This 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 of American businessmen, including DuPont employees, towards the new Communist regime. Initially, these foreign enterprises, much like their Chinese counterparts, sought continuity and opportunity within a rapidly changing economic landscape, hoping for state investment in industrial development. However, the subsequent Chinese entry into the Korean War and the resulting American sanctions dramatically altered this dynamic, ultimately compelling DuPont to withdraw its presence and abandon its operations in China. By focusing on the strategic business decisions made by DuPont managers, this paper aims to bridge a gap in existing scholarship by providing a foreign business perspective on the crucial transition period of the Chinese modern economy across the 1949 divide.
Juanjuan Peng is a professor of history at Georgia Southern University with a primary research focus on Chinese business history. She is the author of The Yudahua Business Group in China’s Early Industrialization (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2020), which traces the trajectory of a major Chinese textile enterprise from the Self-Strengthening Movement of the Late Qing to the Socialist Transformation of the early People’s Republic.
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