Inchon Trade: Japanese and Chinese Merchants and the Shanghai Network

Linked to Seoul by the Han River and the capital’s gateway to foreign trade, the port of Inchon, together with Pusan at the southern tip of the peninsula, played a major economic role in the 1880s and 1890s. ¹ Inchon was the stage for competition between Japanese and Chinese merchants in the Korean market that has been singled out as an important factor leading to the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). The Regulations for Maritime and Overland Trade Between Chinese and Korean Subjects (hereafter Sino-Korean Trade Regulations) concluded in 1882 allowed Chinese to settle in Seoul and the open ports. Many traders and migrant laborers came to Inchon from the Shandong Peninsula across the Yellow Sea. Japanese officials gradually became alarmed and the port was perceived as a flash point in the political and economic struggle over Korea. Is that perception accurate? How serious was the confrontation in Inchon?