'Crystallized Yellow Labor': Manchurian Grain and Agricultural Protectionism in the Priamur Oblast, 1910-1914

• In Event: Chinese-Russian Encounters in the Late 19th - Early 20th Century: People, Goods, Ideas

Abstract

Between 1909 and 1913, North Manchuria’s grain export grew rapidly, thanks in part to the
cultivation of soybeans, and in part to the rising demand for grain in the neighboring Russian
territory of Priamur oblast. Against this backdrop, a newly coalescing sector of commercial land
cultivators in the oblast, speaking through their journal The Amur Farmer (Amurskii
Zemledelets), insisted on placing tariffs on Manchurian grain imports. Referring to Chinese and
Korean laborers, workers, and land cultivators in Russian territory, whose presence recent state
regulations curtailed, one Amur farmer and tariff advocate likened Manchurian grain to
“crystallized yellow labor,” whose import to the Priamur region must also be impeded. In 1913,
the Council of Ministers rejected the tariff proposed by the “Amur Farmers,” opting to protect
the interest of the Chinese Eastern Railway (the beneficiary of high-volume grain export) and the
economically precarious newcomer settlers to the Priamur oblast. Tracing this debate over tariffs,
my paper will also examine the self-image of the “Amur Farmers,” their invocation of “rational
farming,” “private property,” and a zemstvo-centered vision of citizenship that left no room for
“yellow labor.” Promoting these ideas of rationality, my paper proposes, the “Amur Farmers”
also saw themselves as representing Russia’s agricultural modernity.

Author

• Chia Yin Hsu, Portland State U