中国における日本紡績業の形成

After the First World War, Japanese cotton spinning companies competed to hold mills in China. As a result, the Japanese spinning industry took a leading part in the export of private capital to China. The purpose of this paper is to inquire into the formation of the Japanese cotton spinning industry in China during the period leading to the First World War, and to reveal its characteristics. With Japan's winning of the right to holding industries in foreign settlements in China by the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty, two spinning companies were founded in China, though both were dissolved before spinning mills were constructed. The direct reason was that the Chinese Government attempted a taxation on manufacturing goods. However, there were more important reasons. First, the international status of Japan still lacked in stability in China. Second, wages were higher there than in Japan. Third, Japanese trading companies were not powerful enough to deal with raw cotton and cotton yarn. In the 1900's, some changes appeared. First, the North China Affair and the Anglo-Japanese Alliance raised the status of Japan in China. Second, wage levels in Japan gradually became higher than in China. Third, Japanese trading companies ceased from relying upon comprador and strengthened their business organizations. With these changes in the background, the Mitsuibussan Company, which accepted a part of capital of the Shanghai Cotton Spinning Co., Ltd. in 1902, undertook the management as its agent. The Naigai Wata, Co., Ltd. built a spinning mill in Shanghai and started operation in 1911. Both companies succeeded in management. Thus in the period prior to the First World War, the Japanese spinning industry in China was promoted by these trading companies, and Japanese spinning companies had little intention to hold mills in China. The reason was that production costs of cotton yarn were still higher in China, because productivity was lower in China, though wage levels had already become lower by then. Therefore, trading companies made up for these disadvantages by using their own trading organizations which dealt with raw cotton and cotton yarn. 0n the other hand, spinning companies, which did not have such advantages, rather sought a profit by increasing the export of cotton yarn to China. It was after the period when production costs sharply increased through the First World War that Japanese spinning companies began to hold mills in China.