爭取物資與統制貿易：論抗戰後期重慶國民政府的對外貿易政策

Striving for Materials and Controlling Trade: The Foreign Trade Policy of the Chongqing Nationalist Government in the 1941-45 Period

鄭會欣(Cheng Hwei-shing)

《中國文化研究所學報》 43期 (2003/01) Pp. 331-359

https://doi.org/10.29708/JCS.CUHK.200301_(43).0012

並列摘要

After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Nationalist Government, in response to the changing situation, formulated a number of policies in order to endure the hardship of the war. One of them was to control the international trade, which included state control on foreign reserves and export-import commodities, state monopoly on purchasing and selling agricultural and mining products with exporting values, establishment of state trade company, and monopoly on foreign trade. After the outburst of the Pacific War, the Nationalist Government in Chongqing further made revisions to its trade policy, adopting the principle of balancing the imports and exports as well as combining domestic and foreign sales. This article, based on a large amount of primary archival materials, analyzes the foreign trade policy of the Chongqing Nationalist Government during the period between December 1941 to August 1945 by focusing on a study of the Foreign Trade Commission (FTC) and its subordinate State Trade Company. The article begins with a review of the situation after the eruption of the Pacific War with a focus on the ＂War-time Ordinance on the Management of Exports and Imports.＂ It further explores the substantial revisions of its trade policy made by the Nationalist Government in response to the changing situation, and the adjustment in personnel and structure of the FTC and its subordinates. It then analyzes the achievements as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the trade control by the FTC by employing a large quantity statistics, and evaluates the problems caused by the economic control, including the loosening of the embargo, state trade control and management, price-setting of the monopolistically purchased materials, the operation and profit-making of the state agencies, and the corruptions of the state enterprises, etc. The author concludes that the state monopoly on the agricultural and mining products, which effected the daily lives of common people, in theory was against the principle of free competition and thus a retrogressive measure; but state monopoly on and management of crucial materials as well as control over the foreign reserves in wartime was a necessary measure and thus was a right policy Whether or not this policy was perfect and whether or not it was executed successfully is another issue. By and large, the causes for the faults arising from the state monopoly on purchasing and selling as well as managing the foreign trade were very complicate, which included problems with the system, man-made factors, and the traditions of Chinese culture. We should on the one hand point out the problems associated with this trade monopoly policy and further analyze their causes, but on the other hand, we should not deny the positive sides of the policy.