Game And Evolution: Exploring The Relationship Between Government And Merchant Of China Merchants’ Steam Navigation Company In Late Qing Dynasty(1872-1911)

China Merchants’ Steam Navigation Company is the first civilian joint-stockenterprises founded by the Qing Government under Li Hongzhang’s petition inWesternization Movement Period, which is a combination of conventionality andmodernity. Due to the uncertainty of economic and political environment in thattransition period, the company experienced many twists and turns in its development.Of which the relationship between government and merchant is the centralizedreflection. By researching the government-merchant relations of the company, wefound the following five aspects:Firstly, historically, the state monopoly in the imperial era expedites thetraditional officer-trader economy model and unification of officers and merchants,meanwhile it also provides an alternative approach to the government-merchantrelations of the company.Secondly, owing to the financial difficulties of the company, Li and themerchants adjust their policy to promote collective goal which makes them closerelated. However, their fundamental interests differ.Thirdly, for the discordance of their interests, the gaming between themaccelerates their relationship evolution. Their relationship experienced three stages:run-in period (1873-1884), alienation (1885-1902), break-up (1903-1911).Fourthly, the Privatization Movement in the company is a vivid picture of thestruggle between the authority and the merchants. The Privatization Movement is notonly a struggle for supremacy but also virtually the gaming between the authority andthe merchants. While, the logic behind the gaming is the state attempt to control andtransform enterprises by administrative measures due to fiscal needs.Lastly, the cord of their struggle is that the company inherits and strengthens thetradition of government and merchant in the history of China. The company operateslike a bureaucracy in its daily management: everything is under the disguise ofbusiness administration and development. The administrators have the power withoutconstraint; The company is occupied by power abuse and manipulative. The articlesof the association and regulations are advanced and modern, while the operationmechanism is traditional and out-dated. The pathological mechanism is essentially thesame as the Westernization Movement’s.