Ghassan Moazzin

2020 Charlotte, North Carolina

Abstract: Starting from the middle of the 19th century, Western bankers expanded their activities to East Asia. In both China and Japan, these foreign banks specialized in the exchange business, but also became involved in other business activities, such as the floating of loans for the Chinese and Japanese governments in Europe. However, despite similar beginnings, the development trajectory of foreign banks in both countries was very different. In China, foreign banks came to play an important role in the pre-WWI banking sector of the China coast and in Chinese public finance. In contrast, in Japan, foreign banks never came to rise to such a level of prominence and importance and largely remained marginal players in the Japanese banking sector and Japanese state finance. Using German, English, Chinese and Japanese sources, this paper will explore the reasons for these different development trajectories and present the first comparative study of foreign banking in modern China and Japan. It will first do so from the perspective of the foreign bankers and compare their perceptions of the Chinese and Japanese markets in terms of the potential for investment and the business environment they found in each market. Then, this paper will turn to situating foreign banking in modern China and Japan within the larger institutional development of the Chinese and Japanese economies and investigate to what extent Chinese and Japanese banking reforms or the lack thereof influenced the performance of foreign banks in both countries. By shedding light on the reasons for the differences in the growth of foreign banking in pre-WWI China and Japan, this paper will not only improve our understanding of the development of international banking in East Asia, but also provide a new perspective on the emergence of modern banking in China and Japan.

2021 Hopin Virtual Events Platform

Abstract: Electric light was first introduced into China in the 1870s. However, until the 1920s it were foreign companies and products that dominated the Chinese market for electric lamps. Only during the 1920s and 30s – the years before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 – did the Chinese electric lamp industry start to flourish and manage to compete with the established foreign firms and goods. This paper uses the case study of Chinese entrepreneur Hu Xiyuan and his Oppel Lamp Manufacturers Ltd., which pioneered early Chinese electric lamp manufacturing, to explore the hitherto understudied emergence of the indigenous electric lamp manufacturing industry in China during the 1920s and 1930s and its attempts of competing with foreign imports and manufacturers in China. In particular, this paper will focus on two aspects of the development of Oppel Lamp Manufacturers Ltd. First, it will discuss how Hu emulated foreign-produced light bulb technology and adapted foreign technological knowledge to the Chinese market managed to build up a successful light bulb manufacturing business that could produce light bulbs on an industrial scale. Second, this paper will show how Hu intentionally marketed his products as national Chinese (as opposed to foreign) commodities to gain an advantage against his foreign competitors, including the international Phoebus light bulb cartel that tried to dominate the global production and sale of light bulbs at the time.

2022 Mexico City

Abstract: As part of the roundtable discussion, this presentation will review the recent debates and methods in the business history of China.

2023 Detroit, MI, United States

Abstract: Following the introduction of the telephone in China in the late 19th century, an increasing number of Chinese cities established municipal telephone networks. However, while the first long-distance telephone line between municipalities was established as early as 1900, it was only from the 1920s that the establishment of long-distance telephone connections between urban centres accelerated. In particular during the Nanjing Decade (1927-1937), both provincial governments and the Chinese central government drove the expansion of regional and national telephone networks. This paper investigates the early history of long-distance telephony in China, which so far has been understudied in the scholarly literature, having primarily been covered in passing by broader works on telecommunications in early 20th century China. It aims to shed light on the early development of China’s long-distance telephone network from three angles: First, it comprehensively reconstructs the development of long-distance telephony from the turn of the 20th century to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Second, it uses social network analysis to explore the structure of the emerging Chinese telephone network on the regional and national level. Finally, it probes the impact of the spread of long-distance telephony on Chinese commerce and business and the development of regional and national markets.

2024 Providence, Rhode Island

Abstract: During the first half of the 20th century, a wide range of multinational telecommunications companies sought connections with China and concessions for wireless installations. Both during the period of Chinese fragmentation under the Beiyang government (1912-1927) and during the Nanjing Decade (1927-1937), when China once again had a relatively strong central government, British, American, Japanese and German companies competed for wireless concessions from the Chinese government. While previous works have focused on individual wireless companies or have looked at wireless competition from a mainly political angle, this article uses Chinese, Japanese, English and German primary sources to provide a comparative study of the business strategies of the British Marconi Company, German Telefunken, the American Radio Corporation of America and Japanese Mitsui in operating in China and marketing their wireless equipment there. Through this comparative study, this article hopes to make a contribution to our understanding of the development of wireless telegraphy in China the role of multinational companies therein.

2026 London

Abstract: When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, substantial parts of Chinese industry moved from the economically developed coastal regions to areas in Western China under Nationalist control. The involved firms and factories not only had to survive an arduous move across China, but, once they arrived, had to adapt to wartime conditions in a new environment and to economic interventions by the Nationalist state. This article focuses on China’s electrical and electronics industries, which had started to develop in the pre-war years and whose wartime trajectories have been understudied. The article probes how the two industries managed production in China’s interior; how they changed their business strategies to deal with wartime limitations and demands; and how state intervention shaped the two industries’ structure and practices. This article not only adds nuance to our understanding of the wartime development of Chinese industry but also provides an important case study for the impact of war and government intervention on the development of business outside of the West and Japan, themes highlighted in recent work by Austin, Dávila and Jones on the distinct “alternative business history” of developing countries.