ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the inter-Asian competition for sugar in these years, focusing in particular on Japan, China, and India. In 1892, about 90 percent of the Japanese white sugar market was foreign refined sugar. These three kinds of sugar competed fiercely with each other in the Japanese white sugar market. The sugar market in China comprised three main product categories: high-grade refined white sugar, a lower-grade refined white sugar, and an unrefined brown sugar. The unrefined brown sugar market was dominated by Chinese sugar produced in the traditional way. The lower-grade white sugar market was dominated by sugar from Java, but in the high-grade white sugar market, sugar from Hong Kong competed with sugar from Japan, together fully satisfying demand in the 1910s. As the habit of drinking tea or coffee took root among ordinary people at the beginning of the twentieth century, the white sugar market continued to grow.
