Zhejiang conglomerate

This refers to a group of financiers and businessmen from Zhejiang Province (sometimes including Jiangsu Province) who dominated the Chinese economy in Shanghai, China's largest trading city, from the end of the 19th century to the 1920s. Since Shanghai was opened to the public with the Treaty of Nanking (1842), it has developed into China's largest trading city, with foreign traders and banks moving in, and eventually manufacturing industries such as the cotton industry also increased. As a result, China's traditional financial institutions, the money banks, became affiliated with foreign banks or banks with ethnic capital, and the Zhejiang Zaibatsu had the "Southern Four Banks" such as the Bank of China, the "Northern Four Banks" such as the Jincheng Bank, and various reserve banks (new banks that invest in companies). There was a considerable amount of overseas Chinese capital, and the overseas Chinese bank Du Yuesheng in Southeast Asia was particularly famous. When Chiang Kai-shek took power in 1927 based on the Zhejiang conglomerate, it was absorbed into the Four Great Families and no longer existed as a distinct group.

[Yuzo Kato]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

19世紀末から1920年代にかけて、中国最大の貿易都市の上海(シャンハイ)において中国経済を支配していた浙江省（江蘇(こうそ)省を含めることもある）出身の金融業者・実業家の集団をさす。上海は南京(ナンキン)条約（1842）で開港して以来、中国最大の貿易都市に発展、諸外国の貿易商や銀行が進出して、やがて綿工業などの製造業も増加した。そのため、中国の古くからの金融業である銭荘(せんそう)も外国銀行か民族資本の銀行の系列下に入り、浙江財閥の系列下には中国銀行など「南四行」、金城銀行など「北四行」や各種の儲備(ちょび)銀行（企業への投資を目的とする新しい銀行）などがあった。華僑(かきょう)資本が相当量入っており、とくに東南アジア華僑の杜月笙(とげつしょう)などが有名である。蒋介石(しょうかいせき)が浙江財閥を基盤として1927年以降権力を掌握すると、四大(しだい)家族に吸収され、独自の集団ではなくなった。

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