Proposal for the 22nd Annual Conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies in Czechia
20–22 June 2025
Palacky University, Olomouc, Czechia
Panel Title: Maritime Trading and Commodity Frontier: Taiwan’s Business Network in Late 19th and Early 20th Century East Asia
Organizer: Lin Yu-Ju, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, National Taipei University, Taiwan
Co-organizer: Chiang Kuo-Yu, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Our panel experiments on bringing together the global research context centring around “commodity frontier” and the local research context of Taiwan’s economic history. The former unveils a horizon in which capitalism, as in a sense of human activities, commodified non-commodities against the backdrop of the Anthropocene. Meanwhile, the latter has accumulated a rich understanding about the trading network of the 19th to early 20th century, in which flows of capital and commodities can be identified and tracked. With this combination, our panel seeks to develop the concept of commodity frontier using a micro-historical approach that foregrounds flows of commodities in Taiwan’s transnational trading network. Since the late 19th century, this network had been developing to stretch across East Asia alongside the region’s expanding sphere of capitalism.
Global Research Context: Commodity Frontier
In a 2021 article in the Journal of Global History, a group of authors led by Sven Beckert argued that “commodity frontiers identify capitalism as a process rooted in a profound restructuring of the countryside and nature.” This scholarly tradition could be traced back to the 1980s, when theorists like David Harvey and Sidney W. Mintz reflected on the impact of globalization and modernization. Historians such as Kenneth Pomeranz, Alf Hornborg and Joan Martinez-Alier followed by offering narratives and analysis on the connections between extraction of natural resources and global transformation of power and wealth over the past 500 years. More recent individuals such as Jason W. Moore, Ulbe Bosma, Sven Beckert and Eric Vanhaute applied the idea of commodity frontier to examine the history of large-scale production, illustrating how the process of commodification impacted geopolitics and relationships between human beings and natural world.
Extracted from this scholarship was the fluidity of the boundary/scope of commodification, inside of which was an industrialized world where things could be scientifically produced, priced, and traded in the market. Thus, historically, the expansion of commodity frontier refers to the socio-political process that restructured and subsumed those previously non-commodified beings into the sphere of capitalism, including but not limited to plants like rice, creatures like bacteria, or “less developed” regions in the countryside. In contrast, the shrinkage of commodity frontier happens when commodities turn to be non-profitable and hence excluded from the production and trading network of human activities. Based on this perspective, commodity frontier implies two notions of scope expansion that could be used to examine the economic history of East Asia: the geographical expansion, and domain expansion of commodity frontier. Both were observable at a time when local trading networks were enlarging alongside the rise of the Japanese Empire, the first successful model of capitalist industrialization across the region.
Typically in the 19th century, geographical expansion of commodity frontier materialized itself by capitalist countries annexing, colonizing new territories, or including new locations into its trading networks. Thrusting from the core area of the empire to its peripherals, the sphere of capitalism pushed forward to cover new areas that were previously not penetrated by commodification. In Taiwan’s context, this means becoming a Japanese colony after the 1895 Sino-Japanese War and the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Since then, Taiwan was integrated as part of Japan’s trading and production regime under the imperial policy of “Industrial Japan, Agricultural Taiwan.” In this vein, local agricultural products became more commodified in general as against their previous autarky state. An example was the increasing scale of rice exportation throughout Taiwan’s colonial period.
In contrast, domain expansion of commodity frontier refers to things previously not traded becoming fungible in the market, thus adding new domains to commodification. For example, dust tea, or tea powder, being scraps of tea leaves, was originally a waste from tea production in pre-colonial Taiwan. Yet, driven by export-oriented tea production under Japanese rule, tea powder was then processed to be brick tea and exported to Russia. There was also a variation of domain expansion in which less, instead of not, tradable things becoming more commodified than ever alongside the introduction of capitalism. By analysing traded goods, our panel will present the drives that rose the level of commodification. These include export-oriented products like rice trading with Jappan, pre-colonial Taiwanese tea, re-exported goods like the Dutch pepper transshipment, as well as those imported to satisfy local demands like squids as seafood, and those sold to new territories like ginseng, the plant used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Local Research Context: Studies of the Taiyi firm
In our panel, a great portion of the materials utilized to discuss the above topics centre around the commercial documents of the Taiyi firm. Operating transnational wholesale business, Taiyi was founded in 1901 in Nagasaki by Chen Guoliang (1804-1908) and his son Chen Shiwang (1869-1940), who were originally from Kinmen, a nearby island of Taiwan. In 1865, Chen Guoliang first inherited shares from a relative and, since then, participated in the management of import-export trade ran by overseas Chinese. This trading network was later inherited by Taiyi, and massively expanded to across East Asia, stretching north to Russia and south to Thailand. The trading partners of Taiyi spread across Vladivostok, Korea, coastal ports of China, Japan, Taiwan, Manila in the Philippines, Indonesia, Penang in Malaysia, Bangkok, and Singapore. Although Taiyi ceased to operate in 1940 due to Chen Shiwang’s death and wartime difficulties, a substantial corpus of documents from the period 1862 to 1940 has survived the atomic bombing at Nagasaki and been preserved to this date. These are important historical source for researches into commercial practices, commodity exchanges, and clan history of merchants from the 19th to the 20th century.
In recent years, historians at Academia Sinica have restarted researching into the Taiyi documents after a decade of scholarly inattention, and thus brought a perspective overturn to the related fields. Emerged in the 1980s, the first wave of Taiyi studies situated the firm’s historical significance as a prime example of trading networks between Japan and Taiwan during the colonial period, centring around the activities of the Taiyi firm itself. This early scholarship includes Tso Ing-Ho, Ichikawa Shinai, Hsu Shu-Fen, Chu Te-Lan, Tang Shi-Yeoung among others. The recent wave of studies, started in the late 2010s and represented by Lin Yu-Ju and younger scholars at Academia Sinica, took a very different approach. By collective and hence extensive reading into the rich Taiyi corpus (comprising over 17,000 documents), historians has shifted focus to Taiyi’s trading partners across East Asia, which were localized firms that imported goods from the Taiyi firm and thus distributed them to downstream sellers, all while exporting locally procured products to foreign countries through Taiyi’s multinational network.
Three impacts can be identified with this new approach. First, the complexity of Taiyi’s trading network became visualized. Multiple localized commercial networks operated by partner traders across East Asia were found articulated to Taiyi’s Japan-based multinational trading network to facilitate flows of commodities and capital. Thus, the network was not only multinational but also multilayered, which gave it the ability to push forward the commodity frontier by incorporating new commodities from various locals or stretching to new geographical regions. Second, the detailed information about individual commodities became visualized through analysing trading records among Taiyi and its partners, which in turn rendered the domain expansion of commodity frontier observable. Third, the detailed records of cross-nation trading gave a “materialized” understanding of historical commercial practices. For example, historians now know of how currency exchanges and remittances were actually conducted at banks and ports in the early 20th century.
More importantly, the agency of merchants in the Taiyi documents serves as a lens of “history from below” that could be used to rethink our current knowledge about the Japanese capitalism or its imperialist expansion. From such an agency, historians gain the ability to reinterpret historical events through their influence over commercial practices and the reaction of merchants as well. This, by foregrounding non-state actors, enables a micro-historical approach capable of handling “big issues” like state policies, maritime wars, and tariffs without a fixation with colonial governance or post-colonial nation-state. For example, in our panel, Lin Yu-Ju’s paper “The expansion of Taipei rice trade to Japan during the Russo-Japanese War: the case of the Chen Yuan-Shun Firm at Dadaocheng” will elucidate merchants’ changing practices following the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, which not only boosted the commodification of Taiwanese rice, but also reshaped the island’s trading routes to neighbouring countries in merchants’ reaction to wartime tariffs.
The Value of Encountering
At the intersection of global and local research context, we believe our presentation can provide three contributions regarding commodity frontier and East Asian economic history. First, our panel mainly explores the historical process of frontier expansion in the 19th to early 20th century. Implicitly, we also reflected over the role of pre-capitalist trading organizations within this process, including traditional Chinese trading and clan societies, and business connections built upon blood ties and the language of Hokkien-speaking merchants.
Second, using the Taiwanese case, our examination indicates an implicit form of frontier expansion: the restructuring (or re-encoding) of pre-capitalism commodities to fit into the empire’s trading regime. Such commodities include rice, seafood, and medicines that were imported from or exported to China in the pre-colonial, feudalistic period, but were restructured to be depended on Japan-based traders. This process of restructuring involved changes in trading routes and the introduction of the imperial trading and production regime like tariffs, taxes and technologies.
Session Members and Paper Titles
Chair: Huang Fu-San, Adjunct Research Fellow, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
- Lin Yu-Ju, Research Fellow, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica; Professor, Department of History, National Taipei University, Taiwan
The Response of Taipei Rice Export Firms under the Impact of the Russo-Japanese War: A Case Study of Chen Yuanshun Firm
The Russo-Japanese War was the first international war that Taiwan experienced after becoming a Japanese colony. However, the impact of this war on the colony has received relatively little attention. In particular, from a microeconomic perspective, how did Japan’s wartime special taxation policies, the requisitioning of commercial ships for military use, and the overall economic climate affect individual traders and firms? How did these merchants respond and make decisions under such circumstances?
This study examines the impact of the Russo-Japanese War on rice exports by using the commercial correspondence of the Chen Yuanshun Firm from 1904 to 1906 in Dadaocheng, Taipei, as primary historical sources. It analyzes the firm’s responses to wartime taxation, shipping disruptions, and insurance mechanisms. Chen Yuanshun, which in 1899 became one of the first firms to engage in direct trade with Japan through Nagasaki Chinese merchants Chen Rui-chun and his son, faced various temporary policies and challenges brought about by the war. By analyzing its adaptations, this article sheds light on the broader historical significance of such responses.
This article finds that the Chen Yuanshun Firm actively capitalized on the surge in export trade between Taiwan and Japan, facilitated by the policies of the Japanese Empire and the colonial government. During the Russo-Japanese War, rising demand for rice led to price increases, while additional taxes and tariff protections further incentivized rice exports from Taiwan to Japan. As a result, the firm’s business flourished amid the wartime economic conditions. Chen Yuanshun Firm seized this business opportunity and quickly rose to become a major rice merchant in Taipei. However, to transport large quantities of rice to Japan, the firm had to navigate the challenges posed by wartime chaos in shipping and issues related to insurance.
- Huang Song-Wen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
The Birth of Formosa Tea Industry, 1865-1870
For decades, British merchant John Dodd in the late 19th century has been regarded as the pioneer of Formosa tea trade in the global market. However, with the significant expansion of worldwide tea trade after 1700, Formosa tea gradually joined the increasing ‘mixed tea’ market at some point of time before 1860 since its first exportation in 1689. Therefore, Dodd was actually not the first to export Formosa tea. Nevertheless, Dodd was indeed the first man to establish Formosa tea industry, including the introduction of the tea-purchasing system, the founding of the local tea manufactory, and the recruiting of skillful tea laborers.
However, many details concerning the above historical facts haven’t been explored deeper yet, including the financial supporters behind Dodd, the classification of Formosa tea goods, and the changing of the Formosa ‘mixed tea’ system. These details provide different viewpoints upon the emergence of the Formosa tea industry which deserve further research, especially the critical role of Dodd’s financial founders and the importance of the mixed tea system within the Formosa tea industry.
- Xu Hui-Wen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Maximizing Profits: Tax Avoidance Strategies of Taiwanese Han Medicine Merchants (1895–1934)
With the development of global commercial networks in the 19th century, the trade of traditional Chinese medicinal materials flourished across East Asia. Situated at the crossroads of Northeast and Southeast Asia, Taiwan gradually emerged as a key transit hub for this trade, with Taiwanese Han medicine merchants playing a crucial role in its expansion. However, this transformation was largely shaped by Taiwan’s colonization by Japan in 1895. In pursuit of maximizing profits in the Chinese medicinal trade, Han medicine merchants implemented a series of strategic business adjustments.
Initially, during the early years of Japanese rule, the government sought to restrict Taiwan’s trade ties with Qing China by imposing tariff regulations. However, it overlooked the fact that many medicinal materials originated from Qing China. To mitigate the impact of tariff reforms, Han medicine merchants adopted strategies such as stockpiling supplies in advance and importing lower-grade medicinal materials, ensuring business stability.
The outbreak of World War I further altered market dynamics, as shortages of Western medicine led to a surge in demand for traditional Chinese medicinal materials. This situation prompted Han medicine merchants to adjust their import strategies according to Taiwan’s market conditions. Moreover, cases of tax evasion—such as concealing medicinal materials or underreporting their value—began to emerge, demonstrating how international events influenced their business tactics.
Between the mid-1910s and the 1920s, Han medicine merchants discovered that by first clearing customs in Japan before re-exporting goods to Taiwan, they could legally reduce tariffs. This practice gave rise to a triangular trade system connecting China, Japan, and Taiwan, with Taiwan even serving as a springboard for exporting medicinal materials to Southeast Asia. However, as the Japanese government became increasingly aware of these legal tax avoidance strategies, customs regulations on medicinal materials were tightened. By 1934, business correspondence between Qianyuan Pharmaceutical Company and Nagasaki’s Taiyi Trading Firm reflected the decline of the triangular trade model.
Ultimately, this study highlights how Taiwanese Han medicine merchants, under Japanese colonial rule, leveraged their flexible business strategies to effectively minimize the impact of tariff regulations. Through the establishment of a triangular trade network, they were able to legally circumvent taxes and maximize their profits.
- Chiang Kuo-Yu, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Interwoven Networks: Jinyuanyi Firm’s Role in Connecting Local and East Asian Seafood Trade between Tainan and Nagasaki, 1908-1922
This paper examines the commercial correspondence between the Tainan-based Jinyuanyi Trading Company and the Nagasaki-based Taiyi Firm from 1908 to 1922 to analyze how Taiwanese merchants integrated international trade networks with local procurement and distribution networks to conduct import and export trade. It aims to illustrate how transnational trade in early 20th-century East Asia articulated with local commercial networks.
Since the 1980s, economic historians have regarded the trade between Nagasaki’s Taiyi Firm and Taiwan as a representative case of Japan-Taiwan trade during the colonial period, yet they assumed that this trade was primarily conducted through direct, bilateral exchanges between firms. More recently, Researcher Lin Yu-ju’s in-depth investigation of the Taiyi archives has revealed that its transnational trading network is multi-layered. Beyond Taiyi’s own extensive network, which spanned from Russia in the north to Singapore in the south, it maintained partner firms across various East Asian regions. These partner firms functioned as hubs, connecting Taiyi to local commercial communities through which international goods were distributed and local products were procured. Thus, local firms were distinguished as either core or marginal partners based on their degree of closeness to Taiyi. However, the activities of non-core local firms within this multi-tiered network have yet to be analyzed.
The focus of this study is the Jinyuanyi Trading Company, a small-scale seafood trading firm in Tainan, located on Wai-Xin Street and operated by Li Ming-Xing and Li Wen-Bo. Although not a core player in the local commercial network, Jinyuanyi imported seafood from Nagasaki and maintained business dealings with Taiyi’s other partner firms in Tainan. By analyzing the correspondence between Jinyuanyi and Taiyi, this paper provides a depiction, from the perspective of a small local trader, of the complex commercial interactions and import-export trade patterns among peripheral local firms, core local firms, and transnational traders within the early 20th-century East Asian transnational trade network.
- Chen Jung-Chen, Assistant Professor, Department of History, National Chi Nan University, Taiwan
Gold, Silver, and Pepper: Commercial Entanglements at the VOC Trading Post in Taiwan
In the early stages of their arrival in Asia, the Dutch viewed gold as a vital commodity for intra-Asian trade. Governor-General Jan Pietersz. Coen (1619–1623, 1627–1629) proposed the exchange of Indian textiles for gold and the trade of Chinese gold for sandalwood, pepper, and Spanish rials. This vision gradually took shape, and by the late 1630s, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) utilized Chinese gold as a key resource to expand trade in India, aiming to eliminate the need to transport funds from the Dutch homeland to Asia.
However, the export of Chinese gold was influenced by various political, economic, and sociocultural factors in China, making it difficult for the Dutch to exercise control. The annual gold quotas established by the company were rarely met by the Taiwan trading post, which often had to rely on Japanese silver as a substitute. This created additional challenges, as transporting silver to India incurred unfavorable exchange rates and limited the funds available for purchasing Chinese goods at Fort Zeelandia.
This study focuses on how the Taiwan trading post maximized its efforts to acquire gold despite supply-demand imbalances. For the Dutch, trading pepper for gold was considered the ideal strategy; however, the pricing of pepper was constrained by Chinese demand and competition among European merchants in Asia. Through this research, I aim to provide deeper insights into how the Dutch East India Company managed its financial operations through the Taiwan trading post and clarify the power struggles dynamics between the Dutch, the Chinese, and European merchants.