The Business of Survival: Competition and Cooperation in the Shanghai Flour Milling Industry

At the turn of the twentieth century, American and Chinese millers were locked in a fiercely contested battle for control of China’s flour market. Imported American flour had dominated Chinese urban markets since the early 1880s, but the founding of a modern native milling industry in 1900 had initi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Enterprise & society 2005-09, Vol.6 (3), p.364-394
Main Author: Meissner, Daniel J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
19th century
20th century
Archives & records
Boycotts
Business
Business structures
Business studies
China
Coasts
Competition
Cooperation
Economic conditions
Economic history
Floods
Flour
Flour milling industry
Flour mills
Foreign operations of US corporations
Founding
Grain milling
Grains
History
Imports
Industrial development
Industrial market
Industrial production
Industry
International trade
Markets
Milling industry
Owners
Sales
Solvency
Studies
Trade
Wheat
Wheat flour
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Summary:At the turn of the twentieth century, American and Chinese millers were locked in a fiercely contested battle for control of China’s flour market. Imported American flour had dominated Chinese urban markets since the early 1880s, but the founding of a modern native milling industry in 1900 had initiated a commercial war that pitted the great flour corporations of the Pacific Coast against the independent mill owners near Shanghai. Although the anti-American boycott of 1905 had boosted sales for Chinese mills and sparked growth in the native industry, the period between 1905 and 1909 severely tested the ability of the young industry to survive foreign competition. A high silver/gold rate, low transpacific shipping rates, and bumper wheat harvests in the Pacific Northwest lowered the relative cost and enhanced the market appeal of American flour to Chinese brokers. Conversely, severe flooding in China’s wheat-producing regions forced curtailment or even cessation of production for some native mills. Facing catastrophic reductions in their wheat supplies and markets saturated with American flour, Chinese millers devised alternative business strategies and implemented collaborative measures to ensure the solvency of their mills.
ISSN:1467-2227
1467-2235
DOI:10.1017/S1467222700014592