Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2014
In the mid-nineteenth century, a group of overseas Chinese businessmen created a private international remittance network linking the southeastern littoral zone of the Qing empire with the colonies of mainland and archipelagic Southeast Asia. Holding together this transnational network were Qiaopiju remittance firms that succeeded in controlling the remittance trade not by relying on traditional forms of economic organization or behavior, but by pioneering a unique combination of capitalist profit-making strategies, culturalist customer services, and flexible interfirm relations. The organizational structure and business practices of Qiaopiju allowed them to successfully adapt to and negotiate with the emerging regulatory regimes of the nation-state, colonial, and capitalist world systems in order to dominate the international remittance industry for more than a century.
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