Chinese Capitalists in Japan's New Order: The Occupied Lower Yangzi, 1937-1945 (review)

Until recently, studies of Nationalist China (1927-1949) have focused on the period before the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), with the unintended consequence of relegating major aspects of Chinese history after 1937 to historical insignificance. An extension of his earlier works dealing with prewar developments, Parks M. Coble's study of wartime experience of Chinese capitalists in Shanghai and the lower Yangzi area not only represents a significant step in filling this gap, but also makes a major contribution to our understanding of the Sino-Japanese War and its impact on Chinese capitalism.

Coble first contextualizes the wartime experience of Chinese capitalists by detailing the enormous destruction of property caused by the Battle of Shanghai (August-November 1938). Instead of fulfilling the requirements of the "patriotic nationalist narrative" that permeates the recent Chinese literature by relocating their factories to the interior, the majority of Chinese capitalists stayed in Shanghai under foreign protection and registered their companies as foreign concerns.

These actions meant that Chinese capitalists had to deal with the Japanese occupation authorities and their puppet regime. To help the reader understand the actions of Chinese capitalists, Coble reconstructs Japan's China policy. There were three phases in the evolution of this policy, which were characterized by destruction and attempts to control the economy of occupied China (1937-1938), efforts to reinvigorate the economy (1939-1942), and the policy's eventual collapse (1943-1945). Coble clearly shows that, during the second phase, "Japanese authorities strove to create an economy controlled by and complementary with the home islands. The role of Chinese capital was limited and subordinate" (p. 66). After the war reversals of late 1942, Japanese policy underwent a fundamental shift; occupation authorities made concessions to the Nanjing puppet regime, sought Chinese business participation in commissions of commodity control, and returned confiscated enterprises to Chinese owners.

In the core of this important book, Coble examines the experience of Chinese capitalists and their firms. Having explained the factors that influenced the actions of Chinese capitalists (such as Chinese nationalism, the type of business, and Chinese business culture), Coble offers fascinating case studies of the entrepreneurial experience in textile, consumer goods, chemical, match, and rubber industries to illustrate his analysis of Chinese capitalists' motives. For example, the war dealt a crippling blow to the Rong family enterprises, the largest Chinese enterprise in cotton textile and flour-making. The fighting destroyed significant portions of the enterprise's equipment, and the Japanese seized much of the remainder. Yet the Rongs survived and even earned substantial profits. As Coble shows, the experience of the Rong family did not fit the "patriotic nationalist narrative." The Rongs made little effort to relocate to the interior. Although they resisted dealing with the Japanese as long as possible, they cooperated when return of properties became possible. In fact, most industrialists in textile and consumer industries stayed in Shanghai and the lower Yangzi area and placed survival of their firms and families ahead of abstract concepts of nationalism.

In contrast, all three key chemical and match industrialists achieved recognition before the war, all were pressed to collaborate with the Japanese occupation authorities and their puppet regime, but all eventually left for Free China in conformance with the "patriotic nationalist narrative." That Chinese capitalists responded to the war in different ways is also reflected in the actions of rubber manufacturers. As a group, they most closely fit the collaborationist narrative. As Coble demonstrates, their strong connections to Japan, coupled with the Japanese control over supplies, made collaboration essential for rubber manufacturers.

A product of meticulous research using original sources in Chinese, Japanese, and English, this definitive study by a leading scholar of modern China reveals a great deal about the nature of Japanese colonial empire, the culture of Chinese business enterprise, and the...