著者

水野 敦洋

出版者

政治経済学・経済史学会

雑誌

歴史と経済 (ISSN:13479660)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.63, no.4, pp.16-26, 2021-07-30 (Released:2023-07-30)

参考文献数

38

---

This paper clarifies the response of Japanese small- and medium-sized industries to international competition in the period between World War I and World War II. It focuses on producers of Japanese matches and their role in exports and local production for the Chinese market. Growth in this industry had been driven by exports throughout the Meiji era (1886‒1912). However, Japanese match production lost its competitiveness during the interwar period because of the growing competitiveness of less-developed countries and the establishment of international trusts. In the match industry, however, two mechanisms eased this situation. The first was the maintenance of domestic production through the introduction of foreign capital, and the second was local production through foreign direct investment. In the latter case, a number of manufacturers became local producers in China, which was a conventional export market. They increased their profit margins in the 1920s, compensating for the slump in Japan. The Japanese share of match production in China was by no means large. However, from the perspective of individual manufacturers, it was equivalent to the value of products exported from factories in Japan. Therefore, sluggish product exports and loss of overseas markets were not necessarily damaging to Japanese manufacturers. At the same time, Japanese manufacturers faced not only competition with Chinese manufacturers but also difficulties such as a series of boycotts of Japanese products. Furthermore, during the chronic recession in China in the 1930s, the entire match industry, including Chinese manufacturers, was on the verge of collapse. The match industry responded to this situation by forming a production and sales cartel through the mediation of Chinese merchants who traditionally dealt in match imports from Japan. This led in turn to the cooperative coexistence of Japanese manufacturers and Chinese manufacturers, which can be understood as the final phase of Sino-Japanese business relationships before the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The development of the Japanese match industry in China clearly differs from that of the cotton spinning industry, which is usually assumed to typify the prewar period. To understand the development of Japanese small- and medium-sized industries, which took place on a transnational scale, we must both product exports and local production.