Directory_and_Chronicle_1934 — Page 402

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CHINA.

FOREIGN TRADE

The whole foreign trade of China for 1932, as measured by value, was 1,542 million Haikwan taels; and the following table gives data for the comparison of the value figures of the three years 1930 to 1932 :--

1932 Million

Net Imports Exports

Total

Exeess of Imports

1930 Million

1931 Million

Hk. Tls.

Hk. Tls.

Hk. Tls.

1,310

1,434

895

909

1,049 493

2,205

2,343

1,542

415

525

556

In the first half of 1932 the League of Nations reported a decrease of one-third in the value of the world's trade as compared with the first half of 1931: the exact figure quoted by the League was 34 per eent., which was, as it happens, the precise percentage of decline between the totals given in the above table for China's foreign trade in 1931 and 1932. The percentage of the decrease is the same whether ealculated in silver as shown above or in gold dollars, sinee the equivalent of the Haikwan tael in gold dollars at the average sight exchange on New York was exactly the same for the two years in question, that is, G. $0.34 H.K. Tls. 1. All the figures for 1931 and 1932 in the table are, therefore, strietly comparable, and to make the 1930 figures comparable with those for 1931 and 1932 the following rate should be used: G. $0.46 The figures for the three years are of no eomparative value as they stand, owing to the great fall in the value of silver since 1929, but, as pointed out in the previous report, these statistics represent the true cost to China of her exchange of merchandise with foreign countries. The principal points to be noted from this table are that imports have deereased approximately 27 per eent, export by 46 per cent., and the total foreign trade by 34 per cent. as compared even with the distressingly low figures (low in terms of gold) for the previous year.

To arrive at a better understanding of the reasons for the decline shown in the above Value table it is necessary to summarise here a few of the known factors that influenced the trade of the year and the value placed on that trade. These factors were: the war with Japan in the Shanghai area; the secession of Manehuria and China's, loss of control over the Kwantung Leased Territory trade; the consequent intensification at most ports of the anti-Japanese boycott; the critical condition of world trade and the resultant lowering of demand for Chinese products; the lowering of both import and export commodity values on the latter account; the effect on the Value tables of monetary exchange rates with countries that have gone off the gold standard, and partieularly the effect on values of the drastie fall in the yen; the effect on values of the virtual "dumping" of goods into China by individual firms and/or countries in the desire to retain a hold on her markets; the effect on eertain seetions of the import trade of new protective tariff rates in China and the effect on exports of new protective tariffs abroad; the poverty-stricken condition of the Yangtze Valley and other areas as an aftermath of the great flood of 1931; the poverty induced by communist-bandit depredations in many provinees; the disruption of agricultural and industrial pursuits by these forees; the extra burden laid on trade in such districts by the necessary levies in support of communist-bandit suppression campaigns; and the eivil warfare in the provinces of Szeehwan and Shantung.

Of the first two factors which are considered as the most important ones relative to trade in 1932, one is of outstanding import; for, while Japan's invasion of the Shanghai area very gravely affected the country's eommeree during the year under review, the harm done by her intervention in the affairs of Manchuria, and by her disregard of China's rights in that part of Manchuria leased to her by China and known as the Kwantung Leased Territory, not only had its effeets during the year but will continue adversely to affect China's balanee of trade as year succeeds year if the situation thus created is perpetuated. The term "balance of trade" is used advisedly, becaused of the very great preponderance of exports over imports in the Manehurian section of China's trade. To make this clear it is only necessary to examine the Manchurian figures for the year under review, that is to say, those covering movements of cargoes that took place while the control of the Manchurian trade was still in the hands of the Chinese Maritime Customs during the first half of the year. A study of these statisties reveals the faet that imports through Man-

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