Kung Hang

(in European literature, Kohong), a Chinese mercantile corporation established by the Manchu Ch’ing government in 1720 in Kuangchou to monopolize trade with Western European merchants in South China. All European-Chinese business relations were to be carried out through it. After the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, which was the first treaty that was unfair to China, the Kung Hang was dissolved.