| Modern Chinese chambers of commerce was the product of the times change. from 1902 up to 1949, Chinese chambers of commerce existed for nearly half a century, crossed the late Qing dynasty , the Peking Warlord Government and the Nanjing National Government. The development and evolution of Chinese chambers of commerce was a reflection of China's transition from a traditional society to a modern one,as well as the difficult transformation course.Nowadays, The study on the history of chambers mainly focused on the period of late Qing. Dynasty and early republican China, while the research in early Decade (1927-1937) of Nanjing Kuomintang Government is relatively few. Furthermore, the study on the Chinese chambers of commerce from 1930s to 1940s was even in a "virgin soil". This paper, based on lots of archives and newspapers at that time for information,tries to uncover the "mysterious yashmak" of the Chinese primacy commerce chamber—Shanghai Chamber of Commerce. The paper takes the last five years of Shanghai Chamber of Commerce(from 1945 to 1949) as a study period. In a macroscopical view, the paper attempts to discuss the activity and function of this merchant organization under the political situation after the victory of China Resistance War. In a microcosmic view, the paper attempts to breakthrough former mode in chambers research, which only focused on the organization but neglected the individual person who acted in it. This paper explored how the merchants could make use of the various resources, including commerce organization resources to adapted to survive in society. In a word, emphasizing the individual activity and their complex relationship is a trait of this paper.After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, in view of Shanghai's important economic position, the KMT Government immediately deployed to take-over the merchant organization under Wang Jingwei' s puppet power, and rebulid Shanghai Chamber of Commerce in a short period of time. KMT regime had been trying to control merchant organization at all times. Taking-over the Wangjingwei puppet power offered a good opportunity for Nanjing National government to "reshuffle" the merchant organization. By moving the "party member merchants" to predominate the chamber of commerce, KMT could carry out its controling intention. However, we could not deduce that the chamber of commerce had lost its nongovernmental characteristic. Although the merchant organization was under the control of the KMT party, the elites of the chamber was more interested in their own economic benefit than the party's . As a result, in the late 1940s, when KMT govermnent was sticking in the mud of inflation and intensified the exploitation on the merchants, the elits of the Shanghai Commerce Chamber resisted the government drastically and no longer meet the tax requirements of the Nanjing authorities.In the turbulent political situation of the late 1940s in China, Shanghai Chamber of Commerce had take a wide range of activities in national politics, economy and society realm. On economic aspect, as the main intermediary organization between the state and the market, chamber of commerce had played their economic functions such as propagandizing the government policy, protecting the benefits of the merchants, stabilizing the market order and harmonizing the relationship of the workers and the bourgeoisie. On political aspect, Shanghai Chamber of Commerce had appealed peace for China as early as the Political Consultative Conference was held in Chongqing. When the civil war was broken out, Shanghai merchant organization altered its standpoint according to the war situation. In local political affairs, by participating city council, Shanghai Chamber of Commerce affected the municipality policy. In state political affairs, Shanghai Chamber of Commerce strived for parliament seats and "legislative yuan" seats in order to influence the central policy of the KMT government. In social project, Shanghai Chamber of Commerce exhibited its great ambition too. The merchant elites rebuilt commodity show-hall, business vocational school, boy -scout organization etc, and republished the national journal of commerce and commerce daily. Although the activity of the Shanghai Commerce Chamber is extensive, because of the situation of the civil war and the severe economic crisis in China, its effects can only be limited.This time, with the rise of independent industrial associations and "economy industrialization" slogan , Nanjing Government promulgated the "Chamber of Industries Law". As chambers of industries were established in main citys in China, The chambers of commerce divided into two parts. As a result, the industry trade association, which was the former member of the chamber of commerce, now had to broke away form it and joined into the chambers of industries. This action is consequentially harmful to the chambers of commerce, and caused its status even lower.As the KMT government was replaced by the Communist regime, centered on how to deal with the new environment, the Shanghai bourgeois class was divided. Some capitalists went to Hong Kong and took a wait-and-see attitude as to the development of the situation, the others stayed in Shanghai and were ready to cooperate with the new Communist regime. The Communist Party strengthened to draw the capitalists together and promised that new government would allow the capitalism economy existed for quite a long period of time. When the CPC troops occupied Shanghai, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry joint together to keep the order of Shanghai city. Yet, the Shanghai Chambers of Commerce was replaced by the new Federation of Industry and Commerce which was influenced by the CPC power at last, helping the Communist Party of China to unite bourgeois class was the main aim of the Federation of Industry and Commerce, and the nongovernmental characteristic had to take a back set.
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