ABSTRACT
In the year 1908, Heinrich Diederichsen, Jacob Jebsen and Heinrich Jessen reached a consensus to dissolve their partnership company. After the end of the partnership on 31 December 1908, the Jebsen partners started a new company, Jebsen and Jessen, to channel trade in Europe with their company and branches in Hong Kong and Canton. Agricultural protection swept through the North Chinese markets, following intense political changes within the Chinese government in 1908. By 1908, the rising trend for agricultural protection prevailed but did not characterise the entire market in North China. The years between 1901 and 1908 was an era in which the provincial government took advantage of the German presence in Qingdao to protect inland agriculture and limit foreign trade that favoured the emerging provincial militarism. The German presence in Qingdao delivered intermittently the state power generated by the shift in the global dynamics between agricultural protectionism and trade expansionism.
