Peter N Davies and Kunio Katayama

Published December 1999

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Peter Davies in his paper outlines the major trends in the development of Japan's commercial shipping prior to World War I. The paper focusses in particular on the role played by the Japanese government, arguing that the promotion of the industry was undertaken primarily not for commercial, but for strategic imperialist reasons. Kunio Katayama's paper focusses on Japanese shipping policy in the years immediately prior to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5. Using analysis of parliamentary debates over subsidies for shipping and prize-winning essays on the topic, the author contends that public opinion in favour of the creation of major overseas shipping liones was well established prior to the war, and that these plans were conceived for economic and commercial reasons, and not imperialist and stratetic ones.