The Rise and Decline of Korea-Chinese Grass Cloth Trade during the Japanese Colonial Period and its Impact on Korean Society

Linen is a significant summer clothing material for Koreans and is one of the main export product from modern China to Korea. 'Grass Cloth' that China exported to Korea is a type of linen, which was named as 'Jina linen' by Korea and Japan. In 1910 since Japan-Korea annexation, until Japan launched a full-scale war against China in 1937, the trade between Korea and China experienced a period of development in the 1910s, prosperity in the 1920s, and decline in the 1930s.Chinese Grass Cloth gradually expanded the sales scale by meeting the demand of Koreans under the limitations of the Korean hemp fabric market, which was high in demand and low in supply. In the late 1920s, the proportion of Grass Cloth in Korea reached up to 50% among the total consumption of linen, and Grass Cloth and Koreans formed a relation of supply and demand that was irreplaceable. However, the sales and distribution of Grass Cloth was monopolized by Chinese merchants, which led to insufficient availability for Japanese merchants to participate in. Therefore, Japan continuously raised the import tax rate in order to remove Grass Cloth from the Korean market and implemented incentive mechanism of bast fiber fabric. Japanese textile products such as spun-linen, similar-linen, and rayon eventually replaced Grass Cloth and the other factors such as deterioration of China-Japan relations and the crisis in the industry of Chinese Grass Cloth, also accelerated the decline of Korea-China Grass Cloth trade. In brief, the elimination of Grass Cloth and the growth of substitute not only were to suppress the dependence of Korea on Chinese products and the power of Chinese merchants, but also to protect and advance Japanese textile capital and ultimately to establish an 'imperial commercial network'.