Defying the gravity of “dominant parent” Sino-foreign JVs Chinese state leadership and control of Eurasia Aviation Corporation, 1931–1943

Abstract

In 1931, Deutsche Luft Hansa and China's Nationalist government came together to form the Sino-German airline Joint Venture (JV), the Eurasia Aviation Corporation. Eurasia plied the skies over China and beyond, as part of its mandate to project newfound state power in a global infrastructural race to prove its technocratic capabilities and modern identity. By tracing the founding, development, and dissolution of Eurasia Aviation Corporation, this paper seeks to overturn the paradigm of the “dominant parent” enterprise where the foreign side controlled the destinies of Sino-foreign JVs. Using epistles and contracts between Luft Hansa, the Executive Yuan, Eurasia, and the ministries that had purview over the Sino-foreign JV – as well as using aerophilatelic catalogues, route networks, and Chiang Kai-shek's lectures ( Chinese Citizenry and Aviation) – this paper proposes that Nationalist state actors were capable of formidable and strategic stewardship over the business that transcended the quasi-equity on paper.