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Paper short abstract

Japanese Chambers of Commerce are overlooked political actors in modern and contemporary history. Their publications from the 1910s to1930s related or directed to China mixed commercial intelligence with policy advocacy, reflecting diverse interests and complex engagement with imperial policy.

Paper long abstract

Japanese business associations throughout modern and contemporary history are often overlooked actors, especially regarding their political dimension. Aside from acting as pressure groups representing business interests, they also produced a wide range of publications, some internally for the companies represented, some for the entirety of the chambers of commerce as a network, some in collusion with the institutions of the Japanese Empire, and some in engagement with local counterparts or targeting local public opinion. As Sunaga Noritake has pointed out in his work on the economic information networks of the Japanese Chambers of Commerce in Asia, previous research has focused on routes of information facilitated by government institutions, underestimating “private actor routes”. This was also the case for China.

The paper will introduce various publications by the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya Chambers of Commerce from the 1910s to the 1930s related or directed to China. On the surface, such publications all seem to have served exclusively the purpose of facilitating access to the Chinese market for the companies organized in those Chambers. The analysis, however, reveals an intricately complex relation with the policies of the Japanese Empire, ranging from complete affirmation and even criticism of a “too soft” stance towards “anti-Japanese” tendencies (since the “Twenty-One Demands” of 1915 and the May 4th Movement of 1919) to appeals for a more moderate approach and for more collaboration. Within the publications, “China hands” tried to assert their expertise and utilized the connections with Chinese counterparts. As Kubota Yūji has demonstrated in his work on loans to the Chinese Republic in the 1910s and 1920s, the approach by various Chambers, for instance by the Tokyo and of Osaka Chambers, could differ and lead to parallel lobbying attempts for opposite policies towards China. It will be argued that these publications were part of information gathering and sharing as well as of policy advocacy by the Japanese business world. Over time they increased in sophistication partially driven by the expansion of research bureaus within the Chambers.