This article provides a detailed analysis of the overseas migration history and commercial activities in Japan of Kinmen people from the 17th to 20th centuries by Professor Chiang Po-wei of the Department of East Asian Studies at National Taiwan Normal University.
The Kinmen Islands are located at the mouth of the Jiulong River in southern Fujian and became a major source of migration to Taiwan from the mid-17th to 19th centuries. From the late 19th century to 1949, Kinmen experienced four major waves of overseas migration, with population decreasing by more than 40% (43.35% for men, 39.06% for women) especially after 1915. Migration destinations included various Southeast Asian locations, with Nagasaki and Kobe in Japan also serving as important destinations.
In the Kinmen community in Nagasaki, their presence has been confirmed since the era of Chinese ship trade from the 17th century, with 339 tombstones remaining in Fukusaiji Cemetery, 84 of which record Kinmen origins. The oldest surviving tombstone of overseas Kinmen people was erected in 1745, revealing that a considerable number of Kinmen people had settled in Nagasaki before the mid-18th century. A representative trading house from the late 19th to early 20th century was "Taieki-go" by Chen Guoliang (1840-1908) from Xintou Village, which built extensive trade networks centered on Japan-China and Southeast Asian trade, developing into one of Nagasaki's leading trading houses.
In Kobe, after the port opened in 1868, the Chinese population increased rapidly, exceeding Nagasaki's scale after 1887. "Fuxing-go," established in 1871 by Wang Mingyu (1843-1903) from Shanhou, Kinmen, became a core trading house with match exports as its business pillar, having branches in Osaka and connecting with Chinese and Southeast Asian markets. The Wang family established a leadership position in Kobe's Chinese community, opening branches in Tianjin, Dalian, Yingkou, and Harbin in the 1920s-30s, and building a vast East Asian trade network with related companies in Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
The article concludes that Kinmen people were not merely migrant groups but important players in international trade and shipping networks since the 17th century, making significant contributions to Nagasaki's Chinese ship trade, Kobe's modern commercial development, and China's modernization movement, with their cultural inheritance and social influence continuing to this day.