Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T07:48:08.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chinese Entrepreneurs, the Government, and the Foreign Sector: The Canton and Shanghai Silk-Reeling Enterprises, 1861–1932

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Robert Y. Eng
Robert Y. Eng
Affiliation:
University of Redlands
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the aftermath of the Opium War of 1839–42, China was continuously subjected to increasing Western political and economic penetration. The Treaty of Nanjing was only the first of a series of unequal treaties which led to the opening of over 100 treaty ports along the coast and in the interior of China. In many of these ports Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the United States, Japan and other imperialist powers set up concessions under their administration and outside Chinese jurisdiction. There their nationals could freely trade, invest in banking, industry and construction, and engage in missionary and other cultural activities. Thus, although China never completely fell under the direct control of any imperialist power, the treaty ports were functionally similar to the port cities of Western colonies as linkages to the metropolitan countries.Did these treaty ports serve as beachheads of imperialism which facilitated foreign extraction of raw materials, exploitation of a cheap labor market, and displacement by cheap imports of native handicrafts left unprotected by the loss of tariff autonomy, as neo-Marxist historians charge? Or, as the revisionist scholars contend, were they centers of political and economic modernization where Western ideas and institutions were communicated to the Chinese, and where Western entrepreneurship and capital not only pioneered in modern industry, but also prompted imitative responsesfrom Chinese entrepreneurs? And yet, did the ports fail to have any major impact at all on Chinese political organization and socio-economic development, as Chinese mercantile interests thwarted Western attempts to penetrate the economy?

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 1984 , pp. 353 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

This paper constitutes a portion of my larger research project on the modern Chinese silk industry. Special thanks to Prof. Frederic Wakeman for his patient guidance and incisive comments, and to Profs Franz Schurmann, Thomas C. Smith and Benjamin Ward, other members of my dissertation committee, for their valuable suggestions. An earlier version was presented at the Comparative Conference on ‘The Colonial Port City in Asia,’ Santa Cruz, California, June 14-16, 1976. My appreciation to all participants for their fruitful cross-cultural interchange of ideas, particularly to Profs Dilip Basu and Thomas Metcalf, organizers of the conference, and to Profs Chris Bayly, Ming Chan, Morris Morris and Rhoads Murphey. Thanks also to Dr Alvin So for some scarce Chinese sources.

1 For a lively exchange between the neo-Marxist and revisionist perspectives, see Joseph Esherick, ‘The Apologetics of Imperialism’, and Nathan, Andrew, ‘Imperialism's Effects on China’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars IV: 4 (12 1972)Google Scholar; for a thoughtful and wide-ranging interpretative essay on the treaty ports, see Murphey, Rhoads's ‘The Treaty Ports and China's Modernization’, in Elvin, Mark and Skinner, G. William (eds), The Chinese City Between Two Worlds (Stanford, 1974), 17–71.Google Scholar

2 See Maritime Customs, Decennial Reports, 1922–31 (Shanghai, 1933), I, 190, Table 3.Google Scholar

3 Calculated from Lieu, D. K., The Silk Industry of China (Shanghai, 1940), 266, Table II.Google Scholar

4 Zeyi, Peng, ‘Zhongying wukou tongshang yange kao’, Zhongguo shehui jingji shi jikan, VIII: 1 (01 1949), 138–9.Google Scholar

5 Brown, Shannon, ‘The Ewo Filature: A Study in the Transfer of Technology to China in the 19th Century’, Technology and Culture, XX: 3 (07 1979), 550–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Zhongguo jindai gongyeshi ziliao, 1st series: 1840–1895, comp. by Yutang, Sun, and 2nd series: 1895–1914, comp. by Wang Jingyu (Beijing, 1957) (abbreviated as GYS I and GYS II thereafter), I, 65–9Google Scholar; Yutang, Sun, Zhongri jiawu zhanzheng qian waiguo ziben zai Zhongguo jingying de jindai gongye (Shanghai, 1955), 23.Google Scholar

7 GYS, I, 971.Google Scholar

8 GYS, I, 69–71, 971; II, 963.Google Scholar

9 See Table 1 below, and Zhongping, Yan et al. (comps), Zhongguo jindai jingjishi jiliao xuanji (Beijing, 1957), 162–3.Google Scholar

10 GYS, I, 59–65, 957–9, 964–5Google Scholar; Zeyi, Peng (comp), Zhongguo jindai shougongyeshi ziliao (Beijing, 1957) (referred to as SGYS hereafter), II, 45–50.Google Scholar

11 Maritime Customs, Decennial Reports, 1892–1901 (Shanghai, 1905), II, 262.Google Scholar

12 ‘A General Survey of the Raw Silk and Silkworm Industry in China’, Chinese Economic Monthly, II: 6 (03 1925), 3–7, Table I.Google Scholar

13 Jitsuya, Fujimoto, Shina sanshigyō kenkyū (Tokyo, 1943), 153–61.Google Scholar

14 Calculated from Yan (see n. 9).

15 Nongxuebao, juan 245: 1b; Boyuan, Liu, Guangdong sheng sangye diaocha baogao shu (Canton, 1922), 59.Google Scholar

16 This is computed from my longitudinal reconstruction of 495 filatures operating between 1897 and 1932 from various industrial surveys contained in Chinese, Japanese and English sources. For detailed citations, see my dissertation, ‘Imperialism and the Chinese Economy: The Canton and Shanghai Silk Industry, 1861–1932’ (U.C. Berkeley, 1978), ch. 3, 64, n. 26.Google Scholar

17 Calculated from ‘A General Survey of the Raw Silk and Silkworm Industry in China’, Table I.

18 Customs, Maritime, Decennial Reports, 1882–91 (Shanghai, 1893), 554.Google Scholar

19 Nanhai xian zhi juan 39:4a; Customs, Maritime, Decennial Reports, 1892–1901, II, 264.Google Scholar

20 Fujimoto, (see n. 13), 126–8.Google Scholar

21 Decennial Reports, 1902–11 (Shanghai, 1913), II, 18.Google Scholar

22 Kotenov, A., Shanghai: Its Municipality and the Chinese (Shanghai, 1927), 306–10Google Scholar; ‘China Raw Silk Trade Changing,’ Silk, XIII: 3 (03 1920), 49.Google Scholar

23 Jingyu, Wang, ‘Shijiu shiji waiguo qinhua qiye zhong de huashang fugu huodong,’ Lishi yanjiu (1965: 4), 59.Google Scholar

24 Yaojie, Chen and Qiutong, Chen, ‘Guangdong diyijian jingqi saosichang Jichang-long ji qi chuangbanren Chen Qiyuan,’ Guangdong wenshi ziliao, 8 (1963), 60.Google Scholar

25 Topley, Majorie, ‘Marriage Resistance in Rural Kwangtung’, in Wolf, Margery and Witke, Roxanne (eds), Women in Chinese Society (Stanford, 1975), 67–88.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., 72.

27 In 1930, for example, excluding 21 filatures the organizational form of which was unknown, of 86 filatures, 77 were partnerships, 5 individually owned and 4 incorporations. Eiichi, Horie, ‘Shina seishigyō no seisan keitai’, (II) Tōa keiaai ronsō, III: 1 (02 1943), 145.Google Scholar

28 For instance, in 1918, 17 filatures were owned by 9 separate individuals or families, and 54 filatures by 36 companies. ‘A General Survey of the Raw Silk and Silkworm Industry in China.’

29 Ichirō, Shima, ‘Sekai kyōkō to Chūgoku seishi kōgyō’, reprinted in Chūgoku kankei ronsetsu shiryō, XVI, pt 4: 2 (1974), 89.Google Scholar

30 Calculated from Chinese Economic Bulletin, no. 123 (06 30, 1923), 2Google Scholar, and ‘Shanghai Silk Filatures’, Chinese Economic Journal, III: 1 (07 1928), 590–1.Google Scholar

31 Eiichi, Morie, ‘Shina seishigyō no seisan keitai’ (I), Tōa keizai ronsō, II:4 (12 1942), 150.Google Scholar

32 Shima (see n. 29), 68.

33 Zhen, Chen (comp.), Zhongguo jindai gongyeshi ziliao (Beijing, 1957), IV: 1, 153.Google Scholar

34 dōbunkai, Tōa (comp.), Shina keitai zensho (Tokyo, 1908), XXII, 34–5.Google Scholar

35 Shigemi, Uehara, Shina sanshigyō taikan (Tokyo, 1929), 242–3Google Scholar; Customs, Maritime, Trade Returns, 1914, 681, 997Google Scholar; ‘Minguo liunian Shanghai sicha maoyi zhi gaikuang’, Dongfang zazhi, XV: 9 (09 1918), 147.Google Scholar

36 Chang, Y. L., ‘China's Silk Industry and Reforms’, Millard's Review, V: 8 (07 20, 1918), 321.Google Scholar

37 Benli, Li, ‘Shunde cansiye de lishi gaikuang’, Guangdong wenshi zjliao, 15 (1964), 115–16.Google Scholar

38 Nanhai xian zhi, juan 4: 39b.

39 Howard, C. W. and Buswell, K. P., A Survey of the Silk Industry of South China (Canton, 1925), 123Google Scholar; Nongshi yuekan, IV: 8 (02 1926), 13.Google Scholar

40 McElderry, Andrea, Shanghai Old-Style Banks (Ch'ien-chuang), 1800–1935 (Ann Arbor, 1976), 2Google Scholar; ‘Native Banks in Canton,’ Chinese Economic Journal, XI: 3 (09 1932), 187.Google Scholar

41 Shanghai qianzhuang shiliao (Shanghai, 1960), 743.Google Scholar

42 Benli, Li (see n. 37), 113.Google Scholar

43 Jingyu, Wang (see n. 23), 59.Google Scholar

44 Hanxiang, Cong, ‘Guanyu Zhongguo minzu de yuanshi jilei wenti’, Lishi yanjiu (1962:2), 139.Google Scholar

45 Zhen, Chen (see n. 33), IV: 1, 112Google Scholar; Uehara, (see n. 35), 325–32, 430–1.Google Scholar

46 Benli, Li (see n. 37), 113–4Google Scholar; Who's Who in China, 4th edn (Shanghai, 1931), 57.Google Scholar

47 Lieu, D. K. (see n. 3), 142–6.Google Scholar

48 Wai, Lei Yue and Kit, Lei Hei, ‘Report on a Steam Filature in Kwangtung’, Lingnaam Agricultural Review, III: 2 (04 1926), 111Google Scholar; Benli, Li (see n. 37), 112.Google Scholar

49 Allen, G. C. and Donnithorne, A. G., Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Development (London, 1954), 61.Google Scholar

50 Hansheng, Quan, ‘Cong Xu Run de fangdichan jingying kan Guangxu jiunian de jingji konghuang’, in Quan, , Zhongguo jingjishi luncong (Hong Kong, 1972), II, 790–2Google Scholar; Shanghai quianzhuang shiliao, 44–9.Google Scholar

51 Douty, D. E., ‘The International Testing House at Shanghai’, Silk, XV: 3 (03 1922) 39.Google Scholar

52 Whang, Paul K., ‘Foreign Silk Firms and Chinese Producers’, China Weekly Review, XXXIX: 2 (12 11, 1926), 42Google Scholar; Dōbunkai, Tōa (comp.), Shina shōbetsu zenshi (Tokyo, 1917–1920), I, 923Google Scholar; Zhen, Chen (see n. 33), IV: 1, 162.Google Scholar

53 Whang, Paul K., ‘Exchange and the Silk Market’, China Weekly Review, XLIV: 5 (03 31, 1928), 140.Google Scholar

54 Whang, Paul K., ‘Settling Disputes in the Silk Trade’, China Weekly Review, XL: 3 (03 10, 1927), 80.Google Scholar

55 Hauser, Ernest O., Shanghai: City for Sale (New York, 1940), 70.Google Scholar

56 For an excellent theoretical discussion of export economies and the role of foreign factors, see Levin, Jonathan V., The Export Economies: Their Pattern of Development in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, Mass., 1960).Google Scholar

57 Eng (see n. 16), 165–74.Google Scholar

58 Had the Chinese developed a modern shipping industry, they might have had a better chance in challenging foreign hegemony in the export sector. However, jealously protective of the monopolistic privileges in snipping of the China Merchants that he sponsored, Li Hongzhong rejected numerous petitions by Cantonese and Shanghai merchants (including the filaturist Ye Chengzhong) to establish steamship companies in the 1880s. Wang Xi, ‘Cong Lunchuan zhaoshang ju kan Yangwu yundong pai jingji huodong de lishi zuoyong’, Yangwu yundong yanjm lunji (Hong Kong, 1973), 104.Google Scholar

59 GYS, I, 72–3.Google Scholar

60 GYS, I, 951–6.Google Scholar

61 Zhen, Chen (see n. 33), IV: 1, 109.Google Scholar

62 Hayami, Yujiro and Ruttan, Vernon W., Agricultural Development: An International Perspective (Baltimore, 1971), 302Google Scholar; Duran, Leo, Raw Silk (New York, 1913), 80.Google Scholar

63 Keishi, Ohara (comp. and ed.), Japanese Trade and Industry in the Meiji-Taisho Era (Tokyo, 1957), 22.Google Scholar

64 Feuerwerker, Albert, China's Early Industrialization (New York, 1970), 56.Google Scholar

65 Allen and Donnithorne (see n. 49), 225.Google Scholar

66 Okita, Saburo and Miki, Takeo, ‘Treatment of Foreign Capital–A Case Study for Japan,’ Ch. 3 of Adler, John H. (ed.), Capital Movements and Economic Development (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

67 Youyi, Zhang (comp.), Zhongguo jindai nongyeshi ziliao, 2nd collection: 1912–27 (Beijing, 1957), 188Google Scholar; ‘High Priced Japanese Silk,’ Trans-Pacific, VII: 2 (08 1922), 38Google Scholar; ‘Warnings to Silk Men Multiply,’ Trans-Pacific, VIII: 2–3 (02–03 1923). 37.Google Scholar

68 Youyi, Zhang (see n. 67), 163.Google Scholar

69 Douty, D. E., ‘The International Testing House at Shanghai’, 40Google Scholar; Duran, Leo, ‘The Silk Situation’, Silk, XV: 8 (08 1922), 43Google Scholar; Whang, Paul K., ‘Testing Bureaus and the Silk Industry’, China Weekly Review, XLIX: 4 (06 22, 1929), 160.Google Scholar

70 See Murphey's ‘The Treaty Ports and China's Modernization’ (see n. 1); an even fuller and more richly documented exposition of Murphey's thesis in a comparative context is his The Outsiders: The Westerners' Experience in India and China (Ann Arbor, 1977)Google Scholar. For similar views, see among others, Rawski, Thomas G., ‘Chinese Dominance of Treaty Ports and Its Implications’, Explorations in Economic History, VII: 4 (June 1970), 451–73Google Scholar, and Brown, Shannon R., ‘The Partially Opened Door: Limitations on Economic Change in China in the 1860s’, Modern Asian Studies, XII: 2 (1978), 177–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71 Brown, (see n. 5), 561–2.Google Scholar

72 In 1922, all but 3 of 67 Shanghai filatures were making profits, ranging between 2 and 5% over and above expenses (calculated from Chinese Economic Bulletin, no. 123 (June 30, 1923), 3–6)Google Scholar. Around 1923 Cantonese filatures made profits of 6–13% above costs (calculated from Howard and Buswell (see n. 39) 139–40).Google Scholar

73 Shanghai qianzhuang shiliao, 9. However, after the 1910 rubber crisis and the financial crisis following the 1911 Revolution, many traditional banks in Shanghai folded; subsequently the Western banks ceased to issue chop loans to traditional banks. Yinchu, Ma, Ma Yinchu yanjiangji (Shanghai, 1932), I, 185Google Scholar; Wagel, Srinvas R., Finance in China (Shanghai, 1914), 239.Google Scholar