Research on the Financial Geography of Modern Wanxian City

Abstract

Wanxian City is an important port of eastern Sichuan, and it is the door of the upper Yangtze River. Since the late Qing Dynasty, the bulk goods distribution represented by Tung oil in various areas of eastern Sichuan centered on it, and it took a second place after Chongqing in position. Along with the business development, local financial organizations were also increasingly developed. The financial industry of native Wanxian City was dominated by bank industry, in the form of exchange business as the main financial form, foreign banks and other prominent financial capital groups were closely connected with the import and export trades, they supported each other. Development of Tung oil and export-oriented international trade had a great impact on the foreign financial activities of Wanxian finance oriented by international trade business. In summary, Wanxian, incorporated into the international trading system, is a sub- regional financial center in the three-point-one-arc financial pattern along the Shanghai, Hankou, and Chongqing of Yangtze River. This sub- center has two different trends of dependence and independence on Chongqing, the different tends depend on the financial radiation of Shanghai, Hankou and Chongqing on Wanxian, in essence, it is the results of Wanxian financial trade swinging between the second and third layer in China’s foreign trade system.
Key words: Wanxian; Financial geography; Tung oil