The Haiphong Shipping Boycotts of 1907 and 1909–10: Business interactions in the Haiphong-Hong Kong rice shipping trade

Abstract

The main focus of this article is the Haiphong shipping boycotts of 1907 and 1909-10, which were conflicts over freight rates on rice that arose between several Chinese rice hongs in Haiphong (Hải Phòng), the main port in north-eastern French Indochina, and three European tramp shipping companies. When the firms, in 1907, set up a joint agreement unilaterally increasing the freight rates for shipping rice to Hong Kong, the affected merchants felt unfairly treated and boycotted the ships of the companies. Furthermore, in 1909, they formed a rival charter syndicate and set up a steamship company chartering the vessels of other companies to apply additional pressure on the firms to return to the previous rate. Although the Chinese suffered direct financial losses due to their insufficient expertise in this business, they were successful in achieving a considerable decrease in the freight rate on rice, which shows that boycotting, even when costly, proved to be an effective means to push for reductions and better arrangements with shipping companies. In contrast to a similar incident in the same trade - the shipping boycott of 1895-96 when the French government intervened with the Chinese government on behalf of a French shipping company - the later boycotts did not provoke the intervention of Western powers. This case suggests that growing anti-imperialism and nationalism in China, expressed in public discourses on shipping rights recovery and in the use of economic instead of political means, had an impact on the boycotts. Economic, not imperial, power determined the outcome of this struggle.