WI: Korean East India Company?

Let's say that Korea decided to stop being isolationist in 1800. And some of the merchants got together to build a company together- called the "Korean East India Company" (another name is fine, I couldn't care less)
how successful would this merchant corporation be, with rest of the world same as IOTL? could it find lucrative trade quickly? or would it find stiff competition from other nations' companies?
guesses are welcome; proof-based answers are even more so!

zeppelinair said:

Let's say that Korea decided to stop being isolationist in 1800. And some of the merchants got together to build a company together- called the "Korean East India Company" (another name is fine, I couldn't care less)
how successful would this merchant corporation be, with rest of the world same as IOTL? could it find lucrative trade quickly? or would it find stiff competition from other nations' companies?
guesses are welcome; proof-based answers are even more so!

Click to expand...

There's a few issues here. Let's say Jeongjo lives a little longer and wants to expand trade. He's got a number of problems.

First of all, the legal and monetary structure needed to support a mercantile company doesn't really exist in Korea at the end of the 18th century. There's not a history of joint-stock companies.

Secondly, there's not enough capital to fund such a company - the small merchants don't accumulate enough wealth, and state tax revenues aren't high enough to subsidize a fleet.

Additionally, naval technology, while adequate for trading along the Chinese coast and in the South China sea, wasn't good enough to make trips to, say, Europe or the Middle East at any decent rate.

Finally, attacks (both financial and physical) from Chinese and especially European competitors would drive them out of the market very quickly. The Dutch and British held a firm hand on trade in that area and didn't take to newcomers kindly. Expect pressure from Britain (possibly via China) to get rid of the company quickly.

In short, you need to change a lot in Korea in 1800 to make such a thing possible.

Cheers,
Ganesha

EDIT: Posters like democracy101 know a lot more than I do about Korean history and can probably help.

Essentially what Ganesha said. (Thanks for mentioning me, by the way.)

Korea wasn't exactly "isolationist" in 1800, given that it continued to retain a significant amount of stable trading links with China, Japan, and the Ryukyus for more than a millennia. In addition, none of the European countries was particularly interested in trading with Korea because trade with China was mostly limited to Canton, in South China, while shipping routes to Japan, mostly through the Dutch, bypassed Korea, so there was no particular reason to head to the peninsula, and any contacts generally tended to be accidental until the mid-19th century or so. In addition, by 1800, European colonial powers already had significant disputes over control over various regions near or within the Pacific, so they would almost certainly be opposed to another potential competitor attempting to gain a foothold, as ignoring the threat would severely undermine their influence.

In terms of internal issues regarding Joseon, there was no independent "trading company" that was autonomous of the government, nor was there a particular impetus for doing so, as the available resources were more than enough, not to mention that the ships at the time were built to hug the coast, instead of traversing the open sea. During the 15th-16th centuries, Europe began to expand overseas partly because the Ottoman Empire had blocked overland trading routes, so the states involved began to further expand the familiar maritime routes in search of alternative methods to obtain resources. As a result, this situation would be roughly analogous to China cutting off all trading routes with Korea, but this would be essentially impossible due to the fact that the peninsula would almost certainly be devastated by a major invasion from China in such a scenario.

Ganesha said:

There's a few issues here. Let's say Jeongjo lives a little longer and wants to expand trade. He's got a number of problems.

First of all, the legal and monetary structure needed to support a mercantile company doesn't really exist in Korea at the end of the 18th century. There's not a history of joint-stock companies.

Secondly, there's not enough capital to fund such a company - the small merchants don't accumulate enough wealth, and state tax revenues aren't high enough to subsidize a fleet.

Additionally, naval technology, while adequate for trading along the Chinese coast and in the South China sea, wasn't good enough to make trips to, say, Europe or the Middle East at any decent rate.

Finally, attacks (both financial and physical) from Chinese and especially European competitors would drive them out of the market very quickly. The Dutch and British held a firm hand on trade in that area and didn't take to newcomers kindly. Expect pressure from Britain (possibly via China) to get rid of the company quickly.

In short, you need to change a lot in Korea in 1800 to make such a thing possible.

Cheers,
Ganesha

EDIT: Posters like democracy101 know a lot more than I do about Korean history and can probably help.

Click to expand...

Hi.
Thanks for the comment! I certainly agree on what you have said, and would like to add a few more descriptions:
1. Foreign trade was illegal, and merchants who badly needed to sell products to other countries (China, mostly) would join a diplomatic envoy that would go to China.
2. Trade was dominated by a state corporation that could tax or kick out any merchant from the central marketplace. There were things called "factories" during the time, which essentially only made accessory products for the wealthy.
3. Although there were efforts to implement a policy of currency, most trade was done by barter.
4. Merchants, therefore, were getting together to meet the rising demands of the domestic consumers; some of them established non-governmental factories and made products that the non-aristocrats would purchase.
These factors would all need to be solved and/or exploited to the fullest for the KEIC to even get off the ground. You mentioned that government revenue will not be enough...then, how much is enough? Giving a bit of leeway is always possible(with a POD at 1788, maybe they can have enough wealth by 1820?) Even if they are weak, couldn't they match against larger forces by allying with smaller ones? Couldn't they, for example, ally with the Dutch against the dominant British?

*bump bu-dda bump*