淸末 駐漢城 商務公署와 華商組織

Abstract

Overseas Chinese in Korea originated from Chinese merchants at the end of the Qing Dynasty. As each Chinese merchant had to be a member of a group in order to run their business in Korea, the guilds in Seoul naturally became the center of this overseas Chinese society. In this way, Chinese merchants in the early Chinese society in Korea formed their groups centering on specific localities, and the structure divided into groups was a remarkable phenomenon. However, while complying with the goals of the organization of the Chinese Guild, the Chinese merchants wanted to form their own groups with culturally homogeneous members, separate the organization, and promote the group’s common goals. This is also probably the reason that they were grouped by locality according to the traditional principle of organization. As the guild was established for pursuing common goals, namely,the development and unity of the Chinese merchant association, it was the first private office launched mainly by Chinese merchants. Chinese merchants opened a center for discussing public affairs and recommended the representative of the guild. In addition, they collected 0.4% dues from the members’ trades and used it for the operation of the guild. Even boatmen agreed on the “Regulations on the Guild” stipulated by Chinese merchants for raising funds for the guild’s operation. This suggests that there were motives for voluntary participation. However,the selection of director, the representative of the guild, was initiated by the role of supervising the ground-leveling work for the Incheon settlement, and the official seal was paid for by the Commercial Affairs Office. Furthermore, half of the money for buying the guild building was borrowed by General Commissioner Chen Shutang from official funds. Considering these facts, the guild was launched not as a completely private organization but as “a semi-governmental”institution. Differing from pre-modern overseas Chinese who were irrelevant to state power, modern overseas Chinese grew in close connection with state power. Chinese merchants in Seoul were managed strategically by their homeland from the early period of overseas Chinese social organizations. On the other hand, Chinese merchants used state power by complying with the state’s political strategies actively. This provided a base for Chinese merchants to grow and surpassed Korean and Japanese merchants in Seoul where competition among Korea, Japan,and China was most fierce.