Cooperation And Struggle

The modern Shaoxing Chamber of Commerce went through nearly half century from being built up in1905to being received by the new regime in1949. During the period, the fall of Shaoxing County had also caused the meeting of the Shaoxing Chamber of Commerce to a halt.But after the victory of the war, the Shaoxing Chamber of Commerce had being demobilized and restructured under the assistance and supervision of the National Government. The Shaoxing Chamber of Commerce, after the demobilization and reforming, tried to play its role on economic affairs and act as a competent middleman when communicating between the government and the merchant. In the face of all kinds of taxes and levies imposed by the National Government, it was necessary for the Shaoxing Chamber of Commerce to assist the government and tax bureau in tax affairs out of its own obligations and responsibilities; in addition, facing the unreasonable tax policy and unlawful tax behavior took by the government and tax bureau, the Shaoxing County Chamber of Commerce would stand on the position of merchants and fight for the businessmen’s lawful rights and interests with the government and tax bureau.Cooperation and struggle ran throughout the whole tax affairs, and the cooperation was based on the common interests of the County Chamber of Commerce and the government and tax bureau, that is, to maintain the normal economic order for the industry and commerce to develop. The County Chamber of Commerce would step on the load of fighting with the government and tax bureau, when excessive infringement of the legitimate interests of the businessman existed.As a legitimate organization of Shaoxing merchants, the Shaoxing Chamber of Commerce had participated and made efforts in local political, economic and social affairs, and left a rich historical documents. But for a long time, the Chambers of Commerce in the civil war, especially in small and medium-sized cities, had not been highly focused by the historians, and many studies focused on several main and large Chamber of Commerce organizations before the civil war. Based on the existing study and drew lessons from the past research achievements, this paper took Shaoxing Chamber of Commerce files as the main reference materials, used other county annals, historical accounts of past events and paper materials related to the Shaoxing Chamber of Commerce sufficiently, based on historical data, took the performance and activities of the Shaoxing Chamber of Commerce in local tax affairs between1945to1949as the observation angle of view, mainly discussed the relationship between the County Chamber of Commerce and the government and tax bureau from the activity process, and the reasons affecting the changes of the relationship. At the same time, this paper also paid moderate attention to the complex relationship between the County Chamber of Commerce and the Province Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Chamber of Commerce Organizations in other places, the County Council, and the merchants, and then analyzed the actual effect and result of the County Chamber of Commerce made in local tax affairs, its image and position, and finally made an introduction on its historical destiny after the civil war.