The Merchant Organization Under The Changes Of Institutional Environment In The Qing Dynasty

In Qing Dynasty, Sino-Russian Kyakhta trade, which was an important element of the Northern trade, played an important role in the trade history between China and Russia. In1728, China and Russia signed the "Treaty of Kyakhta", by which Kyakhta and Zulu Hay Tu were opened as the Sino-Russian border trade places, created conditions for the development of bilateral trade. With the abolition of Beijing trade and decline of the trade at Zulu Hay Tu during the reign of Qian Long, Kyakhta became the main market of Sino-Russian trade. In Kyakhta trade, the merchant organizations carried important economic function in different historical stages and played a key role in maintaining the normal order of the market.In the early Kyakhta trade, the Qing government had strong ability of market intervention and provided relatively effective protection of property rights for both parties in the exchanges. Then the Kyakhta merchant organization just acted as a vassal role, which is a supplement to the government’laws, and promoted the smooth development of Kyakhta trade under the favorable institutional environment. After the Opium War, however, the social and economic environment changed.Under the circumstances, the government could not provided effective property rights protection and its ability of mandatory intervention in the market was poor. On account of the high cost for individual merchant to attain property rights protection by self-implementation, merchant organization created by merchants themselves tried to act as the guardian of economic order so as to solve the negative problems such as disordered competition and conflicted interests. However, due to the restriction and influence of various factors, the historical facts showed that Kyakhta merchant organization didn’t assume this responsibility,which to a certain extent caused the decline of Kyakhta market.