¹ The bulk of material used for this article is derived from the Political Archives of the German Foreign Office and the German Federal Archives, both in Berlin; the Diplomatic Archives of the French Foreign Ministry in Paris; the French National Archives of Overseas Territories in Aix-en-Provence; the Vietnamese National Archives Centre No. 1 in Hanoi, and the private Jebsen and Jessen Historical Archives in Aabenraa. Contemporary French and British newspapers shed further light on the case.

² Hsiao, L., China's Foreign Trade Statistics, 1864–1949, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1974, pp. 239–261Google Scholar: Number and Tonnage of Vessels, 2. Interport Trade [1872–1948].

³ A., F. F., ‘Foreign Shipping in Chinese Waters’, Chinese Economic Journal, vol. 8, no. 3, 1931, pp. 249–258Google Scholar; Otte, F., ‘Shipping Policy in China’, Chinese Economic Journal, vol. 8, no. 4, 1931, pp. 346–358Google Scholar; Headrick, D. R., The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford University Press, New York, 1981, pp. 3–14, 43–57, 129–149, 165–179Google Scholar; Fairbank, J. K., ‘Introduction: Maritime and Continental in China's History’, in The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 12: Republican China, 1912–1949, Part 1, Fairbank, J. K. (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983, pp. 20–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hsü, C. Y., The Rise of Modern China, Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 2000, 6th edn, pp. 433–434Google Scholar; Reinhardt, A., ‘Treaty Ports as Shipping Infrastructure’, in Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power, Bickers, R. and Jackson, I. (eds), Routledge, London, New York, 2016, pp. 101–120Google Scholar; Reinhardt, A., Navigating Semi-Colonialism: Shipping, Sovereignty, and Nation-Building in China, 1860–1937, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2018, p. 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁵ On Chinese junk shipping, see Reid, A., ‘Chinese Trade and South East Asian Economic Expansion in the later Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: An Overview’, in Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750–1880, Cooke, N. and Tana, L. (eds), Rowman and Littlefield, Singapore, 2004, pp. 28–32Google Scholar; Choi, H. S. H., The Remarkable Hybrid Maritime World of Hong Kong and the West River Region in the Late Qing Period, Brill, Leiden, Boston, 2017, pp. 16–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁸ A. Feuerwerker, ‘The Foreign Presence in China’, in The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 12, pp. 203–204; Osterhammel, J., China und die Weltgesellschaft: Vom 18. Jahrhundert bis in unsere Zeit, Beck, Munich, 1989, pp. 183–185Google Scholar; Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis, pp. 100–103. For recent discussions on the importance of Chinese intra-Asian trading networks, see Hamashita, T., China, East Asia and the Global Economy: Regional and Historical Perspectives, Grove, L. and Selden, M. (eds), Routledge, London and New York, 2008Google Scholar; Tagliacozzo, E. and Chang, W.-C. (eds), Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities and Networks in Southeast Asia, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2011CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bosma, U. and Webster, A. (eds), Commodities, Ports and Asian Maritime Trade since 1750, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndsmills, 2015CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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¹⁰ The Tonkin Shipping Company (Compagnie Tonkinoise de navigation) was set up in Haiphong in 1893 as an affiliate of Marty et d'Abbadie, founded in 1886 by Auguste Raphael Marty (1841–1914) and Édouard Jules d'Abbadie (1853–1904). In Hong Kong, Marty's trading firm, A. R. Marty, acted as agent of the Tonkin Shipping Company, which, in 1893, purchased two new British-built steamers and, in 1896 and 1898, four used steam tramps, employing them for its ocean-going services. In 1900, the Tonkin Shipping Company won the subsidy contract for the Kwang-chow-wan postal steamer service frequently linking Haiphong with France's leased territory Kwang-chow-wan (pinyin: Guangzhouwan; today: Zhanjiang) located in China's Kwantung Province. Another affiliate of Marty et d'Abbadie was the Subsidised River Shipping Service of Tonkin (Le service subventionné des correspondances fluviales du Tonkin), which from 1886 to 1906 employed a fleet of river ships operating on the Red River and its estuaries. In Haiphong, Marty et d'Abbadie had a dockyard and workshops for repairing ships. The history of Marty et d'Abbadie is only sparsely documented; the earliest substantial reference is to be found in the special edition of the Haiphong-based newspaper Le Courrier d'Haiphong: Supplément 1886–1895 au Millième Numéro du Journal, 24 December 1895, pp. 7–8. Brief overviews of Marty et d'Abbadie's commercial activities in Indochina and China and in the local context of Haiphong are available in R. Dubois, Le Tonkin en 1900, Société Française d’Éditions d'Art, Paris, 1900, pp. 288–301; G. Raffi, ‘Haiphong: origines, conditions et modalités du développement jusqu'en 1921’, PhD thesis, 2 vols, Université de Provence, 1994, Vol. 1, pp. 182–183; V. K. Tran, ‘L'industrialisation de la ville de Haiphong de la fin du XIXe siècle jusqu’à l'année 1929 (L'invention d'une ville industrielle en Asie du Sud-Est)’, PhD thesis, Université Aix-Marseille, 2017, pp. 186–192.

¹¹ The M. [Michael] Jebsen Shipping Company (Reederei M. Jebsen) was founded in 1878 in Apenrade, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, by Michael Jebsen (1835–99) and successively transferred its modern fleet of medium-sized merchant steamships to the Far East, where the ships were chartered by Chinese and European merchants to transport all sorts of cargo and passengers between coastal ports in East Asia. The Jebsen steam tramps were specially equipped for shipping bulk goods (rice, coal, wood, vegetables, and cattle), with a low draught capable of entering the typically very shallow Chinese ports. In 1885, after all ships had been transferred to Hong Kong, its steamer fleet numbered eight; in 1903–04, the company reached its peak with 17 ships, and by 1913, the company had 11 ships. Starting in March 1895, the principal agent of the M. Jebsen Shipping Company was Jebsen and Co. Ltd. in Hong Kong, owned by Jacob Jebsen (1870–1941, son of Michael Jebsen) and his business associate Johann Heinrich Jessen (1865–1931). Jebsen and Co. Ltd., having started in 1895 as a shipping agency and general trading company, soon occupied a leading position in foreign trade in China and Hong Kong. The early years of the M. Jebsen Shipping Company are dealt with in Hieke, E., Die Reederei M. Jebsen A.G. Apenrade, Hamburgische Bücherei, Hamburg, 1953Google Scholar; von Hänisch, A., Jebsen and Co. Hongkong: China-Handel im Wechsel der Zeiten 1895–1945, Private Print, Apenrade, 1970, pp. 25–41Google Scholar; Miller, L. and Wasmuth, A. C., Three Mackerels: The Story of the Jebsen and Jessen Family Enterprise, Hongkongnow.com, Hong Kong, 2008, pp. 8–21Google Scholar; Becker, B., ‘Coastal Shipping in East Asia in the Late Nineteenth Century’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, vol. 50, 2010, pp. 245–302Google Scholar; Becker, B., Michael Jebsen: Reeder und Politiker, 1835–1899: Eine Biographie, Ludwig, Kiel, 2012, pp. 165–370Google Scholar.

¹² Bach, M. H., ‘Randersskibe på Kinakysten’, Årbog 2014, Østjylland, Museum (ed.), Narayana, Randers, 2014, pp. 53–63Google Scholar.

¹³ Miller, M. B., Europe and the Maritime World: A Twentieth-Century History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012, p. 95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ Becker, B., ‘France and the Gulf of Tonkin Region: Shipping Markets and Political Interventions in South China in the 1890s’, Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, vol. 4, no. 2, November 2015, pp. 560–600CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The electronic version can be found at: https://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/e-journal/issue-16/becker, [accessed 11 July 2019].

¹⁵ Morse, H. B., The Guilds of China, Longmans, Green, London, 1909, pp. 55–56Google Scholar; Remer, C. F., A Study of Chinese Boycotts: With Special Reference to their Economic Effectiveness, Cheng-Wen, Taipei, 1966, pp. 1–20Google Scholar; Wong, S. K., China's Anti-American Boycott Movement in 1905: A Study in Urban Protests, Lang, New York, 2002Google Scholar.

¹⁶ de Kergaradec, C., ‘Rapport sur le commerce du port de Haiphong pendant l'année 1880’, in Cochinchine française: Excursions et Reconnaissances, no. 8, Imprimerie du Gouvernement, Saigon, 1881, pp. 261–276Google Scholar; Robequain, C., The Economic Development of French Indo-China, Oxford University Press, London, 1944 (the French edition was published in 1939), p. 117Google Scholar; Raffi, ‘Haiphong’, Vol. 1, pp. 26–118; Martinez, J., ‘Chinese Rice Trade and Shipping from the North Vietnamese Port of Hải Phòng’, Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, vol. 1, 2007, pp. 83–86Google Scholar; Brocheux, P. and Hémery, D., Indochina: An Ambiguous Colonization, 1858–1954, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2009 (the French edition was published in 2001), p. 85Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Marsot, A. G., The Chinese Community in Vietnam under the French, Edwin Mellen, San Francisco, 1993, pp. 22–34Google Scholar (the quote: p. 32).

¹⁸ Ibid., pp. 136–137 (the quote: p. 137).

¹⁹ Amer, R., The Ethnic Chinese in Vietnam and Sino-Vietnamese Relations, Forum, Kuala Lumpur, 1991, pp. 5–9Google Scholar; Dubreuil, R., De la Condition des Chinois et de leur Rôle économique en Indo-Chine, Saillard, Bar-sur-Seine, 1910, pp. 1–20, 111–112Google Scholar (the quote: p. 111).

²⁰ Robequain, The Economic Development, pp. 3–13; Raffi, ‘Haiphong’, Vol. 1, pp. 158–190; Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, pp. 76–80.

²¹ The Chinese congregations in Vietnam originated from the system of self-administered ‘bangs’ created in 1787 to allow the Vietnamese emperors to directly and indirectly control Chinese settlers. Chinese officers, called ‘bang truong’, chosen by members of the ‘bang’, were held responsible by the Vietnamese authorities for the good behaviour of their ‘bang’ members and for the payment of taxes. The French, renaming ‘bangs’ to ‘congrégations’, maintained the system; in Hanoi and Haiphong, two Chinese congregations, Canton and Fukien, were legally recognized by the French authorities. The heads of the congregations played a central role in the fields of public order and taxation, and in social and cultural activities. However, congregations were not permitted to engage in commercial activities. Dubreuil, De la Condition des Chinois et de leur Rôle économique en Indo-Chine, pp. 27–30, 33–40; Nguyen, Q. D., Les Congrégations Chinoises en Indochine Française, Recueil Sirey, Paris, 1941Google Scholar; Marsot, The Chinese Community, pp. 104–111, 114; Amer, R., ‘French Policies towards the Chinese in Vietnam: A Study of Migration and Colonial Responses’, Moussons: Social Science Research on Southeast Asia, vol. 16, 2010–12, pp. 57–62, 68–71Google Scholar.

²² Amer, ‘French Policies’, p. 62, Table 3: Number of Chinese in Vietnam 1879 to 1937 by regions, and p. 65, Table 6: Number of Minh-Huong/métis in Vietnam 1908 to 1944.

²³ After the creation of the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin, Haiphong saw a steady rise in population, mainly of Vietnamese people. Haiphong's total population was 15,100 in 1890, 18,325 in 1902, and 55,811 in 1913. While from 1890 to 1902, the percentage of the Vietnamese inhabitants rose from 58 per cent to 65 per cent, the percentage of Chinese fell from 37 per cent to 29 per cent, and the percentage of Europeans rose from 4 per cent to 5 per cent. In 1913, the Vietnamese constituted 81 per cent of the local population, the Chinese 15 per cent, and the Europeans 3 per cent. There was also a very marginal group consisting of only 72 people in 1913 who may have been Minh-Huong not born in Haiphong, Hanoi, or Tourane: see Raffi, ‘Haiphong’, Vol. 2, p. 338, Table 15: Population of Haiphong 1890–1929; the latter group is listed as ‘diverse’. Minh-Huong born in these cities had the nationality of their fathers according to the decree of 1883 issued by the governor-general of Indochina: see Amer, ‘French Policies’, pp. 64–65.

²⁴ In Annam and Tonkin, there were usually two rice harvests per year (in June and November), but due to the overpopulation of these regions and changing weather conditions, the rice supply varied, with the result that only the autumn harvest was suitable for exportation. G. Dauphinot, ‘Le Tonkin en 1909’, Bulletin Économique de l'Indochine, vol. 79, July–August 1909, p. 268; Inspection Générale des Mines et de l'Industrie, L'Indochine Économique, Imprimerie d'Extrême-Orient, Hanoi, 1931, p. 19.

²⁵ Infrastructural measures aimed at supporting large-scale trading included the construction of a three-kilometre-long canal cutting through the town, an exclusively European port situated on the Song Cua Cam and a Chinese port on the Song Tam Bac. Raffi, ‘Haiphong’, Vol. 1, pp. 163–169, 173, 182–220; Martinez, ‘Chinese Rice Trade’, p. 87; Tran, ‘L'industrialisation’, pp. 85–133.

²⁶ In 1898, the total number of ocean-going ships entering the port of Tonkin was 297, at 328,467 net register tons; in the same year, Saigon counted 458 vessels, at almost 1.2 million tons, and Hong Kong 11,058, at more than 13 million tons. In 1913, Hong Kong counted almost 21,867 vessels accounting for almost 23 million tons, while Saigon's number of vessels had increased to 583, at 1.7 million tons, and Haiphong's to 377 ships, at 487,139 tons. These figures demonstrate that despite Haiphong's economic development, it did not reach the levels of Hong Kong and Saigon, its neighbouring port cities in South China and Indochina. Raffi, ‘Haiphong’, Vol. 2, pp. 494–496.

²⁷ The Chinese in French Indochina were prohibited from engaging in any industry that directly competed with French investments. Therefore, they mainly engaged in the fishing sector, in trade, and in industries related to rice. In 1905 in Haiphong, 270 Chinese and 147 Europeans held ‘patents’ (trading licences); of the 1,657 licences issued to Vietnamese, most were in retail trades. Raffi, ‘Haiphong’, Vol. 2, p. 337; Martinez, ‘Chinese Rice Trade’, p. 89; Amer, ‘French Policies’, p. 72. For general aspects of Chinese rice trading, see Field, F. V. (ed.), Economic Handbook of the Pacific Area, Doubleday, Doran, New York, 1934, pp. 548–549Google Scholar; Purcell, V., The Chinese in Southeast Asia, Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1965, 2nd edn, pp. 190–199Google Scholar; Latham, A. J. H., ‘From Competition to Constraint: The International Rice Trade in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, Business and Economic History, second series, vol. 17, 1988, pp. 91–102Google Scholar; Elson, R. E., ‘International Commerce, the State and Society: Economic and Social Change’, in The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. Vol. 3, Part 1: From c. 1800 to the 1930s, Tarling, N. (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 119, 169–171Google Scholar. Recent works on rice exportation from French Indochina and the important functions of various Chinese merchant houses and their cooperative and competitive business relations with French colonial enterprises include Vorapheth, K., Commerce et Colonisation en Indochine (1860–1945): Les Maisons de Commerce Françaises, un Siècle d'Aventure Humaine, Les Indes Savantes, Paris, 2004, pp. 84–94Google Scholar; Brocheux, P., Une Histoire Économique du Viet Nam 1850–2007: la Palance et le Camion, Les Indes Savantes, Paris, 2009, pp. 79–81Google Scholar; Sasges, G., ‘Scaling the Commanding Heights: The Colonial Conglomerates and the Changing Political Economy of French Indochina’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 49, no. 5, 2015, pp. 1487–1489, 1494–1501CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goscha, C., The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam, Penguin, Milton Keynes, 2017, pp. 162–164Google Scholar. For the Hong Kong rice merchants, see Faure, D., ‘The Rice Trade in Hong Kong before the Second World War’, in Between East and West: Aspects of Social and Political Development in Hong Kong, Sinn, E. (ed.), Centre of Asian Studies, Hong Kong, 1990, pp. 216–225Google Scholar.

²⁸ ‘The Chinese in Tongking’, The Hongkong Telegraph, 3 January 1903; republished and translated in French as ‘Les Chinois au Tonkin’, Revue Indo–Chinoise, 16 February 1903, pp. 143–144.

²⁹ Raffi, ‘Haiphong’, Vol. 2, pp. 334–335, 604, 633; Fourniau, C., Vietnam: Domination Colonial et Résistance Nationale (1858–1914), Les Indes Savantes, Paris, 2002, pp. 646–647Google Scholar; Brocheux, Une Histoire Économique du Viet Nam, p. 79.

³⁰ Miller, Europe and the Maritime World, p. 90.

³¹ In 1902, a total of 336 vessels called at the port of Haiphong, of which 156 flew the French flag; 97, the German flag; and 27, the British flag; the 56 remaining vessels were unidentified and probably consisted of local junks and other small carriers. In 1905, German ships, with 92 calls, dominated the port of Haiphong, compared to 86 French and 29 British calls. Even in the following year, when rice exports reached their ten-year low, the German flag again had the upper hand with 105 calls, while the French fell back to 84 ships calling; only 19 ships British ships called at Haiphong. Raffi, ‘Haiphong’, Vol. 2, pp. 456, 603.

³² Diplomatic Archives of the Foreign Ministry [Affaires Étrangères Archives Diplomatiques, Paris, France]: AEAD, Correspondance politique et commerciale, 1896–1918, Nouvelle Série: Chine, vol. 548: René Teissier-Soulange (in charge of the French Consulate in Hong Kong) to Foreign Minister Stéphen Pichon (Paris), 24 April 1907. The Hong Kong Telegraph, 17 April 1909, reported on this agreement as follows: ‘It is a matter of little moment to the ordinary reader whether a written compact was entered into between the two foreign firms as to the freight rate to be maintained. To the shipper and the consignee, however, it was well-known that such an understanding existed and for the three years that the French and German firms ran steamers in friendly rivalry their uniform charge was one of 25 cents per picul.’

³³ J. Armstrong, ‘Conferences in British Nineteenth-Century Coastal Shipping’, in his The Vital Spark, p. 77.

³⁴ In 1872, Butterfield and Swire, a well-established British trading house in China, founded the China Navigation Company, which soon became the major shipping company in Far Eastern waters. On its history, see S. Marriner and Hyde, F. E., The Senior John Samuel Swire, 1825–1898: Management in Far Eastern Shipping Trades, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 1967Google Scholar; Miller, Europe and the Maritime World, pp. 88–93. In the consulted French, German, and British consular files, the shipping company is exclusively referred to as Butterfield and Swire or only as Butterfield, a modus operandi that is also used in this article.

³⁵ The Swire Archives, kept by SOAS, University of London, do not contain any relevant papers on such aspects.

³⁶ Wray, W. D., Mitsubishi and the N.Y.K., 1870–1914: Business Strategies in the Japanese Shipping Industry, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1984, pp. 378, 388–394CrossRefGoogle Scholar (the quote: p. 393); Gregg, E. S., ‘Vicissitudes in the Shipping Trade 1870–1920’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 34, no. 4, 1921, p. 613Google Scholar.

³⁷ Federal Archives, Berlin [Bundesarchiv, Berlin, Germany]: BAB, Auswärtiges Amt (AA), R901-12970: Consul Hans von Varchmin (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Bernhard Prince von Bülow (Berlin), 18 June 1906; BAB, AA, R901-17970: Consul Hans von Varchmin (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Bernhard Prince von Bülow (Berlin), 3 November 1906; AEAD, Chine, vol. 548: René Teissier-Soulange (in charge of the French Consulate in Hong Kong) to Foreign Minister Stéphen Pichon (Paris), 24 April 1907; BAB, AA, R901-17972: Johann Heinrich Jessen, Bericht über den Stand der südchinesischen Küstenfahrt [Report on the situation of coastal shipping in South China], 3 October 1907.

³⁸ The National Archives, Kew, UK: TNA, Foreign Office: FO 228-1729: G. W. Pearson, Acting Consul (Kiungchow), to Sir John Jordan, British Minister (Peking), 13 May 1909.

³⁹ Such hopes were indeed expressed in an article titled ‘Against the Germans’ published in June 1907 in the Haiphong press. Referring expressively to the ‘Entente Cordiale’—the Anglo-French entente of 8 April 1904—the writer stated that, thanks to this agreement, France in the Far East had the least to fear from Britain, whose successful struggle with Germany would also be beneficial and helpful for France. ‘Lettre d'Hoihow: Contre Les Allemands’, Le Courrier d'Haiphong, 5 June 1907. This newspaper, of which Marty was one of the founders in 1886, was the mouthpiece of the French community of Haiphong, representing its members’ specific views and opinions, with an emphasis on promoting local business interests. One of its frequently repeated issues was the fight against the project to replace Haiphong as the main port hub of Tonkin with another nearby location. G. de Gantès, ‘Coloniaux, gouverneurs et ministres: L'influence des Français du Viet-Nam sur l’évolution du pays à l’époque coloniale 1902–1914’, PhD thesis, 2 vols, Université de Paris VII Denis Diderot, 1994, Vol. 2, pp. 271–273.

⁴⁰ AEAD, Chine, vol. 548: French Minister Edmon Bapst (Peking) to Foreign Minister Stéphen Pichon (Paris), 10 June 1907.

⁴¹ Political Archives of the Foreign Office [Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin, Germany]: PAAA, Deutsche Botschaft in China (Peking II), Peking II-1174: Consul Dr Rudolf Walter (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Bernhard Prince von Bülow (Berlin), 25 June 1907; Jacob Jebsen (Hong Kong) to Consul Hans von Varchmin (Pakhoi), 13 February 1908.

⁴² ‘Hong Kong Shipping Firms Boycotted: Steamers Tied up at Haiphong: Rice Import Retarded’, The Hong Kong Telegraph, 28 November 1907.

⁴³ Norway, an independent European state after the dissolution of the Swedish-Norwegian union in 1905, by 1880 possessed a merchant marine with the third greatest tonnage in the world, a position that was narrowly maintained for a hundred years. By 1902, most Norwegian ships calling at Asian ports were steamers in intra-Asian trades, which developed into the most important sector. The most visited ports were Hong Kong, Bangkok, Shanghai, Singapore, and Saigon, all of them situated on the South China Sea. In 1907, Norwegian steamers were predominantly present in Bangkok, where they came second after the German flag. E. von Mende, ‘Die wirtschaftlichen und konsulären Beziehungen Norwegens zu China von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum 1. Weltkrieg’, PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln, 1971, pp. 218–219. Hsiao, China's Foreign Trade Statistics, pp. 239–261, has the number and tonnage of Norwegian vessels operating in intra-Asian trades from 1872 to 1946. Tenold, S., ‘Norwegian Shipping in the Twentieth Century’, in International Merchant Shipping in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: The Comparative Dimension, Fischer, L. R. and Lange, E. (eds), International Maritime Economic History Association, St. John's, Newfoundland, 2008, pp. 59–60Google Scholar; Brautaset, C. and Tenold, S., ‘Lost in Calculation? Norwegian Merchant Shipping in Asia, 1870–1914’, in Maritime History as Global History, Fusaro, M. and Polónia, A. (eds), International Maritime Economic History Association, St. John's, Newfoundland, 2010, pp. 207, 217–221Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ The Hong Kong Telegraph, 28 November 1907; AEAD, Chine, vol. 548: René Teissier-Soulange (in charge of the French Consulate at Hong Kong) to Foreign Minister Stéphen Pichon (Paris), 2 December 1907.

⁴⁵ National Archives of Overseas Territories [Archives Nationales d'Outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence, France]: ANOM, Gouvernement-Général de l'Indochine (GGI), vol. 19298: Report of Administrative Mayor P. Tournois (Haiphong), 13 October 1909.

⁴⁶ Wray, Mitsubishi and the N.Y.K., pp. 379–380.

⁴⁷ ‘Haiphong Shipping Boycott: Probable Compromise: Conference of Owners and Shippers’, The Hong Kong Telegraph, 9 December 1907; AEAD, Chine, vol. 548: Vice-Consul Joseph Beauvais (Hoihow) to Foreign Minister Stéphen Pichon (Paris), 26 December 1907. French export statistics at the end of 1907 show that this year was a turning point after a series of bad harvests and low export numbers in previous years. With 165,956 tons of rice shipped from Haiphong, it signalled the beginning of a period of good—even very good—harvests. The French flag, with 170 calls, again dominated the port of Haiphong, with the German flag registering 123 calls. The first appearance of Butterfield in the market was reflected in 58 ships flying the British flag, compared to a mere 19 vessels the year before. Raffi, ‘Haiphong’, Vol. 2, pp. 456, 602, 604, 633.

⁴⁸ Raffi, ‘Haiphong’, Vol. 2, pp. 456, 602.

⁴⁹ PAAA, Peking II-1175: Consul Dr Peter Merklinghaus (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Bernhard Prince von Bülow (Berlin), 27 April 1909.

⁵⁰ These Chinese emigrants (‘coolies’) were mostly free migrants leaving voluntarily for Dutch East India to work on the tobacco plantations of northern Sumatra. For the distinction between ‘coolie trading’ and the free emigration of Chinese labourers, see Sinn, E., Pacific Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, 2013, pp. 50–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵¹ PAAA, Peking II-1175: Consul Dr Peter Merklinghaus (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Bernhard Prince von Bülow (Berlin), 27 April 1909.

⁵² ‘Hong Kong Shipping Firms Boycotted: The Haiphong Rice Trade: Grain Importers Fight Shipowners’, The Hong Kong Telegraph, 17 April 1909.

⁵³ PAAA, Peking II-1175: Consul Dr Peter Merklinghaus (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Bernhard Prince von Bülow (Berlin), 27 April 1909; Consul Dr Ernst Arthur Voretzsch (Hong Kong) to Chancellor Bernhard Prince von Bülow (Berlin), 11 May 1909.

⁵⁴ ‘Le Boycottage des Chinois’, L'Avenir du Tonkin, 14 April 1909. This newspaper, sold in Hanoi and in Haiphong, was the mouthpiece of the French rural settlers (in French: colons) in Indochina, carried ‘racist aspersions on the indigenous peoples, impractical suggestions designed to forward the interests of their readers, and castigations, justified or not, of metropolitan and colonial policies and personalities’. Laffey, J. F., ‘Imperialists Divided: The Views of Tonkin's Colons before 1914’, Histoire Social/Social History, vol. 10, no. 19, 1977, p. 93Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Tam Sec Sam (譚植三) came from Sunwei, Kwantung Province, in southeastern China, a mainly agricultural region. Later, relatives brought him to Macao, the Portuguese territory in the Pearl River delta, where he made a living for many years by selling rice and grains. When travelling overseas, Tam also visited Indochina and Siam to study rice production in these regions. He later moved to Haiphong to engage in the Tonkin rice trading industry, which provided him with sufficient funds to purchase large tracts of land. After Haiphong was made a French concession (1874), Tam profited from increasing land prices and became wealthy, which gave him a leading position in the business sector of the rising port town. When increasing numbers of Chinese immigrants from Sunwei, Kwangtung Province, moved to Haiphong, Tam was supportive of their integration and initiated the local Chinese Chamber of Commerce for that purpose. It provided material support to Chinese immigrants along with funding for medical services; he was therefore thrice elected as its president. A capable leader of the Chinese community in Haiphong, Tam was apparently very popular among Chinese residents in Haiphong and enjoyed a good reputation. His Shun-Tai rice company (順泰) was headquartered in Hong Kong. From there, it exported at least 1.5 million rice bags, mainly to Japan. Wen Xiongfei 溫雄飛, Nanyang huaqiao tungshi 南洋華僑通史 [A Complete History of Chinese Immigrants in Nanyang], Dongfang yinshuguan 東方印書館, Shanghai, 1929, pp. 261–262; Yan Qu 嚴璩, ‘Yuenan youliji’ 越南遊歷記 [Travel Notes in Vietnam, 1905], in Wanqing haiwai bijixuan 晚清海外筆記選 [The Selection of Overseas Journals in the Late Qing Dynasty], Fujian shifan daxue lishixi huaquiaohsi ziliao xuanjizu 福建師範大學歷史系 (The History Department of Fujian Normal University) (eds), Haiyang chubanshe 海洋出版社, Beijing, 1983, p. 58.

⁵⁶ ‘Chronique de Haiphong: La Boycottage des Chinois’, L'Avenir du Tonkin, 9 May 1909.

⁵⁷ PAAA, Peking II-1175: Consul Dr Peter Merklinghaus (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Bernhard Prince von Bülow (Berlin), 27 April 1909; ‘The Shipping Boycott: Serious Situation at Haiphong’, The Hong Kong Weekly Press, 10 May 1909.

⁵⁸ PAAA, Peking II-1175: Consul Dr Peter Merklinghaus (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Bernhard Prince von Bülow (Berlin), 27 April 1909; ‘The Hong Kong-Haiphong Rice Shipping Trade’, The Hong Kong Telegraph, 23 April 1909; PAAA, Peking II-1175: Consul Dr Ernst Arthur Voretzsch (Hong Kong) to Chancellor Bernhard Prince von Bülow (Berlin), 11 May 1909.

⁵⁹ PAAA, Peking II-1175: Consul Dr Peter Merklinghaus (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Bernhard Prince von Bülow (Berlin), 21 June 1909.

⁶⁰ ’Chronique de Haiphong: La Boycottage des Chinois’, L'Avenir du Tonkin, 9 May 1909.

⁶¹ ANOM, GGI, vol. 19298: Translation of an anonymous letter received by Shun-Tai, August 1909; Auguste Raphael Marty (Haiphong) to Governor-General Antony W. Klobukowski (Hanoi), 7 September 1909.

⁶² National Archives Centre No. 1 [Centre des Archives Nationales No. 1, Hanoi, Vietnam]: VNA1, Résidence Supérieure au Tonkin, vol. 22476: Resident Superior p. i. Jules Simoni (Hanoi) to Prosecutor-General (Hanoi), 18 September 1909, and to Administrative Mayor (Haiphong), 18 September 1909.

⁶³ ANOM, GGI, vol. 19298: Report of Administrative Mayor P. Tournois (Haiphong), 13 October 1909.

⁶⁴ ANOM, GGI, vol. 19298: Resident Superior p. i. Jules Simoni (Hanoi) to Governor-General Antony W. Klobukowski (Saigon), 18 October 1909; VNA1, Résidence Supérieure au Tonkin, vol. 22476: Resident Superior p. i. Jules Simoni (Hanoi) to Prosecutor-General (Hanoi), 3 November 1909.

⁶⁵ The legalistic position of the French authorities towards Marty's solicitation, which helped them to avoid making any further investigation into the actions of the Chinese rice merchants, should also be seen in the context of the earlier attempt of Marty to win the support of the government-general against the alleged intrigues of Chinese merchants in Haiphong. Nine years before, in November 1900, the shipowner sent a long declaration to Governor-General Paul Doumer complaining about unfair competition and generally accusing Chinese merchants in Tonkin of frequently operating ‘secret coalitions and societies’ with the goal of ruining ‘the well-established companies which since long assisted our country [Tonkin] in its commercial expansion’. Explicitly referring to the incident of 1895–96 when Chinese shippers in Hoihow and Pakhoi boycotted his ships after setting up a charter syndicate, in his letter to Doumer, Marty strongly urged him ‘to take necessary measures to block their attempts’. The expert report on the issue was issued by M. A. Frézoule, director of customs and public companies (French: Douanes et Régies). It stated that there was indeed a Chinese coalition aiming ‘to exploit an entire trading sector to the exclusive profit of their congregation’. However, he regarded this combination as ‘a purely commercial operation’. Therefore, Frézoule was against restrictive measures, calling them ‘a constraint to the development of trade’, and recommended only that Marty be assisted by granting to his ships ‘all favours compatible with the regulations’. Since the file does not contain a reply from Doumer, Frézoule's verdict certainly settled the case. VNA1, Gouvernement-Général de l'Indochine, vol. 3158: Auguste Raphael Marty (Haiphong) to Governor-General Paul Doumer (Saigon), 20 November 1900; M. A. Frézoule, Director of Customs and Public Companies of Indochina (Hanoi), to Governor-General Paul Doumer (Hanoi), 10 December 1900.

⁶⁶ PAAA, Peking II-1175: Consul Dr Peter Merklinghaus (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (Berlin), 21 September 1909 and 26 January 1910.

⁶⁷ Jebsen and Jessen Historical Archives, Aabenraa, Denmark: JJHA, PS 1502: Michael Jebsen [called ‘Magge’, the younger brother of Jacob Jebsen] (Hong Kong) to Jacob Jebsen (Apenrade), 27 October 1909.

⁶⁸ JJHA, PS 1502: Michael Jebsen (Hong Kong) to Jacob Jebsen (Apenrade), 9 October 1909. Chau Yue Teng (周雨亭) (1872–1933), son of Jacob Jebsen's business associate Chau Kwang Cheong (周昆章) (–1908), was born on Hainan Island and, from about 1882, he was educated in an English school, the Diocesan Boys’ School in Hong Kong. He later joined his father's shipping company, Yuen Cheong Lee and Co. (源昌利), in Hong Kong, and in 1901 became the first comprador of Jebsen and Co. before the company was wound up during the First World War. Chau Yue Teng (1872–1933), in Wenchangshi difangzhi bianzuan weiyuanhui 文昌市地方志编纂委员会编, Gazetteer of Wenchang. Vol. 30: Biographies 文昌縣志, Fangzhi chubanshe, Beijing, 2000, p. 956; Becker, B., ‘Western Firms and their Chinese Compradors: The Case of the Jebsen and Chau Families’, in Meeting Place: Encounters across Cultures in Hong Kong, 1841–1984, Sinn, E. and Munn, C. (eds), Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, 2017, pp. 106–130Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ ‘Items from Tonkin Papers’, South China Morning Post, 1 September 1909.

⁷⁰ The Haiphong port statistics for 1909 clearly reflected the boycott, especially of the British and German ships. They show the relatively low total number of 333 ships entering the harbour, of which 146 were French (a slight increase from the year before); 75, German (the lowest number since 1896); and 43, British (almost half the number from the year before). Rice exports had dropped considerably to a total amount of 175,225 tons (of which 53,585 tons were exported to France and her colonies), compared to the 250,359 tons shipped the previous year (of which 29,665 went to France and her colonies). Raffi, ‘Haiphong’, Vol. 2, pp. 602, 633.

⁷¹ JJHA, PS 1502: Michael Jebsen (Hong Kong) to Jacob Jebsen (Apenrade), 27 October 1909.

⁷² Ibid.; PAAA, Peking II-1175: Consul Dr Peter Merklinghaus (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (Berlin), 26 January 1910.

⁷³ PAAA, Peking II-1175: Consul Dr Peter Merklinghaus (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (Berlin), 6 June 1910.

⁷⁴ JJHA, A01-01-300: Jacob Jebsen (Apenrade) to Johann Heinrich Jessen (Hong Kong), 28 April 1910; PAAA, Peking II-1175: Johann Heinrich Jessen (Hong Kong) to German Minister Arthur Count von Rex (Peking), 30 May 1910.

⁷⁵ JJHA, B10-02-0086: Memorandum of Agreement, issued in Haiphong, 10 May 1910 (copy of translation). This document seems to be the only remaining evidence of the agreement. The last sentence states that the ‘agreement is made and signed by either party in four copies, one copy for each of the THREE COMPANIES and another one copy for the Rice Hongs’.

⁷⁶ PAAA, Peking II-1175: Consul Dr Peter Merklinghaus (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (Berlin), 6 June 1910.

⁷⁷ ‘Hong Kong Shipping Firms Boycotted: The Haiphong Rice Trade’, The Hong Kong Telegraph, 17 April 1909.

⁷⁸ JJHA, PS 1502: Michael Jebsen (Hong Kong) to Jacob Jebsen (Apenrade), 9 October 1909; PAAA, Peking II-1175: Consul Dr Peter Merklinghaus (Pakhoi) to Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (Berlin), 23 August 1909.

⁷⁹ JJHA, A01-01-301: Jacob Jebsen (Apenrade) to Gustav Diederichsen (Hamburg), 20 November 1912.

⁸⁰ Reinhardt, Navigating Semi-Colonialism, pp. 16–19, 183–187.