This study was conducted as a part of research on the history of overseas Chinese, focusing on the diplomatic relationship between Korea and China, in order to see how Chinese in Korea adapted and organized themselves for the changing new society of Chosun. Chen Shu Tang, who was sent as the General Trade Commissioner, ordered Chinese merchants to recommend an director who would be selected to supervise the ground leveling work, and just after the selection, instructed to establish the ‘Chinese Guild’. The Guild was built on April 26 in 1884 on the site of a purchased tile?roofed house to the left of the Commercial Affair Office. As the guild was established for pursing the common goals, namely, the development and unity of the Chinese merchant association, it was the first private office launched mainly be Chinese merchants. Chinese merchants opened the center for discussing public affairs and recommended the representative of the guild. In addition, it collected 0.4% dues from the members’ trades and used it for the operation of the guild, and even boatman(chuan hu) agreed on ‘Regulations on the Guild’ stipulated by Chinese merchants for raising funds for the operation of the guild. This suggests that there were motives for voluntary participation. However, the selection of director, the representative of the guild, was initiated by the role of supervising the ground leveling work for the Incheon settlement, and official seal was paid by the Commercial Affair Office. Furthermore, half of the money for buying the guild building was borrowed by General Commissioner Chen Shu Tang from official funds. Considering these facts, the guild was launched not as a completely private organization but as ‘a semi?governmental’ institution. During the early stage of Chinese settlement, a federation called ‘Chinese guild(Chinese Merchant Center in Hanseong)’ was organized in April, 1884 in order to lay a stable base. From that time on, the number of Chinese merchants increased and their interests were changed, and as a result, the Chinese Merchant Center in Hanseong was divided into the northern and southern centers on December 9, 1885, In October, 1888, Chinese merchants in Seoul were divided gradually into the northern, southern and Guang groups. Each group recommended their own director. Directors during this period included Xiong Ting?han, Zhu Guan?Guang, Lu En-Shao(Chinese Guild), Lu En-Shao, Jiang Yan?Zi, Chen Guang?Run(Northern Group), Yuan Xian?Zhang, Lin Yue?Jiao, Zhang Chuan?Mao(Southern Group), and Dam Yi?shi (Guang Group). In this way, Chinese merchants in the early Chinese society in Korea formed their groups centering on specific localities, and the structure divided into groups was a remarkable phenomenon. However, while complying with the goals of the organization of the ‘Chinese Guild’, the Chinese merchants wanted to form their own group with culturally homogeneous members, separated the organization, and to promote the group’s common goals. This is also probably the reason that they were grouped by locality according to the traditional principle of organization. ‘Overseas Chinese’ in Korea originated from Chinese merchants at the end of the Qing Dynasty. Different from premodern overseas Chinese irrelevant to state power, modern overseas Chinese grew in close connection with state power. Chinese merchants in Seoul were managed strategically by their motherland from the early period of overseas Chinese social organizations. On the other hand, Chinese merchants used state power by complying with the state’s political strategies actively. As each Chinese merchant had to be a member of a group in order to run their business in Korea, the guilds in Seoul naturally became the center of overseas Chinese society. This provided a base for Chinese merchants to grow and surpassed Korean and Japanese merchants in Seoul where competition among Korea, Japan and China was most fierce.