State-Mediated Remittance System / 国家中介汇款体系

A state-mediated remittance system is the source’s pattern where migrant money is routed through official or semi-official institutions rather than only through private trust networks. In 168. 银与信：一部日本劳工移民的跨洋汇款史, Japanese families, village officials, the foreign ministry, overseas consulates, and [[YokohamaSpecieBank|Yokohama Specie Bank]] all help make Japanese Labor Migration Remittances / 日本劳工移民汇款 traceable and governable.

The concept contrasts with Qiaopi Remittance Networks. The Chinese qiaopi and silver-letter systems described in the episode relied more on water couriers, associations, merchant networks, clan ties, and hometown trust, while the Japanese case became more visible in centralized state and bank records.

Key Claims

• State mediation can lower coordination problems by giving migrant families, consulates, and banks a shared process.
• The same process can become paternalistic when the state defines the good migrant as thrifty, obedient, remittance-sending, and reputationally useful.
• Centralized mediation produces richer archives, but those archives reflect what officials and banks cared to record.
• Comparing state-backed and private-trust systems avoids treating remittance as one universal institution.

Connections

• Japanese Labor Migration Remittances / 日本劳工移民汇款 — main source case.
• [[YokohamaSpecieBank|Yokohama Specie Bank]] — semi-official bank at the center of the Japanese case.
• Migrant Family Remittance Obligation / 移民家庭汇款义务 — family pressure routed through state channels.
• Qiaopi Remittance Networks and Overseas Chinese Mutual Aid Networks — private and hometown-trust comparison.
• Archive Preservation Bias / 档案保存偏差 — archival consequence of state and bank mediation.