Chinese Middlemen in Hong Kong's Colonial Economy, 1830-1890 PDF Download

Author: Kaori Abe
Publisher: Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia
ISBN: 9780367878078
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
The traditional view of the Hong Kong colonial economy is that it was dominated by Western companies, notably the great British merchant houses, and that these firms enlisted support from Chinese middlemen - the compradors - who were effectively agents working for the Western firms. This book, which presents a comprehensive overview of the compradors and their economic and social functions over the full period of colonial rule in Hong Kong, puts forward a different view. It shows that compradors existed before the beginning of British rule in 1842, discusses their economic and social roles in the colonial economy, roles which included activities for Western firms, for the government and to support compradors' own commercial activities, and outlines how the comprador system evolved. Overall, the book demonstrates that the compradors played a key role in the formation and development of Hong Kong's economy and society, that they were active participants, not just passive servants of Western companies.

Author: Kaori Abe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134846819
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
The traditional view of the Hong Kong colonial economy is that it was dominated by Western companies, notably the great British merchant houses, and that these firms enlisted support from Chinese middlemen – the compradors – who were effectively agents working for the Western firms. This book, which presents a comprehensive overview of the compradors and their economic and social functions over the full period of colonial rule in Hong Kong, puts forward a different view. It shows that compradors existed before the beginning of British rule in 1842, discusses their economic and social roles in the colonial economy, roles which included activities for Western firms, for the government and to support compradors’ own commercial activities, and outlines how the comprador system evolved. Overall, the book demonstrates that the compradors played a key role in the formation and development of Hong Kong’s economy and society, that they were active participants, not just passive servants of Western companies.

Author: Nancy E. Davis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197581986
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
In 1834, a Chinese woman named Afong Moy arrived in America as both a prized guest and an advertisement for a merchant firm--a promotional curiosity with bound feet and a celebrity used to peddle exotic wares from the East. This first biography of Afong Moy explores how she shaped Americans' impressions of China, while living as a stranger in a foreign land.

Author: Max Hirsh
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824894375
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
In the twenty-first century, infrastructure has undergone a seismic shift from West to East. Once concentrated in Europe and North America, global infrastructure production today is focused squarely on Asia. Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia investigates the deeper implications of that pivot to the East. Written by leading international infrastructure experts, it demonstrates how new roads, airports, pipelines, and cables are changing Asian economies, societies, and geopolitics—from the Bosporus to Beijing, and from Indonesia to the Arctic. Ten tightly interwoven case studies powerfully illustrate infrastructure’s leading role in three global paradigm shifts: climate change, digitalization, and China’s emergence as a superpower. Combining social science methods with mapping techniques from the design professions, Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia establishes a dialogue between academic research on infrastructure and the professional insights of those responsible for infrastructure’s planning, production, and operation. By applying that mixed method to transport, energy, telecommunication, and resource extraction projects across Asia, the book synthesizes research on infrastructure from six academic fields, while making those insights accessible to a wider audience of students, professionals, and the general public. For links to the open-access PDF and EPUB editions, chapter downloads, and detailed information, visit the project website: https://infrastructureasia.net/.

Author: Michael Shin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134830645
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
Modern Korean nationalism has been shaped by the turbulent historical forces that shook and transformed the peninsula during the twentieth century, including foreign occupation, civil war, and division. This book examines the emergence of the nation as the hegemonic form of collective identity after the March First Movement of 1919, widely seen as one of the major turning points of modern Korean history. The analysis focuses on Yi Gwangsu (1892–1950), a pioneering novelist, newspaper editor, and leader of the nationalist movement, who was directly involved in many aspects of its emergence during the Japanese occupation period. Yi Gwangsu was one of the few intellectuals who not only wrote for almost the entirety of the colonial period but who also was centrally involved in many institutions related to the production of identity. By focusing on Yi Gwangsu the book provides a different kind of historical narrative linking the various fragments of the nation, puts forward a new understanding of the March First Movement and its role in the emergence of the nation, and demonstrates how central to the emergence of the nation were the development of the print industry, the rise of a modern readership, and the emergence of a capitalist market for print. This book shows how the March First Movement catalyzed the confluence of these factors, enabling the nation to emerge as the dominant form of collective identity.

Author: Holger Weiss
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350382221
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
This collection analyses the concept of minority and minorities in global history. Taking transnational, transregional and comparative approaches, it explores narratives of inclusion and exclusion both conceptually and through case studies. Exploring examples of marginalization in Imperial Russia, early-20th century Korea, WWII China and Postcolonial Africa amongst others, the chapters in this volume seek to understand the entanglements of 'fluid minorities' and native populations in various historical settings. They explore dynamics between nation states and empires, minority-majority processes in (post)imperial and (post)Soviet contexts, fourth world perspectives and transnational minority movements. Taken together, the contributions to this collection address the exposure to and challenge of historical and contemporary treatments of marginalization, exclusion, belonging and inclusion in global history.

Author: Brian P. Farrell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472596064
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Asia was the principle focus of empire-builders from Alexander and Akbar to Chinggis Khan and Qianlong and yet, until now, there has been no attempt to provide a comprehensive history of empire in the region. Empire in Asia addresses the need for a thorough survey of the topic. This volume covers the long 19th century, commonly seen in terms of 'high imperialism' and the global projection of Western power. This volume explores the dynamic, volatile and often contested processes by which, by the early years of the 20th century, Asian states, space and peoples became deeply integrated into the wider dynamics of global reordering. Drawing on case studies from across Asia, the contributors discuss key themes including ideology, concepts of identity, religion and politics, state building and state formation, the relationships between space, people, and sovereignty, the movements of goods, money, people and ideas, and the influence and impact of conflict and military power. The two volumes of Empire in Asia offer a significant contribution to the theory and practice of empire when considered globally and comparatively and are essential reading for all students and scholars of global, imperial and Asian history.

Author: Ghassan Moazzin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 100903698X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
In this wide-ranging study, Ghassan Moazzin sheds critical new light on the history of foreign banks in late nineteenth and early twentieth century China, a time that saw a substantial influx of foreign financial institutions into China and a rapid increase of both China's foreign trade and its interactions with international capital markets. Drawing on a broad range of German, English, Japanese and Chinese primary sources, including business records, government documents and personal papers, Moazzin reconstructs how during this period foreign banks facilitated China's financial integration into the first global economy and provided the financial infrastructure required for modern economic globalization in China. Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China shows the key role international finance and foreign banks and capital markets played at important turning points in modern Chinese history.

Author: Vivian Kong
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009202952
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Multiracial Britishness explores how British subjects of different 'races' collectively shaped what it means to be British today, focusing on 1910-45 Hong Kong. This book reframes the discussion about British identities and colonial Hong Kong, with clear implications for understanding Hong Kong's decolonisation, Brexit, and the Commonwealth.

Author: Chi-cheung Choi
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110757427
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
The movement of goods and passengers between port cities not only stimulates growth in coastal trading networks and centers but also inevitably changes the social and economic lives of people in these port cities and, subsequently, of their fellow compatriots farther inland. Studies of port cities have focused on the interactive political and economic relationship between trading centers. The center of attention in this book is socioeconomic life and cultural identity, which are shaped by the movement of goods, people, knowledge, and information, particularly when the community faces a crisis. Transnational studies focus on cross-border connections between people, institutions, commodities, and ideas, with an emphasis on their global presence. This book looks at the responses of different localities to the same global crisis. It gathers a selection of the fifty papers presented at the conference on "Coping with Transnational Crisis: Chinese Economic and Social Lives in East Asian Port Cities, 1850-1950," held in Hong Kong on June 7-11, 2016. The period from the 1850s to the outbreak of war in the Pacific in the late 1930s encompasses two major transnational crises with significant impacts on the Chinese population in Southeast Asian port cities in terms of their way of living and the construction of their identity: the emergence of bubonic plague in the 1880s and 1920s and the global economic crisis in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The authors discuss the social and economic lives in various South East Asian port cities where many residents had to cope with these transnational crises. They do so through examining institutional measurements, rituals and festivals, communication, knowledge and information exchange as well as identity (re)construction. In addition, they explore how local communities responded to knowledge and information between the port cities and cities as well as inland locations. The chapters in this book offer solid grounds for future comparisons, not only based on a specific time or event but also on how society reacted over time, space, and various types of crises.