Title of paper: The Danish Monopoly on Telegraph in Japan -A case study of an unequal communication system in the Far East-
Author: Eiichi ITOH*
* Eiichi ITOH is Professor of Communication Policy and Media History in the College of Law at Nihon University, Japan.
The Asia-Pacific Region is now home to approximately one-third of international telecommunication services. The number of Internet subscribers in China has risen above 100 million. It is reported that the three Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese and Korean) account for 27.85% of all Internet users.
The Asia-Pacific Region has succeeded in overcoming tremendous difficulties related not only to the communication system itself but also to technical and economic conditions such as the use of Chinese characters. Their use was once seen as a burdensome factor for transmission and processing on international telecommunication networks, but now is seen as the most promising characteristic of the Asian information revolution.
However, it took nearly 140 years of struggling against foreign domination and close cooperation among Asian people to develop a prosperous Asian communications industry.
This paper illustrates this history by focusing on one Danish telegraph company who monopolised the telecommunications industry in the region from the mid-19th century until quite recent times.
Background
In 1866, the success of the Atlantic cable impacted resulted in the gigantic Trans-Siberian landline cable project being abandoned in mid-construction. The discontinuation of this grandiose project left history with two mementos. One is the purchase of Alaska from Russia by the United States for a sum of 7.2 million dollars and the other is the telegraph line that crosses the vast expanse of Siberia to the Japan Sea. This telegraph line attracted the attention of telecommunication firms in five countries, including U.K. and France. In the end, however, the Russian government granted a concession to the Great Northern Telegraph Company (GNTC) of Denmark in October 1869. After being granted the concession for the Russian part, GNTC established on 9 January 1870, as its subsidiary, the Great Northern China and Japan Extension Telegraph Company, which went on to monopolise and shape Asia’s telegraph industry for many years to come. The GNTC also developed a special dictionary to enable each Chinese character to be transmitted in the Morse alphabet and opened its regional office in Shanghai in August 1870 to manage its Far East operations.
Actually, the Japanese telegraph market could have had some competition from the Russions had it not been for the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and restoration of the imperial rule in 1867. Since the country was in turmoil, Russia postponed any further action on an important submarine cable to Japan. In 1870, the newly established Meiji government received a proposal from the Danish company, GNTC for the landing-connection of a submarine cable to Japan. This time the offer came from the Danish company, GNTC, with the blessing of the Russian Imperial Household, who had shares in the company.
In its initial telecommunications negotiations, Japan had managed to avoid assigning monopoly rights to foreign firms. But Japan would soon willingly sign away its telecommunications autonomy to further its own ambitions in Asia. Dominance over Korea was a favored principle at that time, and Japan had a long-awaited opportunity to project its power into the Korean peninsula. A communication line linking Japan and Korea was therefore regarded as indispensable. However, Japan’s technical capabilities at the time were not up to the task and funding was low, and so the country had to request GNTC’s help.
In December 1882, as collateral for the construction of the cable, Japan granted a new license, which granted monopoly rights to GNTC over the next 30 years. These monopoly rights, would prevent Japan from developing an autonomous system of international telecommunications.
True competition with GNTC would not appear until 1916, when an offer by the U.S. Marconi Co. (later purchased by Radio Corporation of America or RCA) led to the commencement of wireless communication in Japan. In 1925, the Japan Wireless Communications Company was established under the leadership of Eiichi Shibusawa, enabling Japan, for the first time, to take the initiative in international telecommunications. But it would not be for several decades before the Japanese government would completely recover the submarine cable landing/connecting and operation rights held by GNTC in Japan.
The paper goes on to describe GNTC’s claim to compensation after the Second World War, the control over the transmission of Chinese characters and the emergence of French and British influence in the telecommunications industry in this region especially for matters of security. To read further, please read the paper in Keio Communication Review.
Asian telecommunication traffic in the 21st century
The statistics in the fifth edition of the ITU’s Asia-Pacific Telecommunication Indicators show that the Asia- Pacific Region was in 2001 home to over one third, or more precisely 36%, of the earth’s telephone subscribers. The ITU emphasize “the emergence of China as a telecommunications superpower. Never before has a country added so many telephone subscribers so quickly and raised its teledensity so rapidly. China’s overall teledensity (fixed and mobile phones combined) rose from less than one in 1991 to 30 by mid-June 2002. China is overall now the world’s largest telecommunication market. It ranks first in the size of its mobile market and second in fixed telephone lines.”
In connection with Internet users, the number of Internet subscribers in China has risen above 100 million. It is reported that Chinese-speaking users account for 14.1%, Japanese-speaking ones 9.65%, Korean-speaking ones 4.1%, etc.39
Now, the Asia-Pacific region leads the conversion capabilities of all types of telecommunication services no matter how large the volume or what the type of information and without any distinction of broadcasting (one-way) or two-way communication.
Technology powerful enough to convert any kind of information regardless of its type might also contribute to revitalizing and protecting cultural diversity, or, on the contrary, tend to damage cultural diversity from unanticipated side effects. In the case of the monopoly of telegraph services in Japan by GNTC, it has taken nearly 140 years of struggling against foreign domination.
Telecommunication techniques, including broadcasting or Internet use, are becoming an increasingly useful means to realize the dreams of Asian people. As an example, very many people now communicate with Chinese characters, which contain hieroglyphs enhancing mutual comprehension. Chinese characters, once seen as burdensome to transmit and process on international telecommunication networks, are now considered to be the most promising characteristic of the Asian Information Revolution.
