This article analyzes the expansion of Korean traders into the Hong Kong nexus during the post-colonial transition. Scholars have long dismissed these actors as “profiteers” having served as colonial “go-betweens”, reducing the economy to a passive recipient within a dependent supply chain. Challenging such appraisals, this article dissects how private traders constructed a vernacular supply chain. It details how private traders leveraged Shanghai-based British, Chinese, and Korean expatriates to circumvent the ruptures of imperial severance and the division of the peninsula. This trans-East Asian commercial scaffolding enabled these entrepreneurial networks to maximize the Hong Kong route as a gateway for global connectivity, transcending the limitations of United States-led relief economics. By addressing the autonomous origins of the Hong Kong supply chain, this study reconsiders the period as a historic site where private agency reconstructed the nation’s interface with the global economy, overcoming the fetters of a post-colonial latecomer.
Yunyoung Jeong (Sat,) studied this question.