Journal Article

Money for Empire: The Yokohama Specie Bank Monetary Emissions Before and After the May Fourth (Wusi) Boycott of 1919

HORESH, NIV

2013

Overview

Over the last three decades, a considerable body of English-language academic work has shed much light on Japan's empire-building project in Greater China during the first half of the twentieth century. At the same time, Japanese-language studies of the country's pre-war financial history have also grown in leaps and bounds. Yet, to date, neither body of literature seems to have fully examined what might appear to the naked eye as one of the critical pre-war junctures, where Japanese financial history converged on imperial policy and Chinese nationalist responses thereto.1 This paper will therefore aim to fill part of the gap by examining how the Yokohama Specie Bank, arguably the backbone of Japanese finance in China Proper, was affected by Chinese anti-foreign boycotts throughout the pre-war era (1842–1937).

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Subject: 20th century / Academic work / Academic Writing / Banking / Banking industry / Banks / Boycott / Boycotts / China / Economic history / Empires / English language / Financial history / Historical analysis / International relations / Japan / Japanese history / Language / Money / Nationalism / Nationalists / Reserve requirements / Twentieth Century / War