Recharting Chinese Business

This panel explores the role of networks in the transformation of twentieth-century Chinese business. From long-distance telephones and transnational circulations of management knowledge to Taiwanese investment in Jiangsu, these three papers analyze how new technologies, ideas, and sources of capital re-shaped both human networks and broader business environments. We are interested in questions such as: how have new sources of trans-local, -regional, and -national connections created both opportunities and challenges for ordinary Chinese entrepreneurs? What factors determined which individuals were best positioned to take advantage of new network possibilities? How have different Chinese regimes sought to encourage, channel, and/or control such forms of connection? And how have individuals on the ground complied with, resisted, and/or co-opted such state strategies? Together though, this panel’s papers underscore the irreplaceable role of connection and mobility in China’s journey to “wealth and power” over a tumultuous century.