Most-favoured-nation treaty in service of trade? Case: early trade policy relations between Finland and Japan and their impact on the sales networks of the Finnish forest industry

This article scrutinises the significance of the most-favoured-nation (MFN) treaty in promoting the development of commercial activity and its results in transnational trade. As cardinal agents of trade policy, governments act as ‘umpires’ in formulating and guarding the rules of international trade, while the ‘players’ are private corporations which conduct commercial operations in the playing field of international trade. Within the framework of Finno-Japanese trade relations, the players established and developed their trade networks (corporate interconnections) regardless of the umpires and their official rules, meaning the commercial treaties. Through a close examination of the early trade policy relations between Finland and Japan along with the formation and development of the Finnish forest industry’s sales networks into the Japanese market in the early twentieth century, this study demonstrates that there was no explicit causal connection between MFN treaties and the evolution of the Finnish forest industry’s export efforts – and their results.