Smuggling, Suppressing Smuggling, And Foreign Trade In China

South China had been an important area for foreign trade in China. With the prosperity of foreign trade, smuggling had also become a notorious social problem in South China. It had become more serious especially during the period from 1930 to 1949. In order to suppress the increasing rampant and unrestrained smuggling, as well as to protect the normal trade order, the central and local governments at the time took various measures to reinforce and improve the suppressing system, which resulted in success to some degree. However, with the special historical background and complicated sino-foreign trade relations, the official suppressing of smuggling was confronted with tremendous difficulties. Under the veil of suppressing smuggling, there hid the struggle for interests and benefits between various counties and groups. During this period, owing to specific national and international conditions, both smuggling and legal suppressing of smuggling had much bearing on foreign trade. To an extent, smuggling had become the major battlefield for foreign trade. Consequently, the slackening and reinforcement of smuggling suppressing on the part of the National Government played an important role in the prosperity and the recession of the foreign trade. The interaction between smuggling, smuggling-suppressing, and foreign trade, therefore, provides a new perspective for examining sino-foreign trade relationship and the history of sino-foreign relationship.In the induction of this paper, apart from a retrospect to the research achievement home and abroad on this topic, the research method and academic value have also been introduced. The main body of the paper contains two parts. The first part mainly discusses the interplay between smuggling and foreign trade in South China in this period. With the anti-Japanese war as demarcation lines, this period can be divided into three phases. In the pre-war phase, the smuggling in South China set off in the process of British and Japanese smuggling trade. During the war, the tremendous influx of Japanese smuggling goods went almost unchecked. The post-war phase concluded itself in the smuggling dumping of American commodities in the tide of the "every piece of goods was made in American". Three chapters are respectively devoted to the characteristics of smuggling and foreign trade in South China in these three phases. The first chapter, beginning with the features of foreign trade in South China in pre-war phrase, expounds the intrinsic relation between foreign trade and smuggling. The second chapter, focusing on the analysis of the role of smuggling and its impact on the trade war between the National Government and Japan, demonstrates the new features of smuggling and the fact that smuggling had become a weapon in the trade war between the two countries. The third chapter, after explaining the development of foreign trade in the post-war phrase and relating it to the changes of smuggling, reveals the reasons and manifestations of the increasingly rampant smuggling.The second part of the paper probes into various measures and means adopted by the National Government and local government for suppressing smuggling in the context of foreign trade and smuggling. The first chapter introduces the legislative system for suppressing smuggling fromlate Qing Dynasty to the pre-war period, which was the inchoate stage for suppressing smuggling and establishing related legislative systems despite the immature measures in every aspect. The second chapter depicts the legislative system for smuggling suppressing, as well as the different attitudes on smuggling on the parts of the National Government and Japan. Compared with the pre-war phase, the National Government in this period strengthened the legislative system for smuggling suppressing, resulting in numerous smuggling-suppressing organizations at all levels, and multifarious relevant laws. However, owing to the devastating war, the measures of suppressing smuggling could not to be implemented as usual, and the effect of suppressing measures was limited. The third chapter delves into the restoration and collapse of the National Government's smuggling suppressing system. The four chapter summaries the evolution of the National Government's smuggling suppressing policies in South China.Lastly, the paper sums up the jeopardy of smuggling and the experiences and lessons from the National Government's suppressing efforts. The paper suggests the suppressing of smuggling should be reinforced and improved from political, economic and cultural perspectives so that foreign trade in China can be developed without any hindrance.