Gull, E. M., British Economic Interests in the Far East (London, 1943), 56.Google Scholar

11 According to Ch'en Chen, Standard agents submitted regular reports not only on business conditions but also on political and military affairs in their districts, Chung-kuo chin-tai kung-yeh shih tzu-liao, ti-erh chi, 336. This potentially fascinating source for local history appears to have disappeared along with the rest of the firm's archives.

For a sense of the life of the Standard agent through the 1910s and early 1920s, see Oil for the Lamps of China (Indianapolis, 1933)Google Scholar, a novel by Alice Tisdale Hobart, who married into the firm.

12 A copy of a Standard contract with a Chinese merchant is in Decimal File 393.115 St2/60, Record Group 59 (Records of the Department of State), National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter DF file number/document number).

13 Gerretson, F. C., History of the Royal Dutch (4 vols.; Leiden, 1953-1957), III, 138, 189–191, 195-196, 249-250, 269, 289-307, and IV, 108-113, 119Google Scholar; Gibb, George S. and Knowlton, Evelyn H., The Resurgent Years, 1911-1927 (New York, 1956), 79Google Scholar; and Penrose, Edith T., The Large International Firm in Developing Countries: The International Petroleum Industry (London, 1968), 55–56, 104-105Google Scholar.

14 After the break-up of the Standard Oil trust in 1911, its former export arm in China, Standard Oil of New York, continued operations there.

15 Cochran, Sherman G., “Big Business in China: Sino-American Rivalry in the Tobacco Industry, 1890-1930” (Doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1975), 11–16, 40-50, 56-62, 75-82, 89-90.Google Scholar See also Ching-yü, Wang, comp. Chung-kuo chin-tai kung-yeh shih tzu-liao, ti-erh chi, 1895-1914 nien [Historical materials on modem Chinese industry, second series, 1895-1914] (2 vols.; Peking, 1957), I, 209–215, 220 ffGoogle Scholar; Ch'en Chen, Chung-kuo chin-tai kung-yeh shih tzu-liao, ti-erh chi, 92-97, 129-133, 140-141; and Durden, Robert F., The Dukes of Durham, 1865-1929 (Durham, N.C., 1975), 76–80.Google Scholar

16 Thomas, James A., A Pioneer Tobacco Merchant in the Orient (Durham, N.C., 1928), 42Google Scholar. Thomas’ memoir conveys a sense of the spirit and resourcefulness of early BAT operations in China.

17 Chung-p'ing, Yen, Chung-kuo mien-fang-chih shih-kao, 1289-1937 [Draft history of cotton textiles in China, 1289-1937] (Peking, 1955), 87–91Google Scholar. For sales and production statistics, see Fong, H. D., Cotton Industry and Trade in China (2 vols.; Tientsin, 1932), I, 249Google Scholar; Tse-i, P'eng, comp., Chung-kuo chin-tai shou-kung-yeh shih tzu-liao (1840-1949) [Historical materials on modern Chinese handicraft industries, 1840-1949] (4 vols.; Peking, 1957), II, 457Google Scholar; Copeland, Melvin T., The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1912), 224Google Scholar.

18 Keishi, Ohara, comp. and ed., Japanese Trade and Industry in the Meiji-Taisho Era, trans, by Tamotsu, Okata (Tokyo, 1957), 300, 337-340, 344-369Google Scholar; Keizo, Seki, The Cotton Industry of Japan (Tokyo, 1956), 51–54, 59-62, 123-126Google Scholar; Hubbard, G. E., Eastern Industrialization and Its Effect on the West (Oxford, 1935), 50, 80-85, 111-112, 120Google Scholar; Yen, Chung-kuo mien-fang-chih shih-kao, 132-133; Allen and Donnithorne, Western Enterprise, 205; memo prepared jointly by the State Department's Division of Far Eastern Affairs and Bureau of Trade Relations, early spring 1908, Numerical File 12471/-1, Record Group 59 (Records of the Department of State), National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter NF file number/document number); Blicksilver, Jack, Cotton Manufacturing in the Southeast: An Historical Analysis (Atlanta, 1959), 24, 113-116Google Scholar; Sandberg, Lars G., Lancashire in Decline: A Study in Entrepreneurship. Technology, and International Trade (Columbus, Ohio, 1974), chaps, x-xiGoogle Scholar; Clark, W. A. Graham, Cotton Goods in Japan and Their Competition in the Manchurian Market (Washington, D.C., 1914), 226–278Google Scholar; and Odell, Ralph M., Cotton Goods in China (Washington, D.C., 1916), 109–116, 142-156.Google Scholar

19 Galambos, Louis, “The Trade Association Movement in Cotton Textiles, 1900-1935,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, 2nd series, 2 (Fall, 1964), 31–55Google Scholar; Fong, I, Cotton Industry, 59, 251-252, 268-269; Copeland, Cotton Manufacturing, 155-158, 170-171, 221, 226-230; Blicksilver, Cotton Manufacturing in The Southeast, 22-40, 55-56; Robson, R., The Cotton Industry in Britain (London, 1957), 358Google Scholar; Taussig, Frank W., The Tariff History of the United States (8th ed.; New York, 1931), 243, 266-267, 433, 466-467, 513.Google Scholar

20 The literature is rich. Good places to start are Wright, Mary C., “The Rising Tide of Change,” in her China in Revolution: The First Phase, 1900-1913 (New Haven, Conn., 1968)Google Scholar; Rhoads, Edward, China's Republican Revolution: The Case of Kwangtung, 1895-1911 (Cambridge, Mass., 1975)Google Scholar; En-han, Li, Wan-Ch'ing shou-hui k'uang-ch'üan yün-tung [The movement to recover mining rights in the late Ch'ing] (Taipei, 1963)Google Scholar; Feng-t'ien, Chao, Wan-Ch'ing wu-shih-nien ching-chi ssu-hsiang shih [Economic thought during the last fifty years of the Ch'ing period] (Peiping, 1933)Google Scholar; Hou, Chi-ming, Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China, 1840-1937 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 1–4, 130-134, 150-152CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Des Forges, Roger V., Hsi-liang and the Chinese National Revolution (New Haven, Conn., 1973)Google Scholar.

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22 Wang, Chung-kuo chin-tai kung-yeh shih tzu-liao, ti-erh chi, 1895-1914 nien, I, 26-28; Hou, Foreign Investment, 109-111; Allen and Donnithorne, Western Enterprise, 152.

23 Chung-yang, yen-chiu yüan, chin-tai, shih yen-chiu so, comp., K'uang-wu tang [Records on mining affairs] (8 vols.; Taipei, 1960), VI, documents 2324, 2327, 2336, 2338-2339, 2361–2374, VII, documents 2469-2472Google Scholar; Feng-shih, Lu, comp., Hsin-tsuan yüeh-chang ta-ch'üan [A new compilation of treaty terms] (Shanghai, 1909), ch. 13, 40–41Google Scholar.

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25 Allen and Donnithorne, Western Enterprise, 50, 55, 74, 76, 82, 118, 142-143, 249.

26 Cochran, “Big Business in China,” 33-39 and chaps, iii-viii; Wang, Y. C., “Free Enterprise in China: The Case of a Cigarette Concern, 1905-1953,” Pacific Historical Review, 29 (1960), 395–414CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the entry for Chien Chao-nan in Boorman, Howard L., ed., Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (New York, 1967-1971), I, 364–365Google Scholar.

27 Reports in NF 14732.

28 P'eng, Chung-kuo chin-tai shou-kung-yeh shih tzu-liao, II, 166-170, 477-478. The quote is from p. 167. See also: Remer, Foreign Trade, 56-57, 94-95, 157; and Hidy and Hidy, Pioneering in Big Business, 137.

29 Remer, Foreign Trade, 95; Hsiao, China's Foreign Trade Statistics, 96: P'eng, Chungkuo chin-tai shou-kung-yeh shih tzu-liao, II, 342-352; and Ta-chin, Yang, Chin-tai Chungkuo shih-yeh t'ung-chih [A guide to modem Chinese industry] (2 vols.; Nanking, 1933), I, 648.Google Scholar

30 Pugach, Noel H., “Standard Oil and Petroleum Development in Early Republican China,” Business History Review, 45 (Winter, 1971), 452–473CrossRefGoogle Scholar: Ch'en Chen, Chung-kuo chin-tai kung-yeh shih tzu-liao, ti-erh chi, 327-331; and DF 893.00/2124 (on opposition in Changsha). See Chu, Samuel C., Reformer in Modern China: Chang Chien, 1853-1926 (New York, 1965)Google Scholar, and the entries in Boorman, Biographical Dictionary, for Hsiung Hsiling and Chou Tze-chi — all for evidence of the economic nationalism in Yüan's cabinet.

31 Ch'eng T'ien-tou, Shih-yu li-cho [Deliberations on petroleum] (Chung-shan district [Kwangtung?], 1930), chap. iii. This work was published by the Industrial and Commercial Petroleum Company [Kung-shang lien-yu kung-ssu].

32 Lu, Hsin-tsuan yüeh-chang, to-ch'üan, ch. 13, 16-18; Yen-wei, Wang and Liang, Wang, comps., Ch'ing-chi wai-chiao shih-liao [Historical materials on late Ch'ing diplomacy] (Peking, 1935)Google Scholar, Hsüan-t'ung years, ch. 22, 27-31; Shih-chia, Chu, comp., Shih-chiu shih-chi Mei-kuo ch'in-Hua tang-an shih-liao hsüan-chi [Selected archival materials on American aggression against China during the nineteenth century] (2 vols.; Peking, 1959), 350–351, 404-406Google Scholar; and numerous entries in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (e.g., 1884, 1887, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1906, 1908, 1911, 1914, 1926).

33 See materials in NF 5260/40; NF 379/3-4; NF 13188/4; NF 8424/-16, 21-27; NF 788/164-167, 231-238; NF 8602/-10, 20-23; NF 3543/4-5; DF 693.116/43, 44, 47, 49, 54, 55; DF 393.115 St2/43, 45, 47, 50-51, 61, 64, 65, 69-71; DF 893.00/357, 389, 795, 2124.

The BAT experience is not instructive on the relationship between businessmen and Washington. Even though for the first two decades the firm's management was largely American — Duke, who guided its global operations (as well as provided the bulk of the start-up capital), and Thomas, who headed its China operations — the company looked primarily to the British Foreign Office for support and protection. British registry and the existence of its headquarters in London help account for this particular diplomatic orientation, but it may also reflect a calculation that the Foreign Office was more likely than the State Department to be solicitous and effective in guarding interests in China. In 1920 Thomas cut his ties with BAT, and in 1923 Duke died and control passed into the hands of the British members of the board, thus further strengthening the British character of the firm and its propensity to look to the Foreign Office.

31 DF 393.115 St2/28-42 passim.

35 David A. Wilson, “Principles and Profits: Standard Oil Responds to Chinese Nationalism, 1925-1927,” Pacific Historical Review, forthcoming.

The BAT also agreed to taxation by the Nationalist government at this time. But the Nationalists, by taxing BAT at a rate lower than its Chinese competitor, in effect sacrificed economic nationalism to gain badly needed revenue. For the BAT settlement, see Cochran, “Big Business in China,” 351-353, 363-364; and Gittings, John, The World and China, 1922-1972 (New York, 1974), 28–29Google Scholar. More general accounts are Vincent, John Carter, The Extraterritorial System in China: Final Phase (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), chap, vCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Young, Arthur N.; China's Nation-Building Effort, 1927-1937: The Financial and Economic Record (Stanford, Calif., 1971), 22–23Google Scholar; and Hou, Foreign Investment, 105, 148.

36 NF 1164/43-49, 55, 69-70.

37 Julean Arnold (consul, Amoy) to the State Department, January 14, 1911, DF 393.115 St2/43.

38 DF 393.115 St2/70; DF 893.00/795.

39 Gittings, The World and China, 33.

40 Yen, Chung-kuo mien-fang-chih shih-kao, 98-107; Sun, Chung-kuo chin-tai kung-yeh shih tzu-liao, ti-i chi, 1840-1895 nien, 1037ff; Samuel Chu, Reformer in Modem China, 17-21; Ho, The Foreign Trade of China, 497; Hou, Foreign Investment, 173-177; Feuerwerker, Albert, “Handicraft and Manufactured Cotton Textiles in China, 1871-1910,” Journal of Economic History, 30 (June, 1970), 346CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Myers, Ramon H., “Cotton Textile Handicraft and the Development of the Cotton Industry in Modern China,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 18 (December, 1965), 627–628.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Ho, The Foreign Trade of China, 74-76; Fong, Cotton Industry and Trade in China, I, 46-50, II, 35; Yang and Hau, Statistics of China's Foreign Trade, 66.

42 Wen-chih, Liet al., comps., Chung-kuo chin-tai nung-yeh shih tzu-liao, ti-i chi [Historical materials on modem Chinese agriculture, first series] (Peking, 1957), I, 890–895Google Scholar; Sun, Chung-kuo chin-tai kung-yeh shih tzu-liao, ti-i chi, 922-925; Yang-wu yün-tung, I, 556.

43 Fong, Cotton Industry and Trade in China, II, 67. American manufacturers of textile machinery enjoyed a boom in sales to the growing Chinese textile industry during and immediately after World War I, but in general the industry in China showed a distinct preference for British machinery. Fong, I, 79-81, 84.

44 I draw my information but not mv interpretation from Borg, Dorothy, American Policy and the Chinese Revolution, 1925-1928 (New York, 1947)Google Scholar; Wilson, American Business, 215-216, 221; Vincent, The Extraterritorial System; Arthur Young, China's Nation-Building Effort, 17-18, 426; and Iriye, Akira, After Imperialism: The Search for a New Order in the Far East, 1921-1931 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965).Google Scholar For the Chinese perspective, see Cavendish, P., “Anti-imperialism in the Kuomingtang, 1923-28,” in Ch'en, Jerome and Tarling, Nicholas, eds., Studies in the Social History of China and South-east Asia (Cambridge, England, 1970), 23–56Google Scholar; and Cohen, Warren I., “The Development of Chinese Communist Policy Toward the United States, 1922-1933,” Orbis, 11 (Spring, 1967), 219–237.Google Scholar

45 Steigerwalt, Albert K., The National Association of Manufacturers, 1895-1914: A Study in Business Leadership (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1964)Google Scholar; Kaufman, Burton I., “Organization for Foreign Trade Expansion in the Mississippi Valley, 1900-1920,” Business History Review, XLVI (Winter 1972), 444–465CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kaufman, , “The Organizational Dimension of United States Economic Foreign Policy, 1900-1920,” Business History Review, 46 (Spring, 1972), 17–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Parrini, Carl P., Heir to Empire: United States Economic Diplomacy, 1916-1923 (Pittsburgh, 1969)Google Scholar; and Wilson, American Business.

47 Paterson, Thomas G., “American Businessmen and Consular Service Reform, 1890's to 1906,” Business History Review, 40 (Spring, 1966), 77–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hunt, Michael H., Frontier Defense and the Open Door (New Haven, Conn., 1973)Google Scholar; Schmeckebier, Laurence F. and Weber, Gustavus A., The Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce (Baltimore, 1924), 26-27, 38, 41, 85, 108–109.Google Scholar

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49 Hidy and Hidy, Pioneering in Big Business, 531.

50 Libby to the State Department, February 6, 1911, DF 160/9. Singer, a pioneering American-based multinational, similarly depended on its own staff instead of consuls. Davies, Robert B., “‘Peacefully Working to Conquer the World’: The Singer Manufacturing Company in Foreign Markets, 1854-1889,” Business History Review, 43 (Autumn, 1969), 318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 Braisted, William R., “The United States and the American China Development Company,” Far Eastern Quarterly, 11 (February, 1952), 147–165CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Kurgan-Van Hentenryk, G., Léopold II et les groupes financiers belges en Chine: La politique royale et ses prolongements (1895-1914) (Brussels, 1972), 226–254, 436-550Google Scholar, both on the Hankow-Canton railway concession lost in 1905; Hunt, Frontier Defense, chaps, xi-xiv, on Taft-Knox financial diplomacy; and Wilson, American Business, 202-207, on the second consortium.

52 The realist case is systematically argued in Varg, “The Myth of the China Market,” 37-43.

53 For general challenges to the conclusions of this school, see Hou, Foreign Investment; Hou, , “The Oppression Argument on Foreign Investment in China, 1895-1937,” Journal of Asian Studies, 20 (August, 1961), 435–448CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nathan, Andrew J., “Imperialism's Effects on China,” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 4 (December, 1972), 3–8Google Scholar; and Murphey, Rhoads, The Treaty Ports and China's Modernization: What Went Wrong? (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1970)Google Scholar.

54 For an early and wide-ranging application to the BAT of this Chinese critique of foreign enterprise, see Ch'ao, Hsi, “Ying-Mei yen kung-ssu tui-yü Chung-kuo kuo-min ching-chi ti ch'in-shih” [BAT encroachment on China's national economy], in Chung-kuo, ching-chi ch'ing-pao she, ed., Chung-kuo ching-chi lun-wen chi [Collected essays on the Chinese economy] (Shanghai, 1936)Google Scholar, first series, 91-99. The recent treatment by Gittings, The World and China, 17-30, is in the same vein. By way of comparison, see Cochran's (in “Big Business in China”) somewhat more cautious conclusions on the BAT's impact drawn from ampler evidence.

55 For a discussion of the impact of imported cotton yarn and cloth on handicrafts, see Myers, “Cotton Textile Handicraft,” 616-625; Feuerwerker, “Handicraft and Manufactured Cotton Textiles,” 339-348, 373-378; and Reynolds, Bruce L., “Weft: The Technological Sanctuary of Chinese Handspun Yarn,” Ching-shih wen-t'i, 3 (December, 1974), 1–19.Google Scholar

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58 In addition to the works by Cochran (“Big Business in China”) and Wilkins (“Emergence of Multinational Enterprise”) cited above, see Wilkins, Mira, The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad from 1914 to 1970 (Cambridge, Mass., 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Becker, William H., “American Manufacturers and Foreign Markets, 1870-1900: Business Historians and the ‘New Economic Determinists,’” Business History Review, 47 (Winter, 1973), 466–481CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Becker, “Foreign Markets for Iron and Steel, 1893-1913: A New Perspective on the Williams School of Diplomatic History,” and his exchange with Schonberger, Harold, Pacific Historical Review, 44 (May, 1975), 233–262.Google Scholar

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