Chinese Business History Webinar

When World War II ended Chiang Kai-shek seemed at the height of his power-the leader of Nationalist China ...

This talk discusses the new opportunities presented by “popular sources” available to scholars of business and economic activity in Qing and Republican-era China ...

Though the On Tai was a landmark as the first Chinese-owned and operated insurance company in Hong Kong (and one of the very first in China) ...

The Making of China’s Post Office traces the origins and early development of the country’s modern postal system ...

In the early 1930s Gaoyang (in Hebei province) was the center of one of China’s best known rural industrial districts ...

Trade has historically driven Taiwan’s economic growth, with cane sugar dominating exports from the 1620s to the 1960s. ...

China’s large and valuable pre-1949 cattle trade is effectively invisible to historians ...

What roles did Americans play in the expanding global empires of the nineteenth century? Thomas M. Larkin examines the

From 1940 to 1945, the United States relied heavily on a steady stream of Chinese tungsten ore, hog bristles,

Madmen in Shanghai: A Social History of Advertising in Modern China (1914–1956) provides a novel perspective on the emergence of Chinese consumer society through an extensive historical investigation of the advertising industry in pre-Communist China.

Capitalism is a remarkable system which has re-invented itself throughout history. It has proved capable of co-existing with entirely different political and economic contexts.

Title: Brokering Capitalism in Maoist China Speaker: Dr. Adam Frost (Copenhagen Business School) Date/Time: February 14, 2025 (Fri) 21:00-22:00 HKT (Feb 14, 2025 | 14:00-15:00 CET) Venue: Via Zoom Language: English Enquiry:ihss@hku.hk REGISTER NOW Abstract This talk examines the persistent of capitalistic organization in Maoist China through the lens of informal labor brokering. Drawing on […]

Title: The Counterparty to Chinese Business: The Upper Yangtze Steam Navigation Scheme and the Opening of Chungking Speaker: Dr. Zigui Li (Sun Yat-sen University) Date/Time: March 21, 2025 (Fri) 09:00-10:00 HKT (Mar 20, 2025 | 18:00-19:00 PDT) Language: English Venue: via Zoom Enquiry: (Email) ihss@hku.hk Register Now: https://hku.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__AMzm8b4Qhivcb896eUyQA#/registration AbstractThe treaty port system has undergone continuous […]

ABSTRACTThe Yunnan–Indochina Railway, a French investment in imperial China during the age of “railroad colonialism,” was designed to link French-colonized Indochina to Chinese markets and to stimulate cross-border trade in tin, silk, tea, and opium. Yet this ambitious project came at a devastating human cost: thousands of Chinese workers lost their lives during its brutal […]

ABSTRACTThis talk presents Dr Yuan Jia Zheng’s book project, The Transformation of China’s Automobile Industry since 1953: Multinationals, Technology Transfer, and Electric Vehicles, which explores the long-term evolution of China’s automobile sector from a technology importer to a global exporter and innovator. The project traces how China advanced through distinct historical phases from early reliance […]

ABSTRACTThis talk forms part of a larger project investigating the mechanisms of socialist learning and knowledge accumulation in foreign trade during the Maoist era, through a historical and comparative study of the export lacemaking industries in Fujian and Chaoshan (Guangdong). Drawing on archival sources, it examines how state-led export initiatives prompted both regions to formalize […]

ABSTRACTThis article examines the experiences of the DuPont Company’s operations in Shanghai during the tumultuous period of China’s Communist Revolution, from the immediate post-World War II recovery to the outbreak of the Korean War. Drawing upon the DuPont Company archives at the Hagley Museum & Library, this research reveals the pragmatic and often collaborative stance […]

Before the late twentieth century, the Upper Yangzi River and its tributaries had long been formidable, so navigation along these river segments hinged on various shipping groups on the ground.

ABSTRACTForming part of a book project that explores how American capital participated in China’s postwar economic reconstruction, this talk traces three different channels through which Chinese businessmen sought to bring foreign investment into postwar China. The International Business Conference in November 1944 first alerted the Chinese business community to the emerging possibility of mobilizing American […]