中国砂糖の国際的位置 : 清末における在来砂糖市場について

抄録

This article has two main aims. First, to show the position of Chinese sugar on the world and domestic sugar markets during the period 1870-1930, and to demonstrate the historical path it followed in relation to trends in the contemporary world sugar industry. Second, to explain from the view-point of quality and technology why demand for Chinese sugar on the world market sharply declined after 1893 and huge quantities of foreign machine-made sugar began to pour into the Chinese domestic market. The history of Chinese sugar between 1870-1930 may be chronologically divided into four stages : (i) Export increase, 1870-1893. (ii) China's transition from a net exporter of sugar to a net importer, 1893-1895. (iii) Continual increase in imports of foreign machine-made sugar, 1900-1930. (iv) Formation of a double tiered domestic sugar market (for foreign machine-made sugar and native handicraft-made sugar respectively) in China, 1900-1930. One of the main characteristics of the world sugar industry during the second half of the 19th century was the rise and development of the large-scale sugar refining industry. In 1878 and 1884 two sugar refineries were established in Hong Kong with British capital. These two refineries, which mainly drew their supplies of raw sugar from Java and the Philippines, pioneered and developed the machine-made raw and refined sugar markets in China and Japan. After 1910 Japanese refined sugar, and after 1925 Javan white sugar poured into the Chinese domestic market and gradually ousted Hong Kong refined sugar. The market for Chinese handicraft-made sugar persisted despite being greatly diminished in size by increasingly larger imports of foreign machine-made sugar. This process is described as the formation of a double tiered domestic sugar market. For the purposes of modern sugar refining Chinese handicraft-made raw sugar, which had a high molasses content, was a low grade sugar with a low sugar content and low commercial net. It was unsuited to the needs of the world sugar market which in the late 19th century increasingly came to require high grade raw sugar for refining in large-scale factories. The reluctance of the Chinese to change their sugar manufacturing technology in order to raise the quality (i. e. sugar content and commercial net) of their sugar prevented Chinese sugar from competing on the world market with machine-made sugar produced in Java and other European colonies in Asia. But changing Chinese sugar manufacturing technology was not a simple task because production was based on an autarkic rural economy and the technology itself was geared to the needs of the Chinese domestic market which traditionally preferred sugar with a high molasses content. The interrelationship between technology and markets can be seen in the case of sugars from the Taiwan Fu and Dagou (Takow) districts in South Taiwan. Sugars of slightly different quality (sugar content and commercial net) were produced in the Taiwan Fu and Dagou districts for the North China and Japan markets respectively, and the price of these two sugars in turn expressed demands for them on these two markets. Any attempt to establish modern sugar mills in China would have to break through the interlaced structure of autarkic rural economy, technology and market upon which the sugar industry was founded. The fact that China did not possess technological and market conditions necessary for raising the quality of its raw sugar directly stimulated the sudden drop in demand for Chinese raw sugar on the world market and was one of the mdjor reasons for the decline of Chinese sugar exports during the 1890s. It also set the stage for the huge influx into the domestic market of cheap foreign machine-made sugar which followed later.