2026-06-27 –, Room 302 (Seats 48)
This paper examines how French colonial intervention in rice exports during Asia’s rice crisis of 1919 created institutional conditions that facilitated speculation and contributed to the rise of Vietnamese nationalism. In 1919, international rice trade tightened sharply, and food shortages became acute across Asia. Major rice-exporting regions, including Burma, Siam, and southern Vietnam (Cochinchina), imposed export restrictions. In Cochinchina, the colonial government introduced a rice export quota between February and August and suspended private exports from September.
Under this regime, an anti-Chinese campaign erupted in Saigon in late August and spread to other cities in Indochina. Previous studies have emphasized the role of Vietnamese-owned newspapers in shaping public opinion, highlighting how Chinese traders were portrayed as profiting from the crisis through speculative activities. However, such speculation occurred within the institutional framework of export control established by the colonial state. This paper, therefore, shifts attention to the design and operation of that framework, drawing on archival records of the Rice Export Control Commission.
Established in February 1919, the Commission calculated monthly export quotas and issued licenses, allocating them at a two-to-one ratio between French and Chinese firms. While justified by the need to secure supplies for France after World War I, exports to France proved impractical due to high transport costs. Meanwhile, strong demand in other Asian markets increased the value of export licenses. The gap between institutional design and market realities generated a license premium, encouraging resale. Chinese merchants facilitated exports through license reselling, financing premiums either through commissions or by lowering the prices paid to Vietnamese producers. This system intensified rural hardship and, once exposed in the press, contributed to mounting nationalist resentment that culminated in the anti-Chinese campaign.
Rice trade, Chinese merchants, nationalism, rent-seeking
Masahiro Ikeda is an economic historian specializing in the political economy of rice trade and export in colonial Southeast Asia. He received his M.A., and Ph.D. in Economics from Kobe University, Japan. His research examines how environmental constraints, labor mobility, rice merchants, and colonial policies shaped the agricultural economy in the Mekong Delta during the first half of the 20th century.