Safely Supping with the Devil: The Qing State and Its Merchant Suppliers of Copper

SAFELY SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL: THE QING STATE AND ITS MERCHANT SUPPLIERS OF COPPER* Helen Dunstan Introduction Among the many merits of William T. Rowe's outstanding study of late Qing Hankow is that it has highlighted the concept of "privatization" as a key theme in late imperial Chinese economic history. Rowe represents privatization of the economy as a secular trend established by the seventeenth century if not before.1 "Privatization" in this context can, it seems, mean any or all of the following: the passage of specific state-run enterprises or sub-sectors into private hands; the overtaking of state enterprise by private enterprise in certain fields; the transfer of regulatory functions from government to guilds; and, in the salt and brokerage sectors, the opening to a broader public of opportunities previously controlled by limited, and highly powerful, elite groups portrayed by Rowe as extensions of the state bureaucracy, or "quasi-officials."2 A closely related concept that features in Rowe's study is "liberalization" , also represented as a long-term trend. Tendencies towards liberalization and even economic liberalism (or at least "non-interventionism") in Qing policies towards the grain trade have meanwhile been noticed by Kishimoto Mio and the present author. Kishimoto and Dunstan, however, have identified these tendencies specifically in the early Qianlong period, and do not see them as having undergone continuing development thereafter. They see at most an episode, and not a trend.3 "This paper owes a great deal to the encouragement and detailed criticism of the late Jennifer Cushman, who gave both with the warm-hearted generosity for which her memory is cherished. I have received useful comments also from Mark Elvin, Sue Naquin, Denis Twitchett, Hans Ulrich Vogel, and Late Imperial China's editors and readers. The unpublished archival material used in this article was collected in 1984 when I participated in an exchange program between the Australian National University and Beijing University. I thank both institutions, as well as the staff of the First Historical Archives in Beijing. 1RoWe 1984:200, 341. 2Rowe 1984:111, 120 and refs. there cited, 123, 177, 191-93, etc. 3Rowe 1984:180, 192-93, etc.; Kishimoto 1987:27-32; Dunstan 1988:Sects. 33, 36-37, 41-42. Late imperial China Vol. 13, No. 2 (December 1992): 42-81© by the Society for Qing Studies 42 Safely Supping with the Devil: The Qing State43 The purpose of the present case study is partly to show how, in the highly regulated and restricted mid-Qing Sino-Japanese trade, some degree of "privatization " (in approximately the first sense identified above) and "liberalization " took place in 1736-37. This too was, however, but an episode: in 1744 the trade was notably "de-privatized" (in, approximately, both the first and the last senses of "privatization" noted above). The story is a long and complex one, shedding considerable light on how the Sino-Manchu state conducted its business relationships, and on the influence of the Imperial Household Department on public policy decision-making. Although, for several reasons, it cannot serve as a test of the general privatization thesis, it does suggest a little caution. The reasons why privatization and liberalization were not sustained in certain areas could be as revealing as the evidence for the posited general trend. The Chinese side of the eighteenth-century Sino-Japanese trade was at all times ultimately dominated by the Sino-Manchu state. The state was the chief buyer of copper, the main return cargo brought from Nagasaki; the copper was required for the central government mints till 1737, and for provincial mints thereafter. Down to 1737, the state alternated between two principles for organizing the acquisition and delivery of Japanese copper. Under "bureaucratic management," officials were formally responsible for buying and delivering the copper, but it was merchants who procured the copper through the controlled trade at Nagasaki. Such merchants will hereafter be referred to as "supply merchants." "Bureaucratic management" prevailed down to 1700, and from 1716 till 1737. During the years of "merchant management" (1700-1715), by contrast, formal responsibility for purchase and delivery was made over to a handful of contractors, most of whom were merchant consortia (the most notable exception being...