Centennial Commemoration: Economic 1840-1945 Visual Archive

Author: Liao Damao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: This series categorizes modern history by topic, collecting over a thousand precious images to transform the rigid appearance of traditional history books and vividly record the century-long history of China. This is the Culture volume: How was China, a traditional agricultural nation, in a state of desolation during the late Qing Dynasty? How did traditional commerce and merchant guilds differentiate themselves as they integrated into the global economic tide? The rise of modern cities, the improvement of transportation, the arduous modernization process of modern China, and the devastating natural disasters and chaotic governance of official documents left readers deeply contemplative. This series categorizes modern history by topic, collecting over a thousand precious images to transform the rigid appearance of traditional history books and vividly record the century-long history of China. This is the Culture volume: How was China, a traditional agricultural nation, in a state of desolation during the late Qing Dynasty? How did traditional commerce and merchant guilds differentiate themselves as they integrated into the global economic tide? The rise of modern cities, the improvement of transportation, the arduous modernization process of modern China, and the devastating natural disasters and chaotic governance of official documents left readers deeply contemplative. This book attempts to analyze the economy of old China from the perspectives of institutional policies, agriculture, handicrafts, commerce, transportation, and modern industry. The urban-rural gap was large, regional disparities were significant, and the distribution of industries was unbalanced. Transportation was backward, and a complete industrial system was never established. Economic growth was extremely slow, and the vast majority of Chinese people lived in considerable poverty. The control of foreign capital and bureaucratic capital over China's economic lifelines was a prominent feature. Meanwhile, the corruption and incompetence of those in power, along with the economic exploitation and oppression by foreign powers, were the main reasons for China's poverty and backwardness. This book carefully selected a large number of images, hoping to make the "dry" history of economics lively, intuitive, and pleasing to the eye.
After the Second Opium War, the ancient Eastern giant began its semi-feudal and semi-colonial process. However, for a considerable period after the war, the Qing government did not realize the changes in the "great trend of the times" and took almost no measures to adapt. It was not until the 1860s, when the Taiping Rebellion and the Second Opium War inflicted the Qing dynasty with "profound wounds," that some officials began to recognize the "unprecedented changes" in the situation. Faced with the "powerful ships and cannons" of the West, the Qing government initiated the "Self-Strengthening New Policies," claiming to "strengthen the nation" and "seek wealth," aiming to achieve the "revival" of the declining dynasty. As a result, the traditional economic policy of prioritizing agriculture with support from industry and commerce began to show signs of change, and the traditional economy also showed a tendency to transform into a modern market economy system.
The "Self-Strengthening New Policies" began in the 1860s. To cope with the crisis, the Qing government successively adopted major measures such as establishing modern military and civilian industries, which encouraged some private capital to invest in new industries, giving rise to early capitalists. All social strata also began to pay attention to the "Western affairs." However, the Qing government's pursuit of strength was primarily to maintain the peace. The pursuit of wealth was mainly to "expand the tax base." Li Hongzhang said, "To achieve strength, one must first enrich the treasury. To enrich the treasury, nothing is better than reviving commerce." The so-called "reviving commerce" was merely a means to "expand the tax base." The pursuit of wealth also included the idea of "enriching the people." By "reviving commerce" to "expand the tax base," this broke the traditional reliance on agriculture for financial resources, bringing opportunities to those interested in investing in new industries. However, the Qing government remained unwilling to relax its control over civilian enterprises or allow private enterprises to be freely established. Once an official enterprise was established, it was often forbidden for private capital to set up similar businesses. Private capital generally had to rely on equity participation or other methods to realize its desire to invest in modern industries. For enterprises established by the private sector, the court often implemented "official supervision and commercial management," granting monopolistic privileges while exerting strict control. Fully commercial private enterprises were ignored and unsupported by the Qing government. Although there were fine words like "the people must be made wealthy," the actual practice was "quickly changing what had achieved success, and officials seizing commercial rights made it difficult for them to be autonomous." Those businesses that flourished were almost always interfered with by officials. Corruption, bribery, embezzlement of enterprise funds, and even deliberate harassment for the sake of showing power drove many enterprises to ruin.
The Jichanglong silk reeling factory in Nanhai, Guangdong, developed rapidly under the management of the overseas merchant Chen Qiyuan, driving the development of machine silk reeling in the local area.
P12