Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T02:28:23.885Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

China Unincorporated: Company Law and Business Enterprise in Twentieth-Century China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2010

William C. Kirby
Get access

Extract

On April 22, 1903, the qing court ordered zai-zhen, a Manchu prince; Yuan Shikai, the most powerful Chinese Governor-General of the realm; and Dr. Wu Tingfang, the former Chinese minister to the United States, to compile a commercial code. The edict charging them with this responsibility noted that “of the many government functions, the most important is to facilitate commerce and help industries” (Li 1974a:210). On January 21, 1904, the newly created Ministry of Commerce (Shangbu) issued China's first Company Law (Gongsilü)

The Company Law was the first modern law drafted by the Imperial Law Codification Commission, whose work was part of the Qing government's reformist “new policies” in the wake of China's recent humiliations at the hands of Japan and the Western powers. In giving highest priority to enacting a law governing the organization of commercial companies, the Qing government had several interlocking objectives.

Type
Coping with Shanghai: Means to Survival and Success in the Early Twentieth Century—A Symposium
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , February 1995 , pp. 43 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Allee, Mark A. 1994. Law and Society in Late Imperial China: Northern Taiwan in the Nineteenth Century. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bath, Vivienne. 1993. “Introducing the 'Limited Company'” China Business Review 20.1:50–54.Google Scholar
BergÈre, M. C. 1985. “Cycles of Modernization and State-Society Relations in Modern China (1842–1949)” In Shaw, Yu-ming, ed., Chinese Modernization San Francisco: China Materials Center.Google Scholar
BergÈre, M. C. 1987. “Chinese National Enterprises and the Sino-Japanese War: The Shenxin Cotton-Mills of the Rong Family” Paper presented to the Conference on the Archives and History of Republican China, Nanjing, October 1987.Google Scholar
BergÈre, M. C. 1989. The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie 1911–1937 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bernhardt, Kathryn and Huang, Philip C. C., eds. 1994. Civil Law in Qing and Republican China. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bosco, Joseph. 1992. “The Role of Culture in Taiwanese Family Enterprises” Chinese Business History 3. 1: 1–4.Google Scholar
Brockman, Rosser H. 1972. “Customary Contract Law in Late Traditional Taiwan.” Yale Law School Program in Law and Modernization, Working Paper No. 11.Google Scholar
BÜnger, Karl. 1930. “Ausländische Handelsgesellschaften in China und im Chinesischen Recht”Blätter für Internationales Privatrecht 5.4: 83–91.Google Scholar
BÜnger, KARL. 1933. “Das Recht der Handelsgesellschaften in China” Zeitschrift für das gesamte Handelsrecht und Konkursrecht 98.4:285–97.Google Scholar
Casson, Mark. 1991. The Economics of Business Culture: Game Theory, Transaction Costs, and Economic Performance. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chan, Wellington K. K. 1977. Merchants, Mandarins and Modern Enterprise in Late Qing China. Cambridge Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies.Google Scholar
BODA, Chen. 1946. “Zhongguo sidajia” [China's four great families]. Jiefang Ribao [Liberation Daily], November 18, 1946.Google Scholar
Chen, Zhen. 1961. Zhongguo jindai gongyeshi ziliao [Historical materials on China's modern history]. Vol. IV. Beijing: Xinhe sanlien.Google Scholar
Cheng, Linsun. 1994. “Entrepreneurship, Professional Managers and the Development of Modern Chinese Banks” Ph.D. diss., Washington University.Google Scholar
Yufeng, Cheng and Yuhuang, Cheng, eds. 1984. Ziyuan weiyuanhui dang'anshiliao chubian [Historical materials from the archives of the National Resources Commission, initial compilation]. Vol. 1. Taibei: Guoshiguan.Google Scholar
Chien, Tuan-Sheng. 1950. The Government and Politics of China, 1912–1949 Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cochran, Sherman. 1980. Big Business in China: Sino-Foreign Rivalry in the Cigarette Industry, 1890–1930. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Conner, Alison. 1990. “Legal Education During the Republican Period in China: The Comparative Law School of China.” Paper presented to the American Society for Legal History. February.Google Scholar
Cosgrove, Julia Fukuda. 1980. “United States Economic Foreign Policy Toward China, 1943–1946” Ph.D. diss., Washington University.Google Scholar
De Roover, Raymond. 1966. The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1367–1494. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Escarra, Jean. 1948. Introduction to Loi Révisée sur les Société's. Paris: Office d'information du gouvernement Chinois.Google Scholar
Fairbank, John King. 1992. China: A New History Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fang, Liufang. 1989. “Chinese Partnership” Law and Contemporary Problems 52.2–3:43–68.Google Scholar
Faure, David. 1989. “The Lineage as Business Company: Patronage versus Law in the Development of Chinese Business” In The Second Conference on Modern Chinese Economic History. Taipei: Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica.Google Scholar
Faure, David. 1991 “A Note on the Lineage in Business” Chinese Business History 1.2: 1–3.Google Scholar
Feuerwerker, Albert. 1958. China's Early Industrialization. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Folsom, Ralph H., et al. 1992. Law and Politics in the People's Republic of China. St. Paul: West Publishing.Google Scholar
Frus [Foreign Relations of the United States]. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Gardella, Robert. 1992. “Squaring Accounts: Commercial Bookkeeping Methods and Capitalist Rationalism in Late Qing and Republican China” The Journal of Asian Studies 51.2:317–39.Google Scholar
Gilpatrick, Meredith P. 1950. “The Status of Law and Lawmaking Procedure under the Kuomintang, 1925–46” Far Eastern Quarterly 10.1:38–55.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Gary G.Ziele, William and Kim, Wan-Jin. 1990. “The Network Structures of East Asian Economies” In Clegg, Stewart R., et al., eds., Capitalism in Contrasting Cultures. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Gary G. 1994. “Organization and Market Processes in Taiwan's Capitalist Economy.” Paper presented to the SSRC Conference on Market Cultures.Google Scholar
Huang, Thomas W. 1975. “Law and Economic Development in Modern China.” Doctor of Juridical Science diss., Harvard Law School.Google Scholar
Hung, William S. H. 1932. Commercial Law of China. Shanghai, n.p.Google Scholar
Imahori, Seiji. 1956. “Shindai ni okeru goka no kindaika no hasu” [Modernization of business partnerships in the Qing period]. In Toyoshi kenkyu 17.1:1–49.Google Scholar
Liangchen, Jiang. 1966. Xin gongsifa jingshi [Detailed explanation of the new company law]. Taibei: Xiandai xuerenshe.Google Scholar
Jiang, Ping. 1989. Gongsifa jiaocheng [Materials on company law]. Beijing: Falü Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Jones, William C. 1991. “Economic Regulation in the Qing Code” Manuscript.Google Scholar
Jones, William C. 1994. “Introduction.” In Jones, William C., trans., The Great Qing Code. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kirby, William C. 1990. “Continuity and Change in Modern China: Chinese Economic Planning on the Mainland and on Taiwan, 1943–1958” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 24:121–42.Google Scholar
Kirby, William C. 1992. “The Chinese War Economy.”In Hsiung, James C. and Levine, Steven I., eds., China's Bitter Victory: The War with Japan, 1937–1945. New York: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Kotenev, A. M. 1925. Shanghai: Its Mixed Court and Council. Shanghai: North China Daily News. Appendix, “Chinese Supreme Court Decisions Relating to General Principles of Civil Law, Obligations and Commercial Law.”Google Scholar
Lai, Chi-Kong. 1993. “The Qing State and Merchant Enterprise: The China Merchants' Company, 1872–1902.” In Leonard, J. K. and Watt, J. R., eds., To Achieve Security and Wealth: the Qing Imperial State and the Economy. Ithaca: East Asia Program, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Lai, Chi-Kong. Forthcoming. China's First Modern Corporation and the State: Officials, Merchants and Resource Allocation in the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company, 1872–1902.Google Scholar
Lai, In-Jaw. 1981. “Legal Problems of Parent-Subsidiary Corporations in Taiwan.“Doctor of Juridical Science diss., Harvard Law School.Google Scholar
Lee, S. Y. 1990. Money and Finance in the Economic Development of Taiwan. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Lee, Tahirih V. 1990a. “Courts and Commercial Dispute Resolution in Early Twentieth Century Shanghai.” Paper presented to the Association for Asian Studies. April.Google Scholar
Lee, Tahirih V. 1990b. “Benchmarks: The Courts of Shanghai, 1842–1949.” Manuscript.Google Scholar
Lee, Tahirih V. 1993. “Risky Business: Courts, Culture, and the Marketplace” University of Miami Law Review 47.5:1335–1414.Google Scholar
Leff, Nathaniel H. 1978. “Industrial Organization and Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries: The Economic Groups” Economic Development and Cultural Change 26.4:661–76.Google Scholar
Leff, Nathaniel H. 1979. “Entrepreneurship and Economic Development: The Problem Revisited”Journal of Economic Literature 17.1:46–64.Google Scholar
Levy, Marion J. Jr. 1949. “The Social Background of Modern Business Development in China.” In Levy, Marion J. Jr. and Shih, Kuo-heng, The Rise of the Modern Chinese Business Class. New York: Institute of Pacific Relations.Google Scholar
Li, Chun. 1974a. “The Kung-ssu-lü of 1904 and the Modernization of Chinese Company Law.” Zhengda faxue pinglun [Chengchi University Legal Review] 10:171–221.Google Scholar
Li, Chun, 1974b. Continuation of 1974a in “The Kung-ssu-lü of 1904 and the Modernization of Chinese Company Law.” Zhengda faxue pinglun [Chengchi University Legal Review]. 11:163–209.Google Scholar
Liu, Chang Bin. 1983. “Chinese Commercial Law in the Late Ch'ing (1842–1911): Jurisprudence and the Dispute Resolution Process in Taiwan” Ph.D. diss., University of Washington.Google Scholar
Ma, Yinchu. 1946. “Xin gongsi fa yu guanliao ziben” [New company law and bureaucratic capital]. In Shangwu ribao (Commerce daily), Chongqing, February 5. Reprinted in Ma Yinchu ping guanliao ziben [Ma Yinchu critiques bureaucratic capital] Chongqing, 1983, 136ff.Google Scholar
Mcelderry, Andrea. 1993. “Guarantors and Guarantees in Qing Government-Business Relations” In Leonard, J. K. and Watt, J. R., eds., To Achieve Security and Wealth: the Qing Imperial State and the Economy. Ithaca: East Asia Program, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Mei, Zhongxie. 1947. Gongsifa gailun [General introduction to company law]. Shanghai: Zhengzhong shuju.Google Scholar
Oi, Jean C. 1992. “Fiscal Reform and the Economic Foundations of Local State Corporatism in China” World Politics 45.1:99–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pomerantz-Zhang, Linda. 1992. Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Xiaoyi, Qin, ed. 1981. Zhonghua minguo zhongyao shiliao chubian: dui Ri kangzhan shiqi (Di san bian: zhanshi waijiao) [Important historical materials of the Republic of China: the anti-Japanese war period. (Ser. 3: Wartime foreign relations)].Vol. Ill, 707ff. Taibei: Dangshihui.Google Scholar
Redding, S. Gordon. 1990. The Spirit of Chinese Capitalism. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Ren, Donglai. 1988. “Lun 1946 nian Zhong Mei youhao tongshang hanghai tiaoyue“[On the 1946 Sino-American Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation]. Paper presented at the second conference on Sino-American relations, Nanjing.Google Scholar
Reute, Hans Hellmuth. 1940. Der Einfluβ des abendländischen Rechtes auf die Rechtsgestaltung in Japan und China. Bonn: Ludwig Rörschied Verlag.Google Scholar
Rowe, William T. 1984. Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Scogin, Hugh T. 1990. “Between Heaven and Man: Contract and the State in Han Dynasty China” Southern California Law Review 63:1326–404.Google Scholar
Yoshinobu, Shiba. 1970. Commerce and Society in Sung China, trans. Elvin, Mark. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies.Google Scholar
Jiulu, Sun. 1946. “Wei waiguo gongsi shiyi” [Clearing up doubts for foreign companies]. In Bokang, Zhu, ed., Xin gongsifa shiyi [Interpretation of the new company law]. Shanghai. Originally published in Shenbao, February 13.Google Scholar
Teesdale, J. H. 1932. “A Short Analysis of the New Chinese Company and Partnership Law”Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law 14:247–54.Google Scholar
ThÉ;ry, François. 1929. Les Sociétés de Commerce en Chine. Thesis, Université de Louvain. Tientsin: Sociéte Français.Google Scholar
Torbert, Preston M. 1994. “Broadening the Scope of Investment” China Business Review 21.3:48–55.Google Scholar
Ngan-Min, Tschen [Chen Anmin] and Mankiewicz, R. H.. 1946. “Le register de commerce en Chine.” Mélanges juridiques de l'Universite I'Aurore. Paris: Recueil Sirey.Google Scholar
Van Der Sprenkel, Sybille. 1962. Legal Institutions in Manchu China. London: The Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Watson, James. 1982. “Chinese Kinship Reconsidered: Anthropological Perspectives on Historical Research.” China Quarterly 92:589–622.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, Rubie S. 1985. Inequality Among Brothers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Xiaotong, Wang. n.d. Gongsifa [Company law]. N.p.: Shangwu yinshuguan.Google Scholar
Xiaowen, Wang. 1946. “Lun xin gongsifa zhi waiguo gongsi” [On foreign companies in the new company law]. Faling zhoukan [Law and orders weekly] 9.4. January 23Google Scholar
Whitley, Richard. 1992. Business Systems in East Asia: Firms, Markets and Societies. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Winn, Jane Kaufman. 1991. “Banking and Finance in Taiwan: The Prospects for Internationalization in the 1990s.” The International Lawyer 25.4:907–52.Google Scholar
Winn, Jane Kaufman, 1992. “Law and the Underground Economy in Taiwan” Chinese Business History 3.1:1–8.Google Scholar
Wolf, MARGERY. 1968. The House of him. New York: Meredith.Google Scholar
Wright, Tim. 1988. “The Spiritual Heritage of Chinese Capitalism ” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 19–20:185–214.Google Scholar
Guansheng, Xie. 1971. Zhanshisifa jiyao [Essentials of wartime legal developments]. Taibei: Sifayuan.Google Scholar
Zhaoyuan, Zhang. 1946. Xin gongsifa jieshi [New company law annotated]. Shanghai: Lixin.Google Scholar
Ziyuan weiyuanhui gongbao [Official gazette of the NRC], 1941–48.Google Scholar