Abstract
This is to deal with the activities of Chinese merchants who settled in the city of Hakodate, a treaty port of Japan, with its opening for the international trade in 1854. Due to the fact that the marine products, especially dried or salted ones, were in great need among vast Chinese populace along the Yangtze River Valley, and that goods of high quality were almost solely available in abundance on the Hokkaido coast, the port of Hakodate was soon able to grow up to be an early and important center of the Sino-Japanese trade of the day. At the beginning, the pioneering group of Chinese in Hakodate were the mixture of those from Kwangtung and Shanghai-Ningpo areas. They came there as the compradors of the British or Anrerican firms who had their bases of business at Canton or Shanghai. But before long, the business was moved to the hands of merchants from Shanghai-Ningpo areas. As they came from the emporium of the East-Asian trade, and were well-equipped with capitals and full informations about marketing situations in inland China, their competitors were no match for them. This was also true with others like Western and Japanese dealers. At first, in order to improve their inferior trading position, the Japanese tried to organize both sectors of producers and wholesalers into a firm unity, and this won some partial success. Then, in accordance with the growth of shipping industry, the state-sponsored export-componies were established at Hakodate. They aimed at tight control of thorough processes of production, collection and shipping of Japanese sea-products. But again, with the luck of detailed informations about marketing processes, this plan ended in failure. The Russo-Japanese war marked a new stage in the history of this Sino-Japanese conflicts about the export of sea-products. With the acquirement of the fishing-ground of northern seas, Japanese grasped the chance to develope her fishing manufacture. The amount of products now set to grow to a tremendous size. Coincidentally, Japanese merchants in Hakodate formed the Chambers of Commerce, and later succeeded in integrating unions of producers, collectors and exporters into an united front. The Chinese countered this with the formation of their own Chambers of Commerce, or Chung-hua Hui-kuan. In parallel with such trends there was a new rising wave of nationalism in both countries. Finally the dead heat of commercial conflicts reached its climax during the early 1910s, and ended with the withdrawal of the main force of Chinese dealers to Shanghai at the end of the 1920s.
