Threads between communities : silk trade in Singapore, 1900-1941

• Main Author: Leong, Yoke Yann
• Other Authors: Goh Geok Yian
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2022
• Subjects: Humanities::History
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/155971
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This thesis traces the pattern of silk trade in Singapore from the years 1900 to 1941, during which Japanese silk goods dominated silk trade in Singapore. It examines the development of anti-Japanese boycotts among the Chinese diaspora and the process leading to the imposition of textile quotas as a result of the growth in Chinese nationalism and Japanese economic competition in Singapore. Through a focus on silk merchant communities, this study investigates the impacts that the boycotts and quotas had on Singapore’s silk trade. It explores how these merchants adapted the operations of their firms in reaction to the changing flows of trade. This thesis argues that different ethnic silk merchant communities used to be interdependent on each other to obtain silk goods from certain regions, but became more independent as firms established new routes for a more direct flow of goods due to the boycotts and quotas. In doing so, these merchants came to operate increasingly within ethnic boundaries.