ABSTRACT
In the fervor to promote China as the “last great frontier” for Western brand producers seeking more territory (Croll 2006), the popular press in the West, as well as some academic works, often suggest that brands were introduced into China from the West during the early 19th century (Wang 2000). Corresponding with this view is one in which communist rule beginning in 1949 under Mao Zedong disrupted the presence of brands, which were reintroduced in 1979 under Deng Xiaoping’s gaige kaifang, a policy of economic reform which opened China’s markets to branded goods from other countries. Challenges to this narrative, albeit few, have emerged to suggest a different historical relationship of China to branded goods (Gerth 2003, 2006; Hamilton and Lai 1989). In particular, these works challenge the notion that brands emerged out of a capitalist economic system in Western nations.
