Year: 1998
Type: article
Abstract: Cheong sets out to examine the hong merchants of Canton from the late seventeenth through the eighteenth century and to correct the mistakes of traditional China scholars such as H. B. Morse.Using principally the records of the East India Company in the India Office, London, Cheong has reconstructed the case histories of 57 out of 87 well-known hong merchants over the course of seven generations.He finds three major periods of economic activity when trade with Europe evolved and increased, as did government efforts to control and tax foreign trade, A number of different mercantile strategies developed and declined over the 100-plus years surveyed here.Certain hongs came to specialise in European trade; merchants travelled less and became more like sedentary brokers.Cheong traces the development of the infamous cohong and details the financial dealings and ultimately the failure of many hongs.He also examines the activities of various officials who were involved with the trade and he details the intricacies of Ch'ing government policy at Canton.According to the introduction, the book represents a longterm labour of love.Its strengths lie in an exhaustive examination of the India Office files.Cheong provides lists of merchants, the names of their hongs, lists of hoppo(s), governors and governors-general (viceroys) of Kwangtung.It is somewhat ironic that the author employs English language records (plus a few in French) for an internal examination of Chinese trade, deliberately rejecting such Chinese sources as local gazetteers
Author: Linda Cooke Johnson
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1492537837