Rice Shipping Trade in South China Sea (1880s-1914)

Abstract

In the period up to the First World War, East Asian rice shipping markets were dominated by foreign tramp shipping companies taking the largest share of ocean-going and river shipping activities. The participation of Western ships in regional trades was to a large extent to the mutual interest of foreign shipowners and Chinese merchants prominent in almost all ports-of-call in China and in Southeast Asia. As business and trading and also consular reports frequently demonstrate, the greater part of the cargoes of foreign vessels was shipped for the account of Chinese merchants active in domestic and coastal trades. The study of the organisation and conduct of coastal and river shipping businesses shed some valuable light on the relations between Chinese and foreign enterprise. In this field, tramp shipping companies rivalled each other in offering their services to Chinese shippers. This competition was also evident in the rice shipping trade from French Indochina to Hong Kong marked by the relatively smooth flow of surplus Vietnamese rice to Chinese markets. Based on French and German archival sources, the paper sheds light on almost unknown interactions between Chinese rice traders controlling sourcing and distribution of the important trade in a life-sustaining product, and European tramp shipowners providing the means of carriage.