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The Eighth WarZone Economic Committee and Gansu’s Economic Development during the Total War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression

Author(s)

Qingshan Zhang

Affiliation(s)

Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, China

Abstract

After the War of Resistance entered its stalemate phase, economic warfare gained growing strategic significance. In June 1940, the National Government established the Eighth WarZone Economic Committee in Lanzhou to coordinate wartime economic affairs across Gansu, Ningxia, Suiyuan and adjacent regions, including fiscal and financial administration, antismuggling and blockenforcement, material procurement and stockpiling, and production promotion. To stabilise reararea finance, the Committee improved financial networks, issued agricultural loans, supported smallscale industries, and purchased and redeemed gold and silver. It built an economic blockade against the enemy by deploying antismuggling agencies, convening joint conferences, and imposing strict bans on goldandsilver smuggling. It secured material supplies by setting up the Yuanyuan Trading House to procure critical commodities, stabilise commodity prices, organising trading corporations, and upgrading landwater transportation infrastructure. Moreover, it advanced Gansu’s economic development by boosting grain output, investigating and subsidising industrial enterprises, founding the Zhenxi Textile Mill, expanding cotton cultivation, conducting phosphorusextraction experiments, and exploring mineral resources. This institution delivered tangible outcomes in sustaining wartime economic operations, curtailing the diversion of materials to the enemy, mitigating commodity shortages, and fostering industrialmineral growth in Gansu. Nevertheless, its effectiveness was constrained by cumbersome institutional structures, ambiguous division of powers, problematic jurisdiction and personnel arrangements, its short lifespan, and sharp frictions with local authorities and military forces. Its limited performance illustrates the operational dilemmas embedded within the wartime economic control system as well as centrallocal state relations under the National Government.

Keywords

Eighth WarZone Economic Committee; Total War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression; Economic Development of Gansu; Wartime Economic Control; Economic Warfare against the Japanese Enemy.

References

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