Business entities, irrespective of their size and the scale of their operations (be it local, global, or transnational), have played an indispensable role in modern Asia during the age of empires. Scholars have extensively documented the activities of companies, businesspeople, and US and European enterprises’ activity in Asia. However, they have paid less attention to how businesses were shaped and transformed by exogenous forces such as government intervention and local and immigrant communities, and, conversely, how businesses became a force for social and technological change. This panel aims to expand scholarly conversation in three ways: first, by examining the two-way entanglement between business entities and the state and society; second, by using empire as an analytical lens to explore how businesses have survived and transformed during the rise and fall of empires, and also how they have influenced imperial formation; and last, by analyzing interactions between businesses and state and society across East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

The four papers proceed in chronological order. Moazzin’s paper examines multinational companies as technological facilitators and intermediaries in the development of wireless telegraphy in early 20th-century China. His paper moves beyond a political perspective that focuses on sovereign competitions over wireless infrastructure and shift more toward the actual multinationals that operated in China and their roles in introducing new technology and establishing wireless infrastructure. Wong’s paper explores the financing of Chinese and Japanese (family holding) companies that operated in Hong Kong during WWII, showcasing how family wealth in East Asia was transformed by wars, state direction, family and kinship networks, and the increasing demand for capital. Petrulis’s paper argues that globalizing markets, like the hair market, did not develop ‘naturally’ but instead were shaped by multiple components under the umbrella of the Cold War. The 1960s and 1970s Indian hair markets, for instance, were influenced by local meanings, imperial forces, and individuals including Indian religious migrants, Hong Kong factory workers, and Black American wig-wearers. Kwon’s paper examines the rise of K-fashion and global fast-fashion networks from the 1960s to the 1990s. By tracing the global production and distribution networks, and incorporating the insights of female fashion designers and Korean American immigrants who worked in Los Angeles’ Fashion District, she uncovers the dynamics that shaped South Korea’s fashion industry and its influence on global fast-fashion markets.