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Opportunism for Survival: Steamship Teaboys and China's Wartime Shipping Industry, 1937–1941

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2023

Peter Kwok-Fai Law Open the ORCID record for Peter Kwok-Fai Law [Opens in a new window]
Peter Kwok-Fai Law*
Affiliation:
National Taipei University, Department of History, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
*
Corresponding author: Peter Kwok-Fai Law, Email: peterlaw@gm.ntpu.edu.tw
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Abstract

This article examines the correlation between union activism, crime, and violence in the shipping industry in wartime China. Drawing on diplomatic and police records, shipping manifests, periodicals, and newspapers, the article deals with self-employed unskilled steamship attendants called “teaboys.” With insight into Chinese civilians’ underground struggle, the article contends that, steamship teaboys sustained their livelihoods during World War II by operating as everyday low-level spies for rival regimes. As workers, steamship teaboys pragmatically, without evidence of politico-ideological considerations, accommodated the needs of different belligerents in exchange for their own survival. Moreover, this article argues that the drastic socio-political upheaval in wartime China made these marginally employed shipboard attendants increasingly inclined towards a utilitarian patron-client relationship, originally forged in the mid-1920s when unionization began, and continued at the expense of their native-place ties and fictive family bonds. Impacted by the patron-client relationship in a climate where workers’ interests were protected by the armed forces of various regimes, the teaboys viewed unions as competitive sellers of muscle power in a market for crime and violence in industrial unrest.

Keywords

teaboysservice workerssteamshipsunionizationSecond Sino-Japanese War

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Type
Article
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International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 105: Special Issue: Gender and Deindustrialization: Perspectives from European Case Studies , April 2024 , pp. 104 - 119
Copyright
© International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc., 2023

IntroductionFootnote 1

This article sheds light on the trade union politics of steamship “teaboys.” This self-employed, unskilled part of the service sector plied the waters in China's wartime shipping industry at least until 1941, after which sources become unavailable. Taking the part as low-level spies for rival regimes during the Second Sino-Japanese War, these shipboard attendants tended toward a pragmatic, patron-client relationship to survive. In the unionization process started in the mid-1920s, they aligned with state-sponsored unions at the expense of their biological or fictive family bonds, making unions competitive agents in a market where organized crime and violence reigned. The vulnerable teaboys, meanwhile, sought protection from political entities that were antagonistic to each other but that could provide them with patronage and pay. This situation parallels Shanghai silk weavers’ alliances with political organizations, which Elizabeth Perry has illuminated.Footnote 2

These male adult steamship servants, “chafang”—a term meaning a room where water is boiled and food prepared—were known in English as “teaboys” or “cabin boys,” a pejorative term used by expats. They provided food and beverages or handled sundry tasks aboard steamers.Footnote 3 Similar to what Philippe Burrin has termed “opportunist accommodation,” teaboys took advantage of conflicts between various wartime factions and worked for different belligerents in exchange for material and symbolic rewards. They were largely not driven by politico-ideological concerns.Footnote 4 Steamship teaboys therefore differed from colonial hotel and domestic service workers whose anti-imperialist efforts led Julia Martinez to describe them as part of the growing Southeast Asia labor movement inspired by communist or nationalist ideals.Footnote 5

The Exploitative Economics of Passenger Transport

The teaboy trade can be traced back to the aftermath of the unequal treaties between the Qing court and foreign powers whose vessels were granted freedom of navigation in Chinese waters from the mid-nineteenth century onward.Footnote 6 To cater to the needs of Chinese passengers segregated from their foreign counterparts and considered racially inferior,Footnote 7 ship compradors—Chinese agents contracting with shipping firms for passenger and cargo services—enrolled teaboys as self-employed service workers.Footnote 8

Steamship teaboys earned their livelihood in a highly exploitative employment system. Ship compradors recruited teaboys to work with no pay nor any resources.Footnote 9 Instead, each teaboy made a deposit, ranging from fifty to two hundred Chinese silver yuan in 1933, in exchange for a position. Compradors contracted to return this money if either side withdrew.Footnote 10 Steamship teaboys’ deposit money—not unlike hotel teaboys—often led to debt as repaying the large amount was an onerous task for a typical teaboy.Footnote 11 They worked around the clock serving passengers.Footnote 12 As well, teaboys were regularly required to hand over some of their income and pay fees to compradors who gave shipping firms a lump sum return for each trip.Footnote 13 Rather than being a part of a disciplined shipping company crew, teaboys were managed by exploitative compradors. Some foreign firms attempted to put them under their control in the late 1920s,Footnote 14 and ship captains were increasingly given more power over teaboys’ discipline in the early 1930s when companies began to reform passenger transport.Footnote 15 The ship captains’ power to supervise the teaboys was recognized by the pro-Nationalist Chinese Seamen's Union (CSU) that claimed that their men did not have to obey instructions from anyone but the captain in 1937.Footnote 16

The exploitative contractual terms did not diminish competition for a steamship teaboy position. Anyone, even an illiterate, could become a “competent” teaboy. Their tasks were rudimentary.Footnote 17 Lacking education and nautical skills,Footnote 18 teaboys were non-apprentice laborers unprotected by craft guilds and with little bargaining power over wages.Footnote 19 They sold a variety of foods, cigarettes, snacks, and bedding to passengers in both cabins and in steerage.Footnote 20 They also provided entertainment such as playing Mahjong,Footnote 21 or they introduced prostitutes to male passengers.Footnote 22 Although they did not engage in arduous physical work, they often carried passengers’ heavy baggage from the wharf to their cabins,Footnote 23 or delivered articles for different authorities or individuals.Footnote 24 Teaboy's standards of sanitation and tidiness were not equivalent to those of stewards, whose service had to comply with the strict criteria set by expatriate staff.

Low expectations aside, the income available made the teaboy trade attractive. Teaboys sold food and rented necessities and bunks often at a steep mark-up.Footnote 25 For example, they could charge two copper coins for a cup of tea in 1934.Footnote 26 Over and above their tea prices, however, were their unlawful activities such as extorting passengers for tips, or human-trafficking and smuggling.Footnote 27 These illicit activities engendered widespread hatred of steamship teaboys, not only causing fluctuations in the economic markets and loss of government revenue, but also threatening public safety across China.Footnote 28 Teaboys’ blackmailing and contraband trade provided them with income far greater than the earnings of skilled mariners and hotel or apartment teaboys. What they earned was comparable even to a middle-class income.Footnote 29 In the 1930s, it was quite common for a teaboy to have a monthly income of three to four hundred yuan, slightly higher than the salary of a university professor.Footnote 30 This amount was also far higher than the salary that a skilled head seaman could earn—one yuan per month in the early twentieth century.Footnote 31 Despite their low social status in Chinese society, their income attracted many to work as steamship teaboys.Footnote 32 According to union statistics, seven thousand teaboys were in active service in Chinese waters before the Second Sino-Japanese War.Footnote 33 The total number of attendants aboard a vessel could at times increase by more than 100 percent, to 120 teaboys—a figure that no steamer could support—because teaboys at different ports would get aboard and compete for jobs.Footnote 34 Overall, teaboys’ poor performance and behaviors made it difficult for them to secure wider support in labor disputes. This then paved the way for them to affiliate with different influential figures.

Solidarity Based on Kinship and Shared Local Origins

At the outset, solidarity between unskilled teaboys and skilled seamen was maintained because many Chinese crew members joined labor guilds tied to biological kinship or shared local origin. Ship compradors and senior seamen were empowered to recruit teaboys and skilled mariners respectively.Footnote 35 They usually looked for crew with a similar personal background as themselves and initiated preferential recruitment based on a blood relationship or native-place ties.Footnote 36 This contributed to the formation of different labor guilds where maritime laborers forged unity across different steamship sections.Footnote 37 Also, seafarers from various counties and towns joined native-place associations that promoted mutual assistance amongst townsmen and fellow villagers.Footnote 38 Native-place groups from Ningbo, Wuxi, Hubei, Suzhou, or northern Jiangsu conventionally stood for the interests of maritime laborers working aboard Shanghai-based steamers.Footnote 39

To seek more support, maritime workers also aligned with the Green Gang, which admitted members from diverse native-place backgrounds. This secret society, which formed mutual-aid networks during the Qing period,Footnote 40 was closely associated with the development of Luoism Luojiao—a local, salvationist religion with origins in Buddhism and prevalent among seafarers who transported grain to Beijing.Footnote 41 Many seamen were attracted to this religion for spiritual support.Footnote 42 Luoist tradition organized nineteenth-century seafaring gangs into different provincial fleet divisions, or “chuanbang”—that were diverse but shared local origins based on fictive kinship networks. These seafarers were incorporated into various divisions according to their native places, creating a broad representation of different townships in each fleet—a phenomenon that continued in the steamship era.Footnote 43 After the termination of grain transport services, out-of-work mariners filled the newly created positions on steamers actively controlled by the Green Gang, which inherited Luoist fleet divisions.Footnote 44 Green Gang seafarers were also bound by a pseudo-family hierarchy, leading to the formation of a fictive, hierarchical “family” network. Men with different native-place connections contributed to the formation of a nonblood family whose members were urged to comply with obligations and provide support for each other.Footnote 45

Trade unionism also merged with gang and secret society activity in the world of teaboys in Shanghai from the mid-1920s, contributing to the grafting of a new organizational, political format onto the teaboys. Similar to what Elizabeth Perry has noted concerning how the communists alternated between political activism and gangster brotherhood,Footnote 46 hundreds of shipboard attendants sided with communist cadres during the 1925 May Thirtieth Movement against warlords and imperialism.Footnote 47 The teaboys showed no particular interest in industrial action until they were deprived of employment by various strikes. Some out-of-work teaboys from Swire's steamers abandoned their work and went ashore to join the strikes. As they waited for financial support from the Shanghai General Labor Union (SGLU) led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), they rented a house in Pudong where they established their own union and started recruiting members.Footnote 48 Their labor activism was temporarily interrupted following the brief imprisonment of three teaboy leaders accused of subversion following the Guomingdang's (GMD; The Chinese Nationalists’ Party) violent purge of the communists in April 1927.Footnote 49

Trade Union Activists as Partisans and Spies

Changing political circumstance in China after its unification under the GMD's leadership in 1927 further encouraged a growth in the trade union membership of steamship teaboys. This fostered their political predisposition toward party politics and the establishment of individual pro-government labor organizations opposed to trade union interests.Footnote 50 These organizations came under the protection of various authorities in power. Teaboys formed two unions affiliated with the Chinese Seamen's Industrial Federation (CSIF) and its successor, the CSU union controlled by the Nationalist in Nanjing.Footnote 51 They came into being in Shanghai immediately after the 1927 Northern Expedition, when the defeated warlord Sun Chuanfang fled the city.Footnote 52 Unlike the nineteenth-century seafaring gangs attached to the Green Gang, these two attendant unions had an unprecedented diversity of native-place bonds among their members. The River Steamer Cabin Boys’ Union (RSCBU), active along the Yangtze River, was composed of three thousand attendants largely with roots in Jiangsu and Hubei in 1933.Footnote 53 Another union called the Ship Passengers’ Safety Association (SPSA) was mainly active onboard Shanghai-Ningbo steamers and consisted of around one thousand members in 1927. Although this association was dominated by members hailing from Ningbo, 12 percent of the total membership came from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and other parts of China.Footnote 54 (See table 1)

Table 1.

Unions with which Steamship Teaboys Were Affiliated until 1941Footnote 55

Table 1 terms: All-China Seamen's Federation (ACSF); Chinese Communist Party (CCP); Chinese Seamen's General Labor Union (CSGLU); Chinese Seamen's Spiritual Mobilization Group in Guerrilla Areas (CCSMGGA); Chinese Seamen's Industrial Federation (CSIF); Chinese Seamen's Union (CSU); Guomindang (The Chinese Nationalist Party) (GMD); River Steamers Cabin Boys’ Union (RSCBU); Shanghai General Labor Union (SGLU); Ship Passengers’ Safety Association (SPSA).

The two teaboy unions were governed by two different executive committees. In an election organized by the RSCBU union in May 1927, more than four hundred teaboys elected twenty-two council members who then chose eight executive union leaders.Footnote 56 Those teaboys ranked below the level of the council committee also elected a new chief foreman and deputy aboard each vessel. General assemblies discussed broad issues; minor concerns were determined by members aboard each steamship.Footnote 57 The SPSA union also shared a similar hierarchical structure, with an addition of five supervisory board members.Footnote 58 The RSCBU and SPSA unions were initially affiliated with the Shanghai branch of the CCP-backed CSIF union, which was taken over by the GMD after April 1927, and subject to the influence of the GMD's Guangzhou clique. It was renamed the CSU and put under Nanjing's absolute control after 1932.Footnote 59 These teaboy unions, whose members were first granted seaman status by the communists,Footnote 60 offered a wide range of benefits to their members.Footnote 61

The teaboys’ increasing predisposition toward party politics led to the construction of patron-client relationships in the shipping industry from the late 1920s. The RSCBU union teaboys—affiliated with the pro-Guangzhou CSIF union—and their SPSA counterparts, who shifted their loyalty to the Nanjing-backed SGLU union after 1927, presumed that their financial contribution to the umbrella union would mean they received unconditional support.Footnote 62 The teaboys not only constituted a majority of the CSU membership in the 1930s, but also paid the most fees to this union.Footnote 63 Any teaboy who failed to join and support the union financially would be bullied and dismissed.Footnote 64 This trade-off established a new precedent in the teaboys’ world. Easily corrupted, it paved the way for the unequal treatment of various attendants under the aegis of politicians and gang leaders. These figures included Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's subordinate, General Yang Hu, who commanded the Peace Preservation Corps and the pro-Nanjing CSU union, Zhao Zhizhi, a Cantonese official who controlled the CSIF union, and Du Yuesheng, a prominent Green Gang leader who dominated the SGLU.Footnote 65 Even after the GMD's takeover of China in 1927, some union-affiliated teaboys, who were imprisoned during the purge of the communists, benefited from union pressure on the police to release them.Footnote 66

Despite teaboys’ active participation in politics, ideals or philosophies of political parties was not what motivated them. Although the communists persuaded some attendants to join the CSIF union when it was under the CCP control,Footnote 67 the teaboys soon saw the CCP as powerless following its suppression by the GMD in 1927.Footnote 68 This was evident when communist cadres failed to solicit support from the teaboys in the industrial action against Swire in February 1933, after the company dismissed over one hundred teaboys from the SS Wusong.Footnote 69 After the CCP's rout in 1927, teaboys sought to buttress the Three Principles of the People—a political philosophy developed by Sun Yat-sen. Their actions often contradicted Sun's ideals, however, as the teaboys continued smuggling goods and drugs and failed to financially support the union. As well, their shift of allegiance to Japan was at odds with the principles of minzu (nationalism) and minquan (democracy). This stance of the teaboys not only undermined China's efforts to free itself from imperialist occupation, but also deprived workers of the freedom to choose their delegates.Footnote 70 Despite teaboys’ lack of enthusiasm for ideology, they still differed from what Alain Roux has explained about Shanghai syndicalist workers who dismissed political ideals but were less likely to ally themselves with political figures.Footnote 71 The teaboys maintained affiliation with various authorities that could reward them and sustain their livelihoods.

The pre-war patron-client relationship between teaboys and government officials continued during the recession in the shipping industry caused by the Second Sino-Japanese War. Although cargo and passenger services in Chinese waters continued intermittently until the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, shipping activities, especially those in the lower Yangtze, were predominantly overseen by foreign companies, and were later monopolized by the Japanese.Footnote 72 In the first eleven months of 1942, teaboys constituted more than half of the 272 unemployed maritime laborers,Footnote 73 a level of unemployment due largely to the intermittent suspension of passenger service because of the war.Footnote 74 The lack of skills among teaboys also worked against them as cargo vessels operations depended on a crew's expertise.Footnote 75 Some crew members of the Swire company were illegally detained and others fatally wounded during military operations.Footnote 76 Many Chinese seamen, and especially teaboys, suffered great misery and homelessness in Shanghai.Footnote 77 Such miserable conditions forced their fight for survival; they became dependent on anyone who could save them from unemployment during the war.

Yet the wartime patron-client relationship between attendants and powerful individuals differed in two ways from those of the Nanjing decade—the period between 1927 and 1937, when China made significant socio-economic progress under Chiang Kai-shek's leadership. First, the political struggles between the teaboys intensified during the war. Instead of only being involved in conflicts between the CCP and the GMD and within the Nationalists’ regime, wartime teaboys also confronted the Japanese. In the areas under their control, the Japanese provided teaboys with jobs aboard their fleets. While pro-GMD CSU union staff-in-exile ran a passenger service between Yichang and Changsha,Footnote 78 the Japanese and Nanjing's Reform Government—the predecessor of Wang Jingwei's Reorganized National Government—funded two pro-Japan shipping companies that operated almost ninety vessels in China.Footnote 79 Aside from shipping, the belligerents also backed maritime unions with which teaboys were affiliated, attempting to divide the labor movement. Teaboys were attached to the Chongqing-backed Chinese Seamen's Spiritual Mobilization Group in Guerrilla Areas (CSSMGGA),Footnote 80 the Japanese-led Chinese Seamen's General Labor Union (CSGLU),Footnote 81 and the All-China Seamen's Federation (ACSF), a seamen's association affiliated with Wang Jingwei's collaborationist administration.Footnote 82 Membership of the unions included teaboys from diverse native-place backgrounds, often overlapping with their counterparts in rival organizations.Footnote 83 Again, Alain Roux's observation are valuable: Many unskilled workers in wartime had to accept assistance provided by any party, including the Japanese.Footnote 84

Second, the methods for maintaining the relationships differed from those they had in various political assemblies or the GMD, which they supported monetarily during the Nanjing decade.Footnote 85 Before the war, the union-affiliated teaboys, aware of the extravagant tastes of General Yang Hu, ingratiated themselves by paying union dues, which gave Yang a part of his income.Footnote 86 The relationship was mainly sustained by the financial subsidies provided by political patrons rather than by teaboys’ bribes in exchange for work or protection at work.Footnote 87 To raise funds for their comrades in Shanghai, pro-GMD CSU union staff inaugurated a passenger service between Changsha and Yichang, paying each out-of-work maritime worker 6 yuan per month.Footnote 88 The Chinese Seamen's Spiritual Mobilization Group also received a monthly allowance of 100 yuan.Footnote 89 As for the pro-Japan CSGLU union, it reportedly received a monthly stipend of 600 yuan from the Japanese-backed Shanghai Municipality,Footnote 90 and 1,000 yuan from the Japanese Military.Footnote 91 Similarly, Wang Jingwei's collaborationist regime provided funds for its own seamen's union ACSF, whose executive members were entitled to 300 yuan per month.Footnote 92 Also funded by Wang's administration, local seafarers’ organizations in Shanghai were allotted more than 100 yuan per month over three months from June 1940.Footnote 93

In return for the subsidy provided by their trade union patrons, union-affiliated teaboys engaged in partisan and spying operations. Their wartime political activity even involved physical confrontations. Teaboy Shao Xubai, a SPSA union delegate to Chongqing, maintained close relations with GMD officials in exile.Footnote 94 Reports indicate that the maritime workers affiliated with a Chongqing-backed field service corps engaged in logistics and military operations against the Japanese during the early phase of the Battle of Shanghai.Footnote 95 Apart from distributing anti-Japanese leaflets and preventing work stoppages,Footnote 96 Shao also made good use of his pre-war connections in the pro-GMD SGLU union to organize postal and maritime workers. As part of a Special Action Corps engaged in intelligence gathering and sabotage, they joined in the resistance to the Japanese.Footnote 97 Any defectors who worked for the Japanese might feel the wrath of Shao's resistance activities.Footnote 98

Meanwhile, Shao's counterparts working for the Japanese assisted in the kidnapping of Chongqing intelligence personnel hiding in Shanghai. In fact, Wang Jingwei's administration and the Japanese Special Service worked together to arrest and assassinate suspected agents and returning government officials.Footnote 99 As an integral part of Wang's collaborationist regime, the ACSF was involved in partisan activities organized by Japanese intelligence. After the union was established, its members shadowed and assaulted Chongqing agents. Teaboys’ participation in such activities comes to life in the attempted abduction of Hu Qi—a union staff member of the Chinese Seamen's Party Headquarters in exile. As a former leading teaboy of the GMD-backed RSCBU union, Wang Oumin initially worked with Hu Qi for Chongqing. Then Wang Oumin surrendered to the collaborationist regime.Footnote 100 Despite his defection, Wang remained in touch with his former colleagues, who tried to switch his loyalty back to the GMD.Footnote 101 Wang Oumin ignored their pleas and even worked with Wang Jingwei's secret agents to kidnap Hu Qi—his workmate from the pro-GMD CSU union in Shanghai's French concession in October 1939. A letter was discovered that included political and military intelligence about Wang Jingwei's administration. This was the probable reason for the kidnapping of Hu, who possessed the letter.Footnote 102 Teaboy defectors such as Wang, who worked to expose suspects, were of importance to the Japanese authorities.

Besides their role in partisan activities, teaboys also gathered intelligence. The nature of their jobs gave them great mobility and access to passengers, including first-hand strategic information both shoreside and onboard ships. In 1938, six Chongqing-backed teaboys and seamen were appointed as “correspondents” for the GMD-backed CSU union. They worked in pairs, undertaking intelligence work ashore in neutral areas and Japanese-held territories. In 1938, one of these six “correspondents,” Wei Xiesheng, a leading teaboy of the former pro-GMD RSCBU union, was dispatched to Hong Kong together with Wang Yalun.Footnote 103 Sent there to contact maritime workers, these “correspondents” also investigated a wide range of political issues and were asked to note the condition or movements of maritime laborers, defectors, social organizations, and steamships.Footnote 104

Teaboys also collected intelligence onboard vessels, deployed by belligerent regimes to monitor passengers travelling abroad. For example, in February 1940, the Japanese-backed Chinese Seamen Party Headquarters wanted to create an intelligence network within the fleets on which their members served, recruiting forty out-of-work teaboys to collect intelligence from passengers. The teaboys—about to take an oath of allegiance to Japan and receive two months of training—were instructed to pay attention to suspicious passengers, especially people from Chongqing.Footnote 105 It remains unclear whether the different belligerents hoped the teaboys would act as spies on particular vessels controlled by sympathetic unions, but Japan's monopoly on shipping in the lower Yangtze favored this type of activity aboard its steamers. Teaboys—low-level socio-political actors—played a role in wartime Chinese politics. Spying was in line with similar roles for unemployed youth who helped Chinese intelligence authorities in exchange for money and meals.Footnote 106 Teaboys’ partisan and spying activities, done at risk to their own lives, seemed more self-aware than those protests organized by unemployed and desperate workers who unwittingly aided the Japanese in disrupting and weakening British factories in Shanghai.Footnote 107

Beneficiaries of Wartime Politics

The direct impact of the teaboys’ involvement in politics was that it enabled them to challenge shipping firms, the police, and other shipping personnel during a war when states and militaries were more powerful than any union or native-place association. Wartime Chinese teaboys were different from the early twentieth-century European maritime laborers who exploited the “interstices of sovereignty,” in the words of Charles Bégué Fawell.Footnote 108 They organized union activities in overseas ports where French jurisdiction was not applicable. In China, the teaboys affiliated with state-sponsored unions that were sellers of muscle power in local labor disputes, fighting “closed shops” by intimidating their opponents with physical violence.Footnote 109 The war not only subverted the pre-war order, it also divided the teaboys amongst themselves. As Elizabeth Perry has shown, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War broke up the factions that Shanghai silk weavers had taken advantage of in the pre-war labor movement—Shanghai Social Affairs Bureau versus the GMD's paramilitary corps or “Blue Shirts,” and the GMD versus the CCP. After 1941, the war also squelched any sign of anti-Japanese activity,Footnote 110 signifying a change for the teaboys, too. Soon after the defeat of the Nationalists in Shanghai, at least 623 steamship teaboys and other maritime workers engaged in the new order by shifting their allegiance to the Japanese, wooing their colleagues to register with the pro-Japan CSGLU union.Footnote 111

The Japanese-backed union-affiliated teaboys began to force compradors and foreign shipping companies to reinstate dismissed comrades by demanding the intervention of the French Concession Police in labor disputes. In 1939 in Shanghai, the Jardine company sacked five teaboys affiliated with the Japanese-backed CSGLU union. They were accused of showing scorn for senior officers and poor performance.Footnote 112 The teaboys sought assistance from their union leaders. About eight union representatives, including a Mr. Koyama—a Japanese adviser to the union—boarded Jardine's vessels twice in December 1939 and urged the captain and the comprador to re-employ the men. Their requests were denied.Footnote 113 The dismissed teaboys and their union heads therefore sought assistance from the French police, who had suppressed union activities but were increasingly subject to Japanese influence after 1937.Footnote 114 While the union negotiated with the comprador onboard Jardine's SS Desheng—a steamer transporting many British soldiers—the French authorities deployed their police to Roosevelt Terminal, ostensibly to guarantee the safety of union members threatened by British servicemen angry over the union's breach of the peace on the British steamer. The union president, Yang Runqing, encouraged the French police to dispatch officers in similar incidents in the future.Footnote 115

Japanese military assistance was a last resort for the dismissed teaboys and union leaders once police intervention failed to achieve their ends. Jardine's consistent refusal to reinstate the Japanese-backed teaboys incited agitators to appeal to the Japanese Gendarmerie in Tianjin to arrest Chen Liangqing, the comprador responsible for the dismissal of the teaboys. Chen's brother, a comprador on another vessel, heard his brother was about to be arrested by the Japanese military, and he met with Japanese officers in Tanggu to prevent it. Eventually, the Japanese commanders promised not to assist the union, provided that Chen's brother duly satisfy the Japanese officers’ tastes with an expensive dinner.Footnote 116 This attempted arrest of Chen Liangqing illustrates the teaboys’ strategic alignment with the wartime political machinery. Adding to Anne Reinhardt's observation on how shipping firms attempted to curb the attendants’ unlawful onboard activities in the mid-1930s,Footnote 117 the teaboys’ obvious success in this case, consolidated their power in the wartime shipping industry.

Another alternative open to teaboys was to seek diplomatic assistance from the Nationalist government in exile. The drastic decline of Britain in wartime Asia prevented it from safeguarding its long-term interests in China, and it provided an opportunity for Chinese workers to win concessions in labor disputes. When Butterfield and Swire planned to reduce the number of teaboys and put them under the company's control onboard the SS Xin Beijing in Shanghai in 1939, the teaboys successfully forced the company's hand.Footnote 118 Swire had been unobtrusively reducing the number of teaboys on its fleets since the mid-1930s.Footnote 119 The eighty Ningbo teaboys onboard the SS Xin Beijing had so far been exempt from the reorganization scheme based on an agreement signed between the pro-GMD CSU union and Swire in the mid-1930s; reforms were difficult to achieve because the teaboy unions were shielded by the GMD.Footnote 120 In 1939, following rumors that Swire would go ahead with the reorganization scheme, eighty teaboys in Shanghai sent a telegram to Chongqing and turned to Yang Hu for help.

Subsequently, Yang asked Wang Chonghui—minister of foreign affairs of the Nationalist government in exile—to pressure the British Embassy to halt the Swire teaboy reorganization scheme.Footnote 121 Although both Swire staff and British diplomats believed that the union officials’ complaints were based on a simple misunderstanding of the agreement between the pro-GMD CSU union and Swire, the British authorities nonetheless suspended Swire's plan to further reduce the number of teaboys aboard the SS Xin Beijing.Footnote 122 Swire's management believed that this was not the right time for the wholesale removal of the teaboys from a vessel, and sent a delegate to Chongqing to talk with the government officials in exile, including Yang Hu.Footnote 123 Although Swire provided no explanation, it is likely that the British authorities wanted to avoid offending Chongqing.

Conclusion

This article contributes to labor history by offering a view into “teaboys,” an unskilled, understudied group of steamship laborers, and contends that these men played a role in China's wartime shipping industry as low-level spies who were nevertheless able to leverage gains for themselves in a febrile atmosphere. These attendants, whose type of work facilitated particular forms of illicit authority and influence, were not reminiscent of the Wang Jingwei regime's high officials, whom Timothy Brook describes as men with collaborationist nationalistic ideals—freeing China from the control of foreign powers and the GMD's pro-Western stance.Footnote 124 Nor do they resemble Fu Po-shek's research on pro-Japan intellectuals—whose literary talent was utilized by the occupiers to give a patina of normality in Shanghai—and who lamented their loss of innocence while collaborating with the enemy for survival.Footnote 125 Instead, these teaboys, exploited by ship compradors, took advantage of the confrontations between different parties and acted pragmatically for survival, without any particular moral or politico-ideological position. This article, which echoes Frederic Wakeman's argument concerning Chinese civilians’ participation in an array of underground activities related to wartime political terrorism and criminal violence,Footnote 126 has shown that hundreds of steamship attendants—highly mobile maritime laborers whose contribution was on a par with that of other urbanites acting as low-level “special agents” such as shop apprentices, lens makers, and chandlers—were part of a larger social phenomenon that took part in wartime politics.

Moreover, this article argues that in the development of unionization, teaboys were increasingly predisposed by China's wartime political climate toward a utilitarian patron-client relationship. Elizabeth Perry and Ming K. Chan have shown that the Nanjing Decade saw the inclusion of labor organizations as part of the apparatus of the state or politicians, as respectively exemplified in labor officials’ support of silk weavers’ unionization or the GMD's toleration of the pro-Nationalist CSU union activities against foreign firms in Shanghai.Footnote 127 Building on Perry and Chan's perspectives, this article finds that teaboys do not fit neatly into Perry's categorization of workers’ predisposition toward politics. On the contrary, it reveals that a low skill level did not preclude laborers’ attachment to political organizations.Footnote 128 This patron-client relationship, a precedent set by teaboys and different GMD factions from 1927, was further strengthened by war. The expansion of maritime unions, patronized by various belligerents, provided union members with subsidies, job opportunities, and protection from the military and the police. The development of the patron-client relationship was also evident in wartime teaboys’ engagement in more violent and sensitive errands such as abduction and espionage.

This utilitarian relationship between state-sponsored labor organizations and steamship attendants turned labor unions into competitive agents in a market for violence and organized crime. Teaboys’ vulnerable, self-employed status exposed them to fiercer job competition than salaried workers. This article argues that government-backed yellow unions—similar to political parties and secret societies—controlled populations of maritime workers, many of whom were accustomed to violence and willing to take risks for symbolic or material rewards often at the expense of their native-place ties and the Green Gang's fictive family bonds. This made them attractive allies for both criminal organizations and political factions and facilitated the blurring of unions, gangs, parties, and the state. Union-affiliated teaboys who were protected or backed by foreign police and military forces could intimidate compradors and other maritime laborers. Nationalists’ diplomatic pressure on the British authorities stopped the dismissal of teaboys who had served aboard Swire's fleets. This article aligns with Prerna Agarwal and Elizabeth Perry's respective contentions that labor unions were a competitive agent that could sell muscle power in a market for union activism, crime, and violence. This was true from dock workers in British India and to silk weavers in Republican Shanghai.Footnote 129 This also stands above and beyond Chinese gangsters and intelligence authorities as suggested by Brian Martin and Frederic Wakeman, respectively.Footnote 130 Teaboys’ engagement in the political patron-client relationship and unions’ role in violence, together with teaboys’ lack of enthusiasm in communism or Sun Yat-Sen's ideals, reflected that Chinese labor movements were significantly driven by state politics and struggle. Additionally, they were impacted by industrialization and ideological factors, as Lynda Shaffer and Fang Fu-an argue respectively.Footnote 131

References

Notes

1. Apart from acknowledging the Swire Group for its financial support for this project, the author wishes to sincerely thank Robert Bickers, Lars Laamann, Ronald Po, Joshua Howard, Jonathan Henshaw, Michael Strange, James Fellows, Simon Case, Jennifer Yuen Chang, Kate Brown, and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable advice and generous assistance. This article was adapted from my doctoral dissertation submitted to SOAS University of London in 2020.

2. Perry, Elizabeth, Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor (Stanford, 1993), 201–07Google Scholar.

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11. Ling Wan, “Fangwen chafang tounao [An interview with a lead teaboy],” Dagong bao [Impartial] August 21, 1936: 13.

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13. Weikai, Sha, Zhongguo zhi maiban zhi [China's comprador system] (Shanghai, 1927), 31–33Google Scholar; “Benhui wei chafang lesuo jiuzi wenti cheng shi dangbu shehui ju wen [Statement submitted to the Nationalist Party and the Bureau of Social Affairs concerning teaboys’ blackmailing of passengers],” Hangsheng 10 (1930): 49.

14. Lu, “Shiying,” 17.

15. Dispatch sent from J.F. Brenan to Sir Miles Lampson, January 17, 1933, FO371/17127, 89, the National Archives, Kew; Memorandum on tea boys having special reference to London/Shanghai letter of 13.1.33, box 95, John Swire & Sons (JSS) III, SOAS.

16. Copy of letter from the General Manager of the ICSNC to Sir John Brenan, January 13, 1937, box 95, JSSIII, SOAS.

17. Chan, “Guanyuan,” 222.

18. Jieshao guoying Zhaoshang ju shouxun fuwu sheng mingdan [A roster of the CMSNC's service workers under training], July 3, 1948, Q164–6–7, Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA).

19. Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 48.

20. Ye, “HuYong,” 16–17; Ren An, “Gan wan xiang e’ shicha ji [An investigation in Jiangxi, Anhui, Hunan, and Hubei],” Shenbao, January 1, 1934: 16.

21. Kang Jian, “HuYong lunchuan de diandian didi [Reminiscences of days aboard a steamer],” Ningbo tongxiang 62 (1972): 16–17.

22. Su Su, “Liangzhong ren de shenghuo [The livelihoods of two different types of figures],” Dagong bao, May 22, 1933: 13.

23. He Youzhi, He Youzhi hua lao Shanghai [He's drawings of old Shanghai] (Shanghai, 2010), 160–61.

24. “Zhabei moucai haiming an [A plundering and killing case in Zhabei],” Shenbao, December 15, 1928: 15; “Hairen wenting zhi xin ningshao lun juqie an [An appalling case aboard the SS Xin Ningshao],” Shenbao, September 7, 1933: 15.

25. “Wenzhou banlun zhi kewu [The hatred of the SS Wenzhou],” Shenbao, July 26, 1946: 9; Zou Shangchang, “Ying peng ying [Head-to-head],” Shenbao, August 9, 1946: 12; Su, “Liangzhong,” 13.

26. Ren, “Gan,” 16.

27. “Xiaoshou shouqiang zhi genjiu [The investigation into the sales of pistols],” Shenbao, September 26, 1924: 11; “Guaimai shaofu wei chang [The kidnapping of young women for prostitution],” Shenbao, April 23, 1939: 12; “Nanjing,” Shenbao, August 15, 1923: 11; Ren, “Gan,” 16.

28. “Qingjin lunchuan chafang shuishou zhi fanmi [A public call for a ban on the selling of rice by steamship teaboys and sailors],” Shenbao, March 13, 1919: 10; “Xian gongshu weichi minshi [The securing of food supply by county authorities],” Shenbao, September 10, 1920: 10; “Shengling yancha mi sifan [The provincial government's orders to ban illegal rice sales],” Shenbao, December 20, 1921: 14.

29. Su, “Liangzhong,” 13.

30. Ibid.

31. Li Yufu, “Lao haiyuan yiwang [Reminiscences of an old seaman],” Zhonghua haiyuan yuekan [Chinese seamen's monthly] 335 (1981): 41.

32. Chan, “Guanyuan,” 222.

33. Jianghai lunchuan zhongcang gongsuo, Yijian shu [A proposal], March 20, 1948, Q164–4–54, SMA.

34. Golder, Reference; Lu, “Shiying,” 17.

35. Lu Yi, “Zhoushan ren yu zhonghua haiyuan yuanyuan [Historical connections between Zhoushan people and Chinese seamen],” Zhonghua haiyuan yuekan 263 (1975): 15; Sha, Zhongguo, 31–33.

36. Lu Yi, “Lunchuan haiyuan yu ningboren [Seamen and Ningbo people],” Ningbo tongxiang 91 (1976): 12.

37. “Waiguo lunchuan shang xiaji de Zhongguo chuanyuan [Low-level Chinese maritime workers aboard foreign vessels],” Shehui Ribao [Social daily], May 11, 1936: 4.

38. Ningbo luhuhang tongxianghui huiyuan mingce, 1926 [Membership roster of the Shanghai and Hangzhou Ningbo Associations, 1926], jiu 32–1–10, Ningbo Archives.

39. Gui Gong, “Lunchuan chafang [Steamship attendants],” Shehui ribao, December 10, 1936: 4.

40. Brian Martin, The Shanghai Green Gang: Politics and Organized Crime, 1919–1937 (Berkeley, CA, 1996), 15.

41. Martin, Shanghai Green Gang, 10.

42. Zhongguo haiyuan shi [The history of Chinese Seamen] (Beijing, 2017), 145.

43. Martin, Shanghai Green Gang, 18; Weida Fashi, Bang: Zhongguo banghui qinghong hanliu [Gang: Chinese secret societies] (Shanghai, 1949), 62–63.

44. Martin, Shanghai Green Gang, 15–28.

45. Ibid, 18.

46. Elizabeth Perry, Anyuan: Mining China's Revolutionary Tradition (Berkeley, CA, 2012), 58–59, 73.

47. SMP, Police Daily Report, June 22, 1925, U1–1–1146, (Shanghai, 1925), SMA.

48. “Bagong yu jiuji gongren xiaoxi [News concerning strikes and relief works for workers],” Shenbao, July 10, 1925: 14.

49. Ming Xian, “Sannian qian de jiushi chongti: Gongchan dang geiyu women de kutong [A recall of the past: The misery brought about by the CCP three years ago],” Hangsheng 10 (1930): 41–46; Hanghai anlu hui shi zhounian jinian tekan [Special periodical in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the SPSA's establishment] (Shanghai, 1937), 2–3.

50. Matteo Millan and Alessandro Saluppo, “Introduction: Strikebreaking and Industrial Vigilantism as a Historical Problem,” in Corporate Policing, Yellow Unionism, and Strikebreaking, 1890–1930: In Defence of Freedom, eds. Matteo Millan and Alessandro Saluppo (Abingdon, VA, 2021), 3–11.

51. Shanghai haiyuan gongzuo yiyue fen baogao, 1928 [Report on work concerning seamen in Shanghai in January, 1928], Shanghai dengdi haiyuan gonghui guoqu yinian lai zong baogao, 1928 [Final report on the branches of the seamen union over the past year, 1928], 556.14/806/3590, Bureau of Investigation, Taibei.

52. “Hanghai anlu she tonggao gejie ji zhengqiu sheyuan qishi [SPSA's notices concerning an announcement and the recruitment of members],” Shenbao, April 23, 1927: 3.

53. Correspondence from Swire's Shanghai branch office to Swire's Hong Kong branch office, August 2, 1933, box 96, JSSIII, SOAS.

54. Hanghai anlu hui, 56.

55. Kwok-Fai Law, “Pragmatic Teaboys: Maritime Servants and the Making of Working Class Political Culture in Republican China, 1927-1950” (PhD diss., SOAS University of London, 2020), 103–257.

56. “Shanghai haiyuan zhongcang zhigong hui chengli dahui qishi [A notice concerning the establishment of the RSCBU],” Shenbao, May 22, 1927: 2.

57. Da Liu, Guanyu Taigu haiyuan douzheng de baogao [Shanghai United Union report on the struggle between Swire crews], January 1934, D6–8–383, SMA.

58. Hanghai anlu hui, 57–59; “Huiyi lu: shiyi yue shiwu ri [Minutes on November 15],” Hangsheng 12, 13 (1930): 55–56.

59. Ming K. Chan, “Jindai yuexi lingnanbang goujian quanguo zhengquan zhi juxian [The limitation of Canton cliques in the making of modern Chinese politics],” in Lun minguo shiqi lingdao jingying [Discussions of the elite ruling class during the Republican period], ed. Lu Fang-Sang (Xianggang, 2009), 251–52; Shanghai haiyuan gongzuo.

60. “Shanghai haiyuan gong.”

61. Shanghai haiyuan gonghui [Shanghai Seamen's Union], Jiu shetuan ziliao [Information of some old organizations], C17–2–7, SMA; Hanghai anlu hui, 56.

62. Ming Xian, “Sannian,” 39–41.

63. “Some notes written by F. R. Lamb from Hong Kong,” April 28, 1937, box 99, JSSIII, SOAS.

64. “Xiao sanbei lun jiufen jiejue [Dispute aboard the SS Xiao sanbei has been resolved],” Shenbao, February 24, 1934: 12.

65. Law, “Pragmatic Teaboys,” 103–40.

66. Ibid.

67. Ming Xian, “Sannian,” 41–46.

68. Da Liu, “Guanyu.”

69. Ibid.

70. “Ningbo,” Shenbao, December 12, 1928: 11; “Shi zhengfu qudi lunchuan chafang xiang zaimin xusuo [The municipal government's ban on steamship teaboys’ extortion of refugees],” Shenbao, September 6, 1931: 20; “Hangjie yaoxun [shipping industry news],” Shenbao, November 7, 1931: 14; “Xiao sanbei,” 12.

71. Alain Roux, Grèves et Politiques à Shanghai: Les Désillusions, 1927–1932 [Strikes and politics in Shanghai: disillusionment, 1927–1932] (Paris, 1995), 342–47.

72. “Rishang boxue neihe hangye jiang juxing zong bayun [A general strike in protest over Japanese merchants’ exploitation of the inland river shipping industry],” Shenbao, April 30, 1939: 10.

73. Sanshi yi nian yizhi shiyi yue guiguo shiye haiyuan zhuangkuang diaocha biao [A survey of the conditions of returning, unemployed maritime workers], 11(2)–4435, Second Historical Archives of China (SHAC).

74. “Fengxian youji dui weijian rijun canbu [Fengxian guerrillas’ siege of the remainders of the Japanese troop],” Shenbao, March 21, 1939: 9; “Hangjiahu neihe hangxian zuoqi quanbu tingsha [Yesterday's suspension of inland river shipping services between Hangzhou, Jiaxing, and Huzhou],” Shenbao, September 19, 1944: 3.

75. Sanshi nian ba zhi shier yue guonei shiye haiyuan zhuangkuang diaocha biao [A survey of the conditions of unemployed maritime workers in China between August and December in 1941], 11(2)–4435, SHAC.

76. Correspondence from Swire's Shanghai branch office to Swire's London headquarters, October 4, 1939, box 2053, JSSII, SOAS.

77. Yang Hu, Jubao zuijin yingshang Yihe deng bei gaiguo zhengfu zhengdiao danren junshi yunshu [Intelligence on the British military authorities’ requisition of British civilian vessels], November 7, 1940, 11(2)–2122, SHAC.

78. G.F. Andrew, G. Findlay Andrew's report on upper river agencies Chungking/Ichang/Shasi/Changsha—March 28 to May 30, 1940, June 4, 1940, 2–3, box 2056, JSSII, SOAS.

79. Robert Barnett, Economic Shanghai: Hostage to Politics, 1937–1941 (New York, 1941), 172–74; “Rishang,” Shenbao, April 30, 1939: 10.

80. Yang Hu, Wei chengbao zhunyu zuzhi Zhonghua haiyuan youji qu jingshen zong dongyuan xiehui jingguo [A summary of the formation of the Chinese Seamen's Spiritual Mobilization Association], July 8, 1939, 11–5566, SHAC; Zhonghua haiyuan youji qu jingshen zong dongyuan xiehui weiyuan xingming biao [Staff roster of the Chinese Seamen's Spiritual Mobilization Association in Guerrilla Areas], 11–5566, SHAC.

81. Chung Hwa Seamen's General Labor Union—Present status and activities, November 30, 1939, U38–2–154, SMA; Yang Hu, Shenzi di sihao qingbao [Fourth intelligence report from Shanghai], June 7, 1940, 11(2)–3475, SHAC.

82. Translation of a notice issued by the Chung Kuo Seamen's General Labor Union and addressed to the Staff of the SS “Taksang” during March 1940, D5293, SMPSB, NARA; Timothy Brook, “Collaborationist Nationalism in Occupied Wartime China,” in Nation Work: Asian Elites and National Identities, eds. Timothy Brook and Andre Schmid (Ann Arbor, MI, 2000), 184.

83. Rapport: Le Syndicat Général des gens de mer [Report: Seamen's General Labor Union], December 7, 1939, no. 3722/1, U38–2–154, SMA; Fu haifu zhi huaxing xiansheng han [Letter from Fu Haifu to Mr. Huaxing], 11–3485, SHAC.

84. Alain Roux, “From Revenge to Treason: Political Ambivalence among Wang Jingwei's Labor Union Supporters,” in In the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Shanghai under Japanese Occupation, eds. Christian Henriot and Yeh Wen-hsin (Cambridge, 2004), 227.

85. Law, “Pragmatic Teaboys,” 103–207.

86. Hangzheng sizhang gao tingzi jincheng jiaotong bu buzhang [A dispatch sent from Marine Navigation head to the Minister of Communications], December 5, 1934, 017000001314A, Academia Historica, Taibei.

87. Some notes, SMP, Police Intelligence Reports, 25 January 1935, SMA; Services de Police [Police services], Reprise de l'agitation ouvrière à Shanghai depuis le mois d'août 1936, ses formes, ses causes, problèmes qu'elle suscite [Revival of workers’ unrest in Shanghai from August 1936: its forms, causes, and consequences], no. 1963/s, July 20, 1937, U38–2–928, SMA.

88. Andrew, G. Findlay Andrew's report, 2–3.

89. Yang, Wei chengbao.

90. Fu haifu zhi huaxing.

91. Fu Haifu, Baogao [Report], December 8, 1939, 11–5562, SHAC.

92. Fu haifu zhi huaxing xiansheng.

93. Yang Hu, Zhonghua haiyuan gonghui tepai yuan banshi chu tongxun [Chinese Seamen Special Delegate's Office Newsletter], June 3, 1940, 11(2)–3473–4, SHAC.

94. Zhonghua haiyuan youji qu.

95. Zhonghua haiyuan zai zhanshi gongzuo gaikuang [Overview of the work of wartime Chinese seamen], C17–2–7, SMA.

96. Barnett, Economic Shanghai, 63-65.

97. Roux, “From revenge,” in In the Shadow, 210-11; Shen Zui, Wo suo zhidao de Dai Li [What I know about Dai Li], (Beijing, 1980), 21–22.

98. Lucien Bianco and Yves Chevrier, eds., Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier: La Chine [Biographical Dictionary of the Workers’ Movement: China] (Paris, 1985), 555–56.

99. Service Politique de la Police Française [French Police Political Service], “Rapport: détention pendant 48 jours d'un nommé Hou Ki [Report: detention of Hou Ki for 48 days],” February 21, 1940, no. 4686/S, U38–2–105, SMA.

100. Zhonghua haiyuan youji qu.

101. Fu haifu zhi huaxing xiansheng.

102. Marron, Rapport: Tentative d'enlevement d'un Chinois par des partisans du groupe terroriste de Wang Ching-wei [Report: Attempted kidnap of a Chinese by Wang Jingwei's terrorist agents], October 23, 1939, no. 71/T, U38–2–105, SMA.

103. Yang hu zhi shehui bu han [Letter from Yang Hu to the Bureau of Social Affairs], September 27, 1938, 11(2)–3476, SHAC.

104. Yang hu zhi.

105. Ju zhonghua haiyuan tebie dangbu diancheng [CSPH's intelligence], March 1, 1940, 11–3485, SHAC.

106. Wakeman, Frederic, The Shanghai Badlands: Wartime Terrorism and Urban Crime, 1937–1941 (New York, 1996), 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

107. Barnett, Economic Shanghai, 65–67; Roux, “From revenge to treason,” 221.

108. Charles Bégué Fawell, “Anti-labour Repression in the in-between Spaces of Empire: The Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes and the Steamship Workers of the ‘China Line’ (1900–1920),” in Corporate Policing, 121-30.

109. Yang Hu, Zhonghua haiyuan gonghui tepai yuan yang hu jin cheng Zhongguo Guomin dang [Yang Hu's dispatch to the GMD], September 2, 1940, 11–5572, SHAC.

110. Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 207–09.

111. “Japanese wooing Chinese junkmen,” The Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury, April 12, 1938; Zhongguo haiyuan zong gonghui Shanghai fenhui zhaokai weihui [A meeting of the All-China Seamen's Federation], Zhongyang Ribao [Central daily news], December 30, 1939, U38–2–153, SMA.

112. A letter sent from Comprador Woo Pah-sung to Captain Pau Ts-ying, January 15, 1940, D5293, SMPSB, NARA.

113. Rapport: Le Syndicat Général des gens de mer; Traduction: une lettre en chinois écrite de Syndicat Générale des Gens de Mer au Service Politique de la Police Française, 6 Décembre 1939 [Translation: a Chinese letter from the Seamen's General Labor Union to the French Police Political Service, 6 December 1939], December 7, 1939, no. 2207/SP.6, U38–2–154, SMA.

114. CNC, Weekly Report, January 13, 1933, box 95, JSSIII, SOAS; F.R. Lamb, Notes on Canton Seamen's Union agitation, July 1, 1933, box 96, JSSIII, SOAS.

115. Traduction: une lettre en chinois.

116. D.P.S. Killingbeck, Chung Kuo Seamen's General Labor Union pamphlets distributed, April 25, 1940, D5293, SMPSB, NARA; A letter sent from Mr. Bournes to Mr. Longmire concerning the affair at Tientsin, April 22, 1940, D5293, SMPSB, NARA.

117. Reinhardt, Navigating Semi-colonialism, 263–79.

118. Correspondence from Swire's Shanghai branch office to Swire's London headquarters, February 3, 1939, box 100, JSSIII, SOAS; Correspondence from Swire's Shanghai branch office to Swire's London headquarters, February 25, 1938, box 99, JSSIII, SOAS.

119. Memorandum from the British Embassy in Chongqing to China's foreign ministry in Chongqing, August 29, 1939, 020–041106–0047, Academia Historica, Taibei.

120. Correspondence from Swire's Shanghai branch office to Swire's London headquarters, August 11, 1939, box 2052, JSSII, SOAS; Memorandum; Correspondence.

121. Yanghu zhi wang chonghui han [Telegram from Yang Hu to Wang Chonghui], June 15, 1939, 020–041106–0047, Academia Historica; Memorandum from the Waichiaopu to the British Embassy in Chongqing, June 16, 1939, box 2052, JSSII, SOAS.

122. Memorandum.

123. Correspondence from Swire's Shanghai branch office to Swire's London headquarters, August 11, 1939, box 2052, JSSII, SOAS; G.F. Andrew, G. Findlay Andrew's visit to Chungking, December 13, 1939, 7–8, box 2063, JSSII, SOAS.

124. Brook, “Collaborationist,” 184.

125. Fu Po-shek, Passivity, Resistance, and Collaboration: Intellectual Choices in Occupied Shanghai, 1937–1945 (Stanford, 1993), 160–62.

126. Wakeman, Shanghai Badlands, 1–4.

127. Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 201–02; Chan, Ming K., Historiography of the Chinese Labor Movement, 1895–1949 (Stanford, 1981), 103–04Google Scholar.

128. Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 242–48.

129. Prerna Agarwal, “In the Name of Constitutionalism and Islam: The Murky World of Labour Politics in Calcutta's Docklands,” in Corporate Policing, 138–47; Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 201–04.

130. Martin, Shanghai Green Gang, 218–23; Wakeman, Shanghai Badlands, 21–23.

131. Shaffer, Lynda, Mao and the Workers: The Hunan Labor Movement, 1920–1923 (Armonk, 1982), 206–09Google Scholar; Fang, Fu'an, Chinese Labour (Shanghai, 1931), 2–10Google Scholar.

Figure 0

Table 1. Unions with which Steamship Teaboys Were Affiliated until 194155