1930年代における日本の在華置籍船

The Japanese government had long subsidized coastal shipping lines to ensure regular and efficient service. The government subsidies desiguated the line as well as the number and the type of ships. After the Sino-Japanese War, a liner strategy was shaped by the Navigation Encouragement Law and the Ocean Lines Subsidy Law to concentrate on overseas lines and near-seas services, but led to the coastal retrenchment in many local services and feeder lines. What happened to the unqualified ships during the recession in 1930s is the topic of this paper. Famous shipping companies, like Nippon Yusen Kaisha as well as Osaka Shosen Kaisha and Toyo Kisen Kaisha, operated trunk lines which were in the national interest with expanding empire. Other smaller firms operated tramps and charters on unscheduled routes freeing themselves from the government controls that accompanied the subsidies. They might have been able to exploit their opportunities more effectively against the competition on the shipping market with British companies in East Asia. The Japanese government tended to form "exclusive spheres" based on the doctrine of the 1930s, which had violated the principles of economic multilateralism and political cooperation of the Washington Conference system and provoked radical resistance of Chinese nationalism. The Washington system also led to a broad retrenchment program of shipping tonnage and imposed prohibitive tariffs on importing old ships into Japan. The companies turned to registering their ships in the ports of North China as well as Manchuria and diversified into foreign enterprises. After 1931, these ships were transferred to Chinese or Manchurian flags providing them the convenience to operate their businesses along China coast. When the war was beginning in the mid-1930s, the domestic market of Japan was opened to them again. These tramps carried goods between the core and the periphery of the Japanese Empire. The "core" consisted of industrialized areas, like Tokyo-Yokohama, Osaka-Kobe and Nagoya. Hokkaido, because it was not industrialized and because it had coal and iron ore, acted as the "periphery." Taiwan, the territories in South Manchuria and Korea were also peripheries of the empire because of their abundant natural resources. Both areas were parts of an integrated operation. The distinction of core and periphery also placed Japan and China within the context of the world economy. Thus, ships with flags of convenience were a veiled response by the shipping companies to the military ventures of Japanese empire against radical nationalism in China, and also reveal the realities of the different stages of industrial development between Japan and China.