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영어

This paper examined the transformation process in the bank clearing system in modern Shanghai, in particular in reference to the institutional system based on customary and local law within the traditional or native bank industry (qian-zhuang). In China, growing theoretical attention is recently being given to customary, private, and tribal law in relation to reorganizing national legislation in the areas of civil and commercial law, among others. China in its transition to a modern republic has continued to confront the challenge of coalescing different norms followed by members of different cultures scattered across different parts of the vast land into a national legal system. This has led to its consideration of integrity, as a concept subsuming diversity in seeking for national legislation. The reason for the difficulties in achieving a single integrated bank clearing system was mainly due to basic difference in between the two industries in terms of institutions and laws that rarely change quickly. To put in short, it was customary law versus national legislation. Unlike the qian-zhuang industry in which established customary institutions and practices based on pawn slips were pivotal in maintaining the credit system, the new industry of new-style banking as opposed to the old-style banks, lacking such an establishment, was in need of the secondary market in bills and notes so as to gain wider confidence from the public at large. Therefore, the issue of establishing bank-related legislation would have had to involve legislation at national level.