A Study Of Chinese Merchant Groups In Heihe Area In The Context Of Modern Sino-Russian Conflicts

Heihe, a border city in Northeastern China, is situated on the south bank of the Helongjiang River. Across this river is the second largest city in Far Eastern Russia, Bulageweishensike. Though not large, the City of Heihe is the northernmost self-opened commercial port in Late Qing Dynasty; though without a long history itself, it witnessed almost the whole development history of modern Sino-Russian relations.In the wake of the Treaty of Aigun signed in 1858, Heihe, which had been part of Aigun, officially became the border area of China and Russia. Since then, Heihe has suffered from various difficulties, going through such major social changes as the 1900 Massacres and the Russo-Japanese War. However, it is exactly due to these dramatic changes in international relations of politics, economics and trade that Heihe succeeded in transforming itself into a modern industrial and commercial city from an ethnic community. In the 1900 Massacres, Heihe [known as "Da Heihe Tun (Village of Great Heihe)" then] was burned down by the Tsarist Russian Army:and after the Russo-Japanese War, Japan and the Tsarist Russia both occupied Northeastern China with no intention to withdraw from the area. To increase the government’s financial revenue, keep foreign powers from violating the national rights and interests of China and ultimately regain the lost land, the Qing government began to implement the policy of opening commercial ports. Therefore, the construction of Heihe as a city started only when this policy was implemented in Late Qing Dynasty. In 1905,16 treaty ports were opened in Northeastern China, of which Heihe is the northernmost one. In 1907, Heihe was regained from the Tsarist Russia for reconstruction; in 1909, customs was set up there and commerce began to develop. Originally only a village of Aigun, Heihe has since then developed gradually into the political, economic and cultural center of the area and a key place for Sino-Russian trade exchanges as well.As a treaty port, Heihe has been significantly influenced by the merchants gathering there in large quantities in its social development. Through interviews and field research, the present author has collected a considerable amount of first-hand materials, a large part of which are archives of the local merchant groups in Heihe during the Republican period (1912-1949). These materials would well contribute to fully understanding the Republican Heihe merchant groups on one hand and to improving and perfecting researches of this kind on the other. In this thesis, the most important merchant organizations in Heihe area, the Heihe Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Chinese in Amur, are selected as the objects of study. This thesis aims to investigate the influences that merchant groups (chambers of commerce in particular) exert on the social, economic and cultural development of Heihe area by studying these merchant groups per se. In addition, this thesis attempts to explore the role that merchant organizations play in the development of modern Chinese society and the nature of this role by conducting an area-specific case study.This thesis consists of 5 chapters. Chapter 1 gives an introduction to the natural environment of Heihe, which provides the geographic conditions for the development of the commerce and merchant groups in the area. Chapter 2 looks at how the Heihe Chamber of Commerce was established and organized, touching upon such issues as its institutional makeup, its rules and regulations and above all, its personnel structure and its relations with the government and local non-governmental organizations, in order to have a clear understanding of its social context. Chapter 3 introduces Amur Province in Russia and the Chinese merchants there. Because of the special way the Sino-Russian trade exchanges were made, there are no distinct differences between local merchants in Heihe and the Chinese merchants in Amur-they not only resemble each other in terms of personnel structure, but have similar or even the same interest demand as well. The 4th chapter is the most important one of this thesis, focusing on the description and analysis of how merchant groups reacted to deal with various difficulties when faced with frequent and drastic changes in modern Sino-Russian relations. The last chapter makes analyses of and comments on the commercial activities of the merchant groups in Heihe area in modern Sino-Russian trade conflicts, reaching the conclusions of this thesis.