Chinese Classics

Malcolm Cranfield looks at Chinese shipowning in the post-war era, when international trade and fleet expansion were facilitated by the use of offshore companies and flags of convenience.

The 1949 Chinese Communist revolution and the start of the Korean War in 1950 resulted in a United States-led trade embargo on China, which had the effect of prohibiting China from using Chinese-flagged ships for its non-Soviet foreign trade. As a result, the Chinese- Polish Joint Stock Shipping Company was established in 1951, the first foreign venture to be formed after the 1949 revolution, to provide a limited shipping service, while Sinochart, a division of the China National Foreign Transport Corporation (Sinotrans), was established in 1955 to charter ships, albeit at that time mainly from Soviet bloc countries.

The book ‘Sold East’ by H. W. Dick and S. A. Kentwellreports that the movement of coastal cargo by the small number of mainland Chinese owned ships at that time was also difficult, with much chartering of British- and Norwegian-flagged ships carried out through Chinese interests in Hong Kong. While acting as broker for Sinofracht in arranging export shipments, the well-known shipping agency Wallem, founded in Shanghai in 1903 by Haakon J. Wallem of Bergen, provided some of the ships. Respected foreign companies with offices in China, such as Wallem, often acted as intermediaries between the Chinese government and the outside world.

On behalf of Oversea United Shipping & Trading, a Chinese Government-owned company, Wallem fronted the ownership of the 1925-built vessel Gunn, the former Colytto from 1954. Following her sale in 1959, the War-built Park type Yamaska was again given the name Gunn, this time being nominally owned by Dah Lien Shipping Co (K. T. Wong) and managed by Jebmei Shipping Management Co Ltd.