The Business of Survival: Competition and Cooperation in the Shanghai Flour Milling Industry
研究了20世纪初美国与中国面粉商在上海市场的激烈竞争，以及中国面粉厂在面临美国进口冲击和自然灾害时，如何通过替代商业策略和合作措施维持生存。
At the turn of the twentieth century, American and Chinese millers were locked in a fiercely contested battle for control of China’s flour market. Imported American flour had dominated Chinese urban markets since the early 1880s, but the founding of a modern native milling industry in 1900 had initiated a commercial war that pitted the great flour corporations of the Pacific Coast against the independent mill owners near Shanghai. Although the anti-American boycott of 1905 had boosted sales for Chinese mills and sparked growth in the native industry, the period between 1905 and 1909 severely tested the ability of the young industry to survive foreign competition. A high silver/gold rate, low transpacific shipping rates, and bumper wheat harvests in the Pacific Northwest lowered the relative cost and enhanced the market appeal of American flour to Chinese brokers. Conversely, severe flooding in China’s wheat-producing regions forced curtailment or even cessation of production for some native mills. Facing catastrophic reductions in their wheat supplies and markets saturated with American flour, Chinese millers devised alternative business strategies and implemented collaborative measures to ensure the solvency of their mills.