英文摘要 |
The outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 pushed Japan's economy into wartime mode and increased the demand for wartime production, making Japan more dependent on raw materials from China. How Japan should organize its maritime capacity and transport raw materials from Occupied China to Japan became a crucial task. In August 1939, Japan established the East Asia Navigation Company (Tōa Kaiun Kabushiki Kaisha) to help carry out the national policy of control over Chinese coastal and inland waters. The corporation, as the agency designed to carry out Japan's maritime control, was required to eliminate British shipping companies in China. Through the efforts of the corporation and a thorough blockade by the Japanese military, Japanese authorities successfully established a monopoly in Chinese coastal and inland waters before the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941. |