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Economy, 1895–1949 (Chinese Studies)

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Jun 11th, 2018
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  1.  
  2. Introduction
  3. The nature of the pre-Communist Chinese economy and the degree of its success, if any, at least up to the outbreak of war in 1937, are matters of some controversy, and these issues are closely linked to much broader debates on the relative merits of the market economy and economic planning. For a long time a “pessimistic” view held sway both in the West and more particularly in China, where it both fed into and was used as justification for the adoption of economic planning. Beginning in the 1980s a number of scholars, of whom Thomas G. Rawski has been the most influential, questioned many aspects of this perception. There was substantial if not rapid growth, even in agriculture, and some improvement in living standards, while the market served China and its population well. To an increasing extent, scholars both within and outside China have come to see the post–Mao Zedong economy as picking up many of the features of China’s market economy in the 1930s (e.g., family farms, family-based entrepreneurship, urban consumerism), while the planned economy between 1949 and 1978 is seen as at best an interlude and at worst an aberration. Although parts of this more “optimistic” position are now widely accepted, there are still major differences in emphasis among scholars. Intersecting with overall judgments on the success of the economy are a number of other controversies. Insofar as the economy is perceived as a failure, and growth, especially in agriculture, is seen to have been slower than it might have been, scholars differ on whether the main impediments were social and political (e.g., the role of the state, the impact of imperialism, the structure of rural society) or material and technological (population pressure and the slow take-up of modern technology). The foreign impact has been controversial in terms of both its magnitude and its nature (beneficial or harmful). Chinese entrepreneurship has been variously criticized for falling behind the ideal mandated by modernization theory and upheld as an example for contemporary Chinese managers seeking to escape the dictates of the planned economy. The Nationalist regime of 1927–1937 is seen variously as a predatory state whose activities were a major barrier to development or as a precursor to the planned economy under the Chinese Communist Party.
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
  6. Feuerwerker 1995, though outdated, has still not been superseded as a concise and comprehensive treatment of China’s economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Also in English, the prewar work Tawney 1978 is a well-written and often quoted pessimistic analysis of the Chinese rural economy by a leading British socialist. Deng 2012 is a longer-term view arguing against the prevailing orthodox pessimist view. There are numerous overview volumes in Chinese with titles such as Zhongguo jindai jingji shi (中国近代经济史) (Economic history of modern China). The most authoritative are the collaborative works embodied in Wang 2000 and Liu and Wu 2010, though the former is somewhat dated. Xu and Wu 2003 is to some extent a survey but of the specifically capitalist elements of the economy. Wang 2007 offers one of the most influential interpretations of the direction of modern Chinese economic history, whereas Wang 2009 provides detailed chronological information on economic developments.
  7.  
  8. Deng, Kent. China’s Political Economy in Modern Times: Changes and Economic Consequences, 1800–2000. Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia 70. London: Routledge, 2012.
  9.  
  10. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  11.  
  12. Argues against the Chinese Nationalist/Maoist orthodoxy (which can also be seen, to some extent, in Western works) concerning China’s economic history and development since the early 19th century.
  13.  
  14. Find this resource:
  15.  
  16. Feuerwerker, Albert. The Chinese Economy, 1870–1949. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies 71. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1995.
  17.  
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  19.  
  20. The section of this work on republican China was originally published in 1983 as a chapter in the Cambridge History of China, Volume 12, edited by John K. Fairbank, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), pp. 28–127, and in the Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies series in 1977. Despite its age, however, this work remains as good and balanced a survey of the period as exists.
  21.  
  22. Find this resource:
  23.  
  24. Liu Kexiang 刘克祥, and Wu Taichang 吴太昌, eds. Zhongguo jindai jingji shi, 1927–1937 (中国近代经济史, 1927–1937). 3 vols. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2010.
  25.  
  26. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  27.  
  28. Economic history of China during the Nanjing decade. Organized according to the main economic sectors (agriculture, industry, handicrafts, commerce, and so on). Little coverage of macroeconomic aggregates.
  29.  
  30. Find this resource:
  31.  
  32. Tawney, Richard H. Land and Labour in China. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1978.
  33.  
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  35.  
  36. A classic study, originally published in 1932, especially of the Chinese rural economy in the 1920s. Famous for its metaphor of the Chinese peasant up to his or her neck in water, vulnerable to the smallest ripple. Although this is not written by a specialist, Tawney’s analysis is always intelligent and is a good example of how China’s economy was perceived in the 1930s.
  37.  
  38. Find this resource:
  39.  
  40. Wang Jingyu 汪敬虞, ed. Zhongguo jindai jingji shi, 1895–1927 (中国近代经济史, 1895–1927). 3 vols. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2000.
  41.  
  42. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  43.  
  44. Economic history of China, 1895–1927, compiled during the 1990s by scholars in Beijing and Shanghai. Rich in material and using Western as well as Chinese sources, this work is nevertheless organized in fairly traditional (Chinese Marxist) fashion, covering the expansion of imperialism in China, changes in the traditional feudal economy, and the development of capitalism in different economic sectors.
  45.  
  46. Find this resource:
  47.  
  48. Wang Jingyu 汪敬虞. Zhongguo zibenzhuyi de fazhan he bufazhan: Zhongguo jindai jingji shi zhongxin xiansuo wenti yanjiu (中国资本主义的发展和不发展: 中国近代经济史中心线索问题研究). Beijing: Zhongguo guanli chubanshe, 2007.
  49.  
  50. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  51.  
  52. Wang’s idea of the “development and nondevelopment of Chinese capitalism” has been very influential, underlying, for example, Liu and Wu 2010. The book examines the historical conditions for the emergence of Chinese capitalism, the external environment, and the internal structure, along with a final evaluation.
  53.  
  54. Find this resource:
  55.  
  56. Wang Fangzhong 王方中. Zhongguo jingji shi biannian jishi, 1842–1949 nian (中国经济史编年记事, 1842–1949年). Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2009.
  57.  
  58. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  59.  
  60. Detailed chronology of events in modern Chinese economic history. Discusses governmental and private sectors. The information is referenced, which is important, though as is usual with such works, there is no index, greatly reducing the text’s utility.
  61.  
  62. Find this resource:
  63.  
  64. Xu Dixin 许涤新, and Wu Chengming 吴承明, eds. Zhongguo zibenzhuyi fazhan shi (中国资本主义发展史). 3 vols. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2003.
  65.  
  66. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  67.  
  68. The last two volumes are relevant to the subject of this article and provide the most authoritative analysis of the Chinese economy in terms of the development of capitalism in industry and commerce as well as agriculture. The authors present some of the earlier attempts at quantifying key variables in the Chinese economy.
  69.  
  70. Find this resource:
  71.  
  72. Guides to Sources
  73. Accessing sources especially (but not only) in Chinese and Japanese is a major issue in researching modern Chinese economic history. This section offers some guidance on archival sources, other primary sources, and secondary sources. Wilkinson 2015 gives guidance on primary sources, including archives, periodicals, statistics, and other publications.
  74.  
  75. Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A New Manual. 4th ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2015.
  76.  
  77. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  78.  
  79. Although the Republican economy is only a small part of Wilkinson’s magnum opus, the book does introduce many of the important archives and sources, with a special section on Japanese sources on Republican China. A less extensive, guide to secondary work.
  80.  
  81. Find this resource:
  82.  
  83. Archives
  84. Greater access to archives has had a major effect on the field and promises to have an even greater one in the future. Although the archives of the British Foreign Office and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs have long been important sources (see Foreign Office Files for China, 1919–1980 and Japan Centre for Asian Historical Records), it is the—albeit incomplete—opening of archives in China that promises to make the greatest contribution. Kirby, et al. 2001 is the place to start for extensive coverage of the main archives. Further details on the main relevant national archives, the Second Historical Archives, in Nanjing, can be found in Shi and Zhao 1987. Some of the key archival materials were taken to Taiwan in 1949, and Lin 1995 is a quite comprehensive description of the collections there. The main center of the modern economy was Shanghai. Wu 2009 is an extensive guide to the Shanghai Municipal Archives, whereas Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo and Zhongguo qiyeshi ziliao yanjiu zhongxin 2002 covers the many enterprise records held at the Institute for Economics, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. The holdings of local and provincial archives are potentially very important but have been little tapped so far; Ye and Esherick 1996 is the most comprehensive, though outdated, guide.
  85.  
  86. Foreign Office Files for China, 1919–1980 Adam Matthew Digital.
  87.  
  88. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  89.  
  90. Collaborative effort with the British National Archives. The first three parts of six cover the republican period. Mainly, though not exclusively, from the FO371 series. While diplomatic affairs are not surprisingly predominant, there is much information about the British stake in China and many useful general reports on the Chinese economy. Available by subscription.
  91.  
  92. Find this resource:
  93.  
  94. Japan Centre for Asian Historical Records.
  95.  
  96. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  97.  
  98. This is the English home page, though for the documents one needs Japanese. Contains more than 1.6 million documents from the National Archives of Japan, the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, and the National Institute for Defense Studies. Much useful information on Japanese enterprises and policies and more generally on the Chinese economy. Freely available and invaluable.
  99.  
  100. Find this resource:
  101.  
  102. Kirby, William C., Man-houng Lin, James Chin Shih, and David A. Pietz, eds. State and Economy in Republican China: A Handbook for Scholars. 2 vols. Harvard East Asian Monographs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001.
  103.  
  104. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  105.  
  106. Details the holdings of major archives, including the Number Two Historical Archives and the archives of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Suzhou, Nantong, Sichuan, and Tianjin and those in Taiwan. Also provides a guide to research aids and gives guidance in reading republican documents.
  107.  
  108. Find this resource:
  109.  
  110. Lin Manhong [Lin Man-houng] 林满红, ed. Taiwan suo cang Zhonghua minguo jingji dang’an (台湾所藏中华民国经济档案). Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindai shi yanjiusuo dang’an diaocha baogao. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindai shi yanjiusuo, 1995.
  111.  
  112. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  113.  
  114. An extensive description—rather than catalogue—of archival holdings in Taiwan on the republican economy. Covers particularly the Academia Historica (Guo shi guan, 国史馆) and the Academia Sinica. Mainly but not exclusively government documents.
  115.  
  116. Find this resource:
  117.  
  118. Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo, and Zhongguo qiyeshi ziliao yanjiu zhongxin 上海社会科学院经济研究所,中国企业史资料研究中心, ed. Zhongguo qiyeshi suowei ziliao mulu yu jianjie (中国企业史缩微资料目录与简介). Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo, 2002.
  119.  
  120. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  121.  
  122. Catalogue and brief introduction to microfilmed materials on Chinese business history held at the Institute of Economics, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, including documents on Liu Hongsheng, the Rong brothers, Butterfield and Swire, and British American Tobacco and an extensive series of press cuttings, 1930–1950.
  123.  
  124. Find this resource:
  125.  
  126. Shi Xuancen 施宣岑, and Zhao Mingzhong 赵铭忠, eds. Zhongguo dier lishi dang’anguan jianming zhinan (中国第二历史档案馆简明指南). Beijing: Dang’an chubanshe, 1987.
  127.  
  128. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  129.  
  130. A guide to the Second Historical Archives listing bank, government, and other archives. Also deals with the period of the Japanese puppet government. The relationship to the actual archives, which some scholars have found difficult to use, is not as clear as it might be.
  131.  
  132. Find this resource:
  133.  
  134. Wu Chen 吴辰, ed. Shanghaishi dang’anguan zhinan (上海市档案馆指南). Zhongguo dang’anguan zhinan cong shu. Beijing: Zhongguo dang’an chubanshe, 2009.
  135.  
  136. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  137.  
  138. A guide to the Shanghai City Archives. Discusses the archives of many trade associations, such as the Shanghai Silk-Reeling Industry Trade Association, and enterprise archives, including state, private, modern, and traditional banks. Brief descriptions of some of the holdings can also be found online.
  139.  
  140. Find this resource:
  141.  
  142. Ye, Wa, and Joseph W. Esherick. Chinese Archives: An Introductory Guide. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Center for Chinese Studies, 1996.
  143.  
  144. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  145.  
  146. Includes details of provincial- and national-level archives and more than 500 subprovincial-level archives. Varies from (in most cases) just basic details to a much more comprehensive list of holdings and experiences of Western scholars in using the archives (in the 1990s).
  147.  
  148. Find this resource:
  149.  
  150. Other Primary Sources
  151. Chinese economists and institutions published a large number of reports, periodicals, and yearbooks during this period. Though perhaps on the border between primary and secondary sources, these form valuable resources for scholars researching modern Chinese economic history. Fairbank and Liu 1950 gives an extensive introduction to this literature, while Dacheng laojiu qikan quanwen shujuku gives access to the important part of that literature consisting of economic periodicals. Japanese sources are also almost indispensable for studies of the Chinese economy in this period. Likewise on the border between primary and secondary sources, the most comprehensive and important are those produced by the Research Department of the South Manchurian Railway Company (SMR), which cover not only Manchuria but also the rest of China and beyond. Young 1966 is a preliminary guide to the SMR materials, and Li 2007 is a more recent thirty-volume union catalogue of the holdings in libraries in China. An increasingly substantial selection of SMR and other material is being made available online in the National Diet Library Digital Collections.
  152.  
  153. Dacheng laojiu qikan quanwen shujuku (大成老旧期刊全文数据库).
  154.  
  155. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  156.  
  157. Large subscription-based database of pre-1949 Chinese journals. Includes a large number of economic periodicals (689 periodicals are listed solely in the category “economy,” though some are in incomplete runs. Other categories include “transport” and “industrial technology”). Immensely valuable for research on the Republican economy.
  158.  
  159. Find this resource:
  160.  
  161. Fairbank, John King, and Kwang-ching Liu, eds. Modern China: A Bibliographical Guide to Chinese Works, 1898–1937. Harvard-Yencheng Institute Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950.
  162.  
  163. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  164.  
  165. Section 6 (pp. 230–395) offers a relatively comprehensive treatment of the main journals, yearbooks, reports, and monographs produced by Chinese economists before 1937 on the modern Chinese economy. Limited to Chinese-language materials, though many works were also published in English.
  166.  
  167. Find this resource:
  168.  
  169. Li Xin 李新. Zhongguo guancang Mantie ziliao lianhe mulu (中国馆藏满铁资料联合目录). 30 vols. Shanghai: Dongfang zhongxin, 2007.
  170.  
  171. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  172.  
  173. Union catalogue of the holdings in libraries in China of materials produced by the SMR and its associated organizations. Arranged by subject category with indexes by title and author. A massive resource that has hardly begun to be used. Not all of the libraries covered in the catalogue make the materials available, at least not to foreign scholars.
  174.  
  175. Find this resource:
  176.  
  177. National Diet Library Digital Collections.
  178.  
  179. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  180.  
  181. Over the past few years the National Diet Library in Tokyo has digitized a large amount of prewar materials. Most are in Japanese, and a few in Chinese. Many are available online, though some can only be consulted in the Library. It is certainly easier to enter, for example, “支那経済” (Shina keizai, Chinese economy) in the search box than to buy an airline ticket to Tokyo. An increasingly important resource.
  182.  
  183. Find this resource:
  184.  
  185. Young, John. The Research Activities of the South Manchurian Railway Company, 1907–1945: A History and Bibliography. New York: East Asian Institute, Columbia University, 1966.
  186.  
  187. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  188.  
  189. No doubt to some extent superseded by Li 2007 but more accessible; does give locations in libraries outside China. The magnitude of the SMR research effort is evidenced by Young’s listing of more than 6,000 separate works.
  190.  
  191. Find this resource:
  192.  
  193. Secondary Sources
  194. Although the standard bibliographic tools and databases can give us reasonable information on late 20th- and early 21st-century Western-language secondary sources, earlier Western works and those in Chinese and Japanese are more difficult to access. Skinner, et al. 1973 remains an invaluable guide to publications in European languages, Chinese, and Japanese up to 1972. Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo “Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu” bianjibu 1997 and Kubo 2012 are guides to the secondary Chinese and Japanese literature. Guoxue wang actually includes many published and unpublished articles on economic history.
  195.  
  196. Guoxue wang 国学网. Zhongguo jingji shi luntan (中国经济史论坛).
  197.  
  198. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  199.  
  200. Valuable website on Chinese economic history not limited to the modern period. Includes both bibliographic information and a large number of full-text articles. Unfortunately there appears to be a limited amount of material after about 2013.
  201.  
  202. Find this resource:
  203.  
  204. Kubo Tōru 久保亨, ed. Chūgoku keizai shi nyūmon (中国経済史入門). Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 2012.
  205.  
  206. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  207.  
  208. This introduction to China’s economic history offers a survey of work on modern Chinese economic history especially focusing on works in Japanese. Includes sections on the rural economy, trade and markets, and finance and on several specific industries.
  209.  
  210. Find this resource:
  211.  
  212. Skinner, G. William, Winston Hsieh, and Shigeaki Tomita, eds. Modern Chinese Society: An Analytical Bibliography. 3 vols. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1973.
  213.  
  214. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  215.  
  216. This massive work, containing 31,000 items in Western languages, Chinese, and Japanese, is an indispensable guide to secondary materials published on Chinese society up to 1972. As it tends to define as secondary all journal articles, even those in current affairs journals, the text includes many key sources for the study of the early modern Chinese economy.
  217.  
  218. Find this resource:
  219.  
  220. Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo “Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu” bianjibu 中国社会科学院经济研究所中国经济史研究编辑部, ed. Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu ershinian, Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu lunzhu suoyin (中国经济史研究二十年，中国经济史研究论著索引). Beijing: Jingji yanjiu zazhi she, 1997.
  221.  
  222. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  223.  
  224. Published as a special supplement to Zhongguo jingjishi yanjiu (see also Journals) to celebrate its tenth anniversary, this includes an overview of research on Chinese economic history from the beginning of the reforms to the mid-1990s and bibliographies of books and articles. Later issues of the same journal also include annual reviews, albeit fairly descriptive.
  225.  
  226. Find this resource:
  227.  
  228. Statistics
  229. A lack of reliable statistics is a serious constraint on the study of the Chinese economy before 1949, and there is still a long way to go to resolve the situation. Yan 2012 is a general compilation. The figures in Maddison 2007 and the related website, though for this period mainly based on secondary sources, provide possibly the most plausible estimates for gross domestic product (GDP) and population (though even these postulate twice as much population growth for 1936–1952 as there was for 1920–1936, which is counterintuitive, given the impact of the Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War). Minami and Makino 2014 is the outcome of a major Asia-wide project in Japan.
  230.  
  231. Maddison, Angus. Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run, 960–2030 AD. 2d ed. Development Centre Studies. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2007.
  232.  
  233. DOI: 10.1787/9789264037632-enSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  234.  
  235. Has annual estimates for population from 1820 and GDP estimates for 1900, 1913, and 1929–1938. The results of this project can be found at the Groningen Growth and Development Centre website at the Angus Maddison homepage. The website gives the GDP estimates in 1990 International Geary-Khamis dollars (GK$) for comparison with other countries (which are also listed on the website).
  236.  
  237. Find this resource:
  238.  
  239. Minami Ryoshin 南亮進, and Makino Fumio 牧野文夫, eds. Ajia chōki Keizai tōkei: 3 Chūgoku アジア長期経済統計: 3 中国. Tokyo: Toyo keizai shimposha, 2014.
  240.  
  241. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  242.  
  243. Product of the Hitotsubashi Asian Historical Statistics project. Mostly on post-1949, but includes important statistical series for population, industry and agriculture, finance, prices, trade, and national accounts for the pre-1949 period. Especially strong (and separate) coverage of Manchuria. Relatively conservative in that it does not stray too far from hard figures published in the sources. Includes a CD-ROM with more detailed figures.
  244.  
  245. Find this resource:
  246.  
  247. Yan Zhongping 严中平. Zhongguo jindai jingji shi tongji ziliao xuan ji (中国近代经济史统计资料选辑). Rev. ed. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2012.
  248.  
  249. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  250.  
  251. Corrected version of Yan’s 1955 collection of statistical materials on China’s modern economy. Still an important resource, though it does not use modern economic categories. There are no aggregate economic statistics.
  252.  
  253. Find this resource:
  254.  
  255. Production
  256. Liu and Yeh 1965 is the most thorough reworking of China’s national income statistics for 1933 based on the influential factory survey of that year (Liu 1937) and on earlier Chinese attempts to build this into a national income estimate. Yeh 1979 briefly updates some of the estimates in Liu and Yeh 1965 and offers annual national income figures for 1931–1936. Chang 1969 is a pioneering attempt to compile an index of industrial production and has not been superseded, though improved figures on the same basis have been provided through the efforts of a number of scholars, notably Kubo Toru, who has worked with the Asian Historical Statistics Project at Hitsotsubashi University (see, e.g., Kubo 2006).
  257.  
  258. Chang, John K. Industrial Development in Pre-Communist China: A Quantitative Analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1969.
  259.  
  260. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  261.  
  262. A pioneering work that changed perceptions of the trajectory of Chinese industry. The text’s very important index of industrial production was based on a rather narrow range of products and is biased toward heavy industry.
  263.  
  264. Find this resource:
  265.  
  266. Kubo, Toru. “Industrial Development in Republican China, Newly Revised Index: 1912–1948.” Paper presented at the International Economic History Conference, Helsinki, Finland, 21–25 August 2006.
  267.  
  268. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  269.  
  270. Update of Chang’s industrial production index by Japan’s leading scholar of China’s modern economy. Includes estimates for silk and flour and major revisions for the series on the cotton textile industry.
  271.  
  272. Find this resource:
  273.  
  274. Liu Dajun 刘大钧. Zhongguo gongye diaocha baogao (中国工业调查报告). 3 vols. Nanjing, China: Jingji Tongji Yanjiusuo, 1937.
  275.  
  276. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  277.  
  278. Pioneering attempt by one of China’s leading economists to survey Chinese industry in 1933 (excluding Manchuria). Has formed the basis for many subsequent attempts to calculate China’s GDP.
  279.  
  280. Find this resource:
  281.  
  282. Liu, Ta-chung, and Kung-chia Yeh. The Economy of the Chinese Mainland: National Income and Economic Development 1933–1959. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965.
  283.  
  284. DOI: 10.1515/9781400877263Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  285.  
  286. The most thorough study of China’s national income before the war. The study is based on the work of earlier Chinese scholars and especially Liu 1937. The sources and methodology are all clearly specified.
  287.  
  288. Find this resource:
  289.  
  290. Yeh, Kung-chia. “China’s National Income, 1931–36.” In Modern Chinese Economic History: Proceedings of the Conference on Modern Chinese Economic History, Academic Sinica, Tapei, Taiwan, Republic of China, 26–29 August 1977. Edited by Chi-ming Hou and Tzong-shian Yu, 95–128. Taipei: Institute of Economics, Academic Sinica, 1979.
  291.  
  292. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  293.  
  294. The annual estimates for GDP between 1931 and 1936 are still frequently used in studies of China’s economy.
  295.  
  296. Find this resource:
  297.  
  298. Trade and Prices
  299. The most plentiful and reliable statistics are those produced by the Maritime Customs Service, particularly though not only for foreign trade. Hsiao 1974 is the most comprehensive accessible source, whereas Lyons 2003 is a useful introduction to the strengths and pitfalls of these figures. Zhongguo kexueyuan Shanghai jingji yanjiusuo and Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo 1958 and Kong 1988 are the most comprehensive collections of price statistics for modern China. A large volume of mostly raw prices data can be found in Shangye bu wujia ju 2012.
  300.  
  301. Hsiao Liang-lin. China’s Foreign Trade Statistics, 1864–1949. Harvard East Asian Monograph 56. Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1974.
  302.  
  303. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  304.  
  305. The most convenient source for accessing the aggregate statistics produced by the Chinese Maritime Customs Service. The work’s aim is mostly to present the original statistics, but for some variables, such as the total magnitude of trade, prices, and terms of trade, and for balance of payments, the author revises previous estimates.
  306.  
  307. Find this resource:
  308.  
  309. Kong Min 孔敏, ed. Nankai jingji zhishu ziliao huibian (南开经济指数资料汇编). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1988.
  310.  
  311. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  312.  
  313. Builds on pioneering work in the 1930s by scholars such as Franklin L. Ho (He Lian 何廉). Contains wholesale prices for Tianjin, 1913–1949; workers’ cost of living, 1926–1949; Chongqing cost of living and employee incomes before and during the war; foreign exchange rates, 1898–1935; and Shanghai stock prices in the late 1920s and the early 1930s.
  314.  
  315. Find this resource:
  316.  
  317. Lyons, Thomas P. China Maritime Customs and China’s Trade Statistics, 1859–1948. Trumansburg, NY: Willow Creek, 2003.
  318.  
  319. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  320.  
  321. A case study of the use of the Chinese customs statistics relating to the Fujian tea trade in the 19th and 20th centuries. Part 1 offers a systematic analysis of the structure and nature of the customs statistics and their key limitations, which often arose from problems of aggregation and inclusiveness.
  322.  
  323. Find this resource:
  324.  
  325. Shangye bu wujia ju 商业部物价局. Kangzhan qian jiage cankao ziliao (抗战前价格参考资料). 8 vols. Beijing: Guojia tushuguan chubanshe, 2012.
  326.  
  327. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  328.  
  329. Extensive collection of prices from the 1930s, originally compiled by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce in 1955 in the context of determining state-set prices. Organized geographically in major regions.
  330.  
  331. Find this resource:
  332.  
  333. Zhongguo kexueyuan Shanghai jingji yanjiusuo 中国科学院上海经济研究所, and Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo 上海社会科学院经济研究所, eds. Shanghai jiefang qianhou wujia ziliao huibian, 1921 nian–1957 nian (上海解放前后物价资料汇编, 1921年– 1957年). Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1958.
  334.  
  335. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  336.  
  337. Comprehensive collection of price statistics from the 1920s up to the early People’s Republic of China, mainly for Shanghai but also in less detail for some other cities.
  338.  
  339. Find this resource:
  340.  
  341. Collections of Source Materials
  342. Since the 1950s scholars in the People’s Republic of China have published extensive collections of source materials, often in the form of short extracts, on key economic sectors and on enterprises. Indeed, up to the 1980s this was one of the major forms of scholarly activity. These collections had a fundamental impact both on the type of research that could be undertaken in the West (e.g., which companies could be studied) and to a lesser extent on the types of interpretation developed. Here only a few, no more than representative, examples can be listed. Peng 1957 is one of a series of collections that span the Rural Economy, the Industrial Economy, and Handicraft Industries. Zhongguo kexueyuan Shanghai jingji yanjiusuo and Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo 1958 is an early example focused on a single enterprise. Even this type of publishing largely stopped in the 1960s and the 1970s but resumed after 1980 with, for example, Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo 1981 on Liu Hongsheng. Such works were mostly compiled though not published before the Cultural Revolution, and their approach remained largely within the Marxist framework. Later collections of documents from archives, such as Tianjinshi dang’an guan 1992, on the chamber of commerce archives in Tianjin, are generally less tendentiously organized. Zhongguo yinhang zonghang and Zhongguo dier lishi dang’anguan 1991 is an important collection on the banking sector. Dai and Huang 1999 collects material from a vast range of local histories otherwise difficult to access. Zheng 2015 publishes the full texts of major economic surveys from the Republican period. Scholars in Taiwan have also published collections, particularly on the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for example, Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo 1960 on mining in the late Qing period.
  343.  
  344. Dai Angang 戴鞍钢, and Huang Wei 黄苇. Zhongguo difangzhi jingji ziliao huibian (中国地方志经济资料汇编). Shanghai: Hanyu dacidian chubanshe, 1999.
  345.  
  346. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347.  
  348. Offers an entry into the massive amount of material on economic history in Chinese local histories. Much of the material collected is on the modern period.
  349.  
  350. Find this resource:
  351.  
  352. Peng Zeyi 彭泽益. Zhongguo jindai shougongye shi ziliao, 1840–1949 (中国近代手工业史资料, 1840–1949). 4 vols. Zhongguo jindai jingji shi cankao ziliao congkan. Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1957.
  353.  
  354. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  355.  
  356. This collection on Chinese handicraft industries is organized and argued along traditional Chinese Marxist lines but contains a vast amount of material that would otherwise be difficult to find. Like other items in this section, the work can function to some extent as an index to primary materials.
  357.  
  358. Find this resource:
  359.  
  360. Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo上海社会科学院经济研究所. Liu Hongsheng qiye shiliao (刘鸿生企业史料). 3 vols. Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1981.
  361.  
  362. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  363.  
  364. Valuable collection of materials on one of China’s leading entrepreneurs, Liu Hongsheng, and his coal, match, wool, and cement enterprises.
  365.  
  366. Find this resource:
  367.  
  368. Tianjinshi dang’an guan 天津市档案馆. Tianjin shanghui dang’an huibian, 1912–1928 (天津商会档案汇编, 1912–1928). 4 vols. Tianjin, China: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1992.
  369.  
  370. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371.  
  372. One of a series of four collections from the archives of the Tianjin chamber of commerce stretching from 1903 to 1945. Economic historians will be interested in substantial sections on currency, taxation, the grain trade, the promotion of commerce and industry, and the impact of the warlords.
  373.  
  374. Find this resource:
  375.  
  376. Zheng Chenglin 郑成林, ed. Minguo shiqi jingji diaocha ziliao huibian (民国时期经济调查资料续编). 29 vols. Beijing: Guojia tushuguan chubanshe, 2015.
  377.  
  378. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  379.  
  380. Major series of reprints of economic surveys in the Republican period. Includes materials on prices, industry, key commodities, rural household economy, and other topics.
  381.  
  382. Find this resource:
  383.  
  384. Zhongguo kexueyuan Shanghai jingji yanjiusuo 中国科学院上海经济研究所, and Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo 上海社会科学院经济研究所. Nanyang xiongdi yancao gongsi shiliao (南洋兄弟烟草公司史料). Shanghai zibenzhuyi dianxing qiye shiliao. Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1958.
  385.  
  386. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  387.  
  388. Contains documents, mostly from company archives, on the leading Chinese-owned cigarette company, the Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company.
  389.  
  390. Find this resource:
  391.  
  392. Zhongguo yinhang zonghang 中国银行总行, and Zhongguo dier lishi Dang’anguan中国第二历史档案馆. Zhongguo yinhang hangshi ziliao huibian, Shangbian, 1912–1949 (中国银行行史资料汇编, 上编, 1912–1949). 3 vols. Beijing: Dang’an chubanshe, 1991.
  393.  
  394. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  395.  
  396. Collection of materials on the Bank of China. Includes annual bank reports and extensive documentation on internal bank organization, loans to agriculture and industry, and foreign exchange dealings.
  397.  
  398. Find this resource:
  399.  
  400. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo 中央研究院近代史研究所. Kuangwu dang (矿物档). 8 vols. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1960.
  401.  
  402. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  403.  
  404. Reproduces government documents on mining from 1865 to 1911, including negotiations of mining rights with foreign companies.
  405.  
  406. Find this resource:
  407.  
  408. Journals
  409. There are no journals in the West exclusively devoted to modern Chinese economic history, so the reader needs to check general modern China or economic history journals. A partial exception was the Chinese Business History Bulletin. In China both the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Zhongguo jingjishi yanjiu) and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (Jindai Zhongguo) publish periodicals in which modern economic history is an important part.
  410.  
  411. Chinese Business History Bulletin. 1990–2007.
  412.  
  413. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  414.  
  415. Publication of the Chinese Business History Research Group. Contained useful information, though it was more a newsletter than a full-fledged journal.
  416.  
  417. Find this resource:
  418.  
  419. Jindai Zhongguo (近代中国). 1991–.
  420.  
  421. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  422.  
  423. Formerly Zhongguo jindai jingji shi yanjiu ziliao (中国近代经济史研究资料) (1984–1990). A journal on modern Chinese history published more or less annually by the Shanghai Shehui Kexueyuan. The earlier version focused exclusively on economic history. The later one generally includes some articles on the topic. Both used to be edited by Ding Richu 丁日初, one of the leading Shanghai economic historians.
  424.  
  425. Find this resource:
  426.  
  427. Zhongguo jingjishi yanjiu (中国经济史研究). 1986–.
  428.  
  429. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  430.  
  431. The most prestigious modern China journal in which to publish, covering all Chinese as well as foreign economic history, though there are only a small number of works on the latter topic. Each issue has several articles on modern economic history.
  432.  
  433. Find this resource:
  434.  
  435. Population, Living Standards, and Economic Growth
  436. The most influential statement of the “optimist” view on economic growth is Rawski 1989, a masterly and sophisticated analysis of China’s prewar economy. In general, long-term growth patterns are difficult to identify because of the lack of statistics. There are no reliable statistics even on population, as outlined in Hou 2001, never mind the rest of the economy. Nevertheless, scholars have been imaginative in developing ways to approach the issue of trends of economic growth. Ma 2008 is a thorough study of China’s core economic region that provides statistical estimates of growth, and Stephen L. Morgan’s work (e.g., Morgan 2004) applies anthropometric techniques to address the question. Wang 1992 represents an early Chinese reevaluation of the record of the republican economy.
  437.  
  438. Hou Yangfang 侯杨方. 1910–1953 nian (1910–1953年). Vol. 6 of Zhongguo renkou shi (中国人口史). Edited by Ge Jianxiong 葛剑雄. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2001.
  439.  
  440. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  441.  
  442. Extensive study of mostly disaggregated figures for China’s population in the republican period and of key variables, such as birthrates and death rates, urbanization, migration, and occupational distribution. Suggests a population of around 530 million for 1936 and a relatively high growth rate up to the war.
  443.  
  444. Find this resource:
  445.  
  446. Ma, Debin. “Economic Growth in the Lower Yangzi Region of China in 1911–1937: A Quantitative and Historical Analysis.” Journal of Economic History 68.2 (2008): 355–392.
  447.  
  448. DOI: 10.1017/S002205070800034XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  449.  
  450. Constructs rigorous GDP estimates showing that regional per capita GDP was substantially higher than that in the rest of China. Concludes that the region’s rapid economic growth from the late 19th century resulted from the institutional advantages of the foreign presence in Shanghai. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  451.  
  452. Find this resource:
  453.  
  454. Morgan, Stephen L. “Economic Growth and the Biological Standard of Living in China, 1880–1930.” Economics and Human Biology 2.2 (2004): 197–218.
  455.  
  456. DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2004.03.002Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  457.  
  458. An application of anthropometric techniques to modern Chinese history. Concludes that there were modest increases in average male height between the 1890s and 1920s but that these were unevenly distributed across regions. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  459.  
  460. Find this resource:
  461.  
  462. Rawski, Thomas G. Economic Growth in Prewar China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
  463.  
  464. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  465.  
  466. The leading exposition of an “optimist” view. Rawski argues not only that industry experienced substantial growth but also that the agricultural sector and farm living standards grew measurably even in per capita terms. Although some feel Rawski relies too much on indirect measures, his response is that this criticism might hold for one measure but that all the measures point in the same direction.
  467.  
  468. Find this resource:
  469.  
  470. Wang, Yuru. “Economic Development in China between the Two World Wars, 1920–1936.” In The Chinese Economy in the Early Twentieth Century: Recent Chinese Studies. Edited by Tim Wright, 58–77. New York: St. Martin’s, 1992.
  471.  
  472. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-22199-8_4Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  473.  
  474. Reflecting work by a number of scholars at the Nankai Institute of Economics, this paper develops macroeconomic estimates for the Chinese economy in 1920 and 1936 and argues that this was the period of China’s most rapid economic development.
  475.  
  476. Find this resource:
  477.  
  478. Economic and Noneconomic Shocks
  479. Both economic and noneconomic shocks interrupted any growth that did take place. The pessimist position used to hold that the Great Depression (which began in 1929) inflicted great damage on China, indicating that its involvement in the world economy was largely deleterious. This view is strongly challenged in Brandt and Sargent 1989, though the issue remains controversial. Shiroyama 2008 emphasizes the seriousness of the crisis in the lower Yangzi. Noneconomic shocks were at least as important. Xia 2000 is the standard study of the economic impact of natural disasters. There have been few studies of China’s economy during the even greater disruption caused by the Sino-Japanese War and then the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists. However questionable the prewar quantitative indicators are, those for the wartime period are even less reliable. Moreover, economic forces were seen to have been overwhelmed by military and political destruction and dislocation. Kirby 1992 is the best short overview covering the war against Japan, whereas Chang 1958 and Young 1963 are important studies of financial issues and the most prominent aspect of economic collapse, hyperinflation. Eastman 1984 focuses on the increasing burdens on the populace as the Nationalists desperately tried to finance the war against Japan by raising taxes and printing money. Coble 2003 examines the political and economic experiences of China’s capitalists in Shanghai and the lower Yangzi.
  480.  
  481. Brandt, Loren, and Thomas J. Sargent. “Interpreting New Evidence about China and U.S. Silver Purchases.” Journal of Monetary Economics 23.1 (1989): 31–51.
  482.  
  483. DOI: 10.1016/0304-3932(89)90060-3Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  484.  
  485. The classic statement of the revisionist position. One of the authors was subsequently awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Argues that China experienced no downturn of output due to the impact of the Great Depression or the US silver policy. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  486.  
  487. Find this resource:
  488.  
  489. Chang, Kia-ngau (Zhang Jiaao, 张嘉璈). The Inflationary Spiral: The Experience in China, 1939–1950. Technology Press Books in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: Technology Press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1958.
  490.  
  491. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  492.  
  493. Thorough treatment of wartime inflation by one of China’s leading bankers and economic officials. Sections cover historical background, growth of aggregate demand, and anti-inflationary policies. Contends that the government failed to foresee the expansion of aggregate demand under wartime conditions.
  494.  
  495. Find this resource:
  496.  
  497. Coble, Parks M. Chinese Capitalists in Japan’s New Order: The Occupied Lower Yangzi, 1937–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
  498.  
  499. DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520232686.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  500.  
  501. Deals with the economic fate of capitalist companies based in Shanghai and political issues of collaboration. Includes data on the Rong family enterprises and on the textile, chemical, match, and rubber industries.
  502.  
  503. Find this resource:
  504.  
  505. Eastman, Lloyd E. Seeds of Destruction: Nationalist China in War and Revolution, 1937–1949. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984.
  506.  
  507. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  508.  
  509. Two key chapters deal with the rural economy and taxation during the Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. Concludes that inflation and the collapse of the rural economy were crucial in the peasantry’s withdrawal of support for the Nationalists.
  510.  
  511. Find this resource:
  512.  
  513. Kirby, William C. “The Chinese War Economy.” In China’s Bitter Victory: The War with Japan, 1937–1945. Edited by James C. Hsiung and Steven I. Levine, 185–212. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1992.
  514.  
  515. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  516.  
  517. Outlines the migration of industry to West China, the growth of the state sector and of economic planning, and China’s economic losses as a result of the Sino-Japanese War. Argues that a key legacy was the pool of human talent developed under the war economy.
  518.  
  519. Find this resource:
  520.  
  521. Shiroyama, Tomoko. China during the Great Depression: Market, State, and the World Economy, 1929–1937. Harvard East Asian Monograph 294. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008.
  522.  
  523. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1tg5pkvSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  524.  
  525. Focuses on monetary (the importance of the silver standard) and financial issues and on the rural and industrial economy of the lower Yangzi. Claims that China faced an “unprecedented crisis” during the global depression, leading to a switch to a more state-led development model.
  526.  
  527. Find this resource:
  528.  
  529. Xia Mingfang 夏明方. Minguo shiqi ziran zaihai yu xiangcun shehui (民国时期自然灾害与乡村社会). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000.
  530.  
  531. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  532.  
  533. The standard study of the impact of natural disasters on rural society during the republican period. Examines demographic, economic, and social impact of natural disasters. Extensive appendixes detail incidence of disasters.
  534.  
  535. Find this resource:
  536.  
  537. Young, Arthur N. China and the Helping Hand, 1937–1945. Harvard East Asian Series 12. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.
  538.  
  539. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  540.  
  541. Detailed account of the financial and revenue issues during the Sino-Japanese War by an American financial adviser to the Nationalists.
  542.  
  543. Find this resource:
  544.  
  545. The Rural Economy
  546. The rural economy has attracted scholarly attention, because rural areas were the location of the vast majority of the Chinese population and therefore a major component of any broader economic trends. However, vast regional differences and lack of reliable data have made the study of the rural economy difficult. The pessimist position is in the early 21st century difficult to hold to with regard to the Industrial Economy, but there is still substantial disagreement on the nature and trajectory of the rural economy. There are differences concerning not only the outcome in terms of growth and living standards but also the organization of the rural economy (to what extent was it a market economy?) and the theoretical basis for studies. Whereas Thomas G. Rawski and Loren Brandt rely essentially on orthodox economics, Philip C. C. Huang argues that in order to understand the rural economy, one needs to use Marxism (for the poor peasants), Chayanovian ideas (for the middle peasants), and Western economics (for the rich peasants).
  547.  
  548. Agriculture
  549. Perkins 1969 is the leading English-language study of the very long-term development of Chinese agriculture as a whole. Buck 1937 is the outcome of a massive data-gathering exercise that concludes that the main problems for Chinese agriculture were technical rather than social. More recent works include Rawski 1989 (cited under Population, Living Standards, and Economic Growth) and Brandt 1989, which present a more positive picture of growth in the prewar agricultural economy. Cong 1995 is an important study of both social and economic aspects of northern Chinese agriculture.
  550.  
  551. Brandt, Loren. Commercialization and Agricultural Development: Central and Eastern China, 1870–1937. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
  552.  
  553. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  554.  
  555. Influential and controversial study of Chinese agriculture. Concludes that eastern and central China were relatively integrated into world markets and that increased commercialization of agriculture following the construction of the railways, beginning in 1895, led to a gradual but substantial rise in per capita agricultural output and living standards.
  556.  
  557. Find this resource:
  558.  
  559. Buck, John Lossing. Land Utilization in China: A Study of 16,786 Farms in 168 Localities, and 38,256 Farm Families, in Twenty-Two Provinces in China, 1929–1933. International Research Series, Institute of Pacific Relations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937.
  560.  
  561. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  562.  
  563. Buck’s surveys, conducted while he was at Nanjing University, are among the most comprehensive sources of information on China’s peasant economy. Although probably biased toward better-off areas, this book is a trove of information about agriculture, farming, and rural livelihoods in 1930s China.
  564.  
  565. Find this resource:
  566.  
  567. Cong Hanxiang 从翰香, ed. Jindai Ji-Lu-Yu xiangcun (近代冀鲁豫乡村). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1995.
  568.  
  569. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  570.  
  571. Major study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on the rural economies of Hebei, Shandong, and Henan in the late imperial and the modern periods. Sections on rural society, the rise of market towns, grain production, handicrafts and land tax, and corvée labor.
  572.  
  573. Find this resource:
  574.  
  575. Perkins, Dwight H. Agricultural Development in China, 1368–1968. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1969.
  576.  
  577. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  578.  
  579. Contains extensive statistical appendixes relevant to the 1895–1949 period. Often cited as evidence that per capita agricultural production was constant over the long term, though Perkins more cautiously describes this as a (plausible) assumption.
  580.  
  581. Find this resource:
  582.  
  583. Rural Society and Economy
  584. Studies of rural society have mostly been on a regional or local basis. Rural immiseration and inequalities are central to many explanations of the Communist revolution, but both the processes and the outcomes remain controversial. Fei 1980 is a classic study of rural immiseration that attributes it to the village’s links to the world market. Chen 1980 was a pioneering study of rural commercialization that attributed many problems to the weak position of the peasants in relation to imperialism (specifically British American Tobacco). Qin and Jin 2010 is a very influential contribution coauthored by one of China’s leading economic historians and public intellectuals. Philip C. C. Huang’s influential theory of involution—whereby increases in output come only at the cost of ever-increasing intensity of labor and ever-diminishing marginal returns to labor (to the point where they reach zero)—has been the most prominent contemporary example of a largely pessimist position (Huang 1985, Huang 1990). In contrast, Ramon H. Myers was an early proponent of the view that living standards were not declining disastrously and that the main problems were technological rather than social (Myers 1970). The regional study Faure 1989 shows long-term growth up to the 1920s but sharp decline thereafter. Loren Brandt is the most quantitative of the leading historians of the republican economy, and Brandt and Sands 1992 presents evidence on income distribution that denies growing inequality.
  585.  
  586. Brandt, Loren, and Barbara Sands. “Land Concentration and Income Distribution in Republican China.” Paper presented at the Conference on Economic Methods for Chinese Historical Research, Oracle, Arizona, January 1988. In Chinese History in Economic Perspective. Edited by Thomas G. Rawski and Lillian M. Li, 179–206. Studies on China 13. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
  587.  
  588. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  589.  
  590. Challenges received views and argues that evidence is lacking that land concentration increased in the early 20th century, that even if it did it might not have increased welfare inequality, and that income inequality in rural China was much less than previously suggested.
  591.  
  592. Find this resource:
  593.  
  594. Chen Han-seng (Chen Hansheng 陈翰笙). Industrial Capital and Chinese Peasants: A Study of the Livelihood of Chinese Tobacco Cultivators. New York: Garland, 1980.
  595.  
  596. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  597.  
  598. Influential study, originally published by Kelly and Walsh in Shanghai in 1939, containing important data on rural commercialization and the expansion of tobacco cultivation. Chen was a pioneer of Chinese social science and a major proponent of the idea that industrialization and the growth of industrial crops reduced peasant living standards.
  599.  
  600. Find this resource:
  601.  
  602. Faure, David. The Rural Economy of Pre-Liberation China: Trade Expansion and Peasant Livelihood in Jiangsu and Guangdong, 1870 to 1937. East Asian Historical Monographs. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1989.
  603.  
  604. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  605.  
  606. Study of two of the regions in China that were most affected by the world economy. Argues that cash crops and exports brought prosperity to Jiangsu and Guangdong over a long period, from the 1870s to the 1920s, but that the Great Depression brought about a fundamental long-term downturn in the Chinese rural economy.
  607.  
  608. Find this resource:
  609.  
  610. Fei, Hsiao-tung (Fei Xiaotong, 费孝通). Peasant Life in China: A Field Study of Country Life in the Yangtze Valley. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
  611.  
  612. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  613.  
  614. Originally published in 1939. A pioneering and immensely influential analysis of the rural economy of Fei’s home village in Jiangsu in the mid-1930s. That it was a silk village means that the picture of poverty and decline it paints may not be totally representative (silk was the product most affected by the global depression). Fei established the discipline of sociology in China after 1978.
  615.  
  616. Find this resource:
  617.  
  618. Huang, Philip C. C. The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985.
  619.  
  620. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  621.  
  622. Introduces the concept of involution in the context of a wide-ranging analysis of change in the North China rural economy from the early Qing to the republican periods.
  623.  
  624. Find this resource:
  625.  
  626. Huang, Philip C. C. The Peasant Family and Rural Development in the Yangzi Delta, 1350–1988. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990.
  627.  
  628. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  629.  
  630. Application of the concept of involution to the lower Yangzi, a more advanced area than North China. Contends that, despite increased commercialization, capital inputs per unit of labor and average returns to labor both declined. The region escaped the “involutionary” trap only as a result of rural industrial development in the post–Mao Zedong period.
  631.  
  632. Find this resource:
  633.  
  634. Myers, Ramon H. The Chinese Peasant Economy: Agricultural Development in Hopei and Shantung, 1890–1949. Harvard East Asian Series 47. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.
  635.  
  636. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  637.  
  638. Uses South Manchurian Railway Company (SMR) materials to study four villages in North China. Claims that the main causes of China’s rural problems were technological rather than social but that there was still sufficient progress in traditional technology to provide at least constant living standards.
  639.  
  640. Find this resource:
  641.  
  642. Qin Hui 秦晖, and Jin Yan 金雁. Tianyuan shi yu kuangxiang qu: Guanzhong moshi yu qianjindai shehui de zairenshi (田园诗与狂想曲:关中模式与前近代社会的再认识). Beijing: Yuwen chubanshe, 2010.
  643.  
  644. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  645.  
  646. Influential study, originally published in 1996, of changes in peasant society in Shaanxi in early modern times. Rejects the characterization of Chinese rural society as feudal. Shows that the main tension in the system was between farmers and officials, not between farmers and landlords.
  647.  
  648. Find this resource:
  649.  
  650. The Industrial Economy
  651. Although agriculture remained by far the largest part of the economy up to and beyond 1949, modern industry was the most dynamic sector and was seen as crucial to the country’s development. Both the success of the modern industrial sector itself and its effect on the much larger traditional handicraft sector have been a matter for controversy. Even in China the view that modern Chinese industry was “bankrupt” up to 1937 (there was widespread collapse during the Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War after 1942) has not been tenable since the mid-1980s. In the West, John K. Chang’s index (see Chang 1969, cited under Production) made it difficult to talk of industrial “stagnation” or “bankruptcy.” Increasingly, studies of individual industrial sectors have discovered a picture of active entrepreneurship and substantial achievement though seldom escaping entirely the shadow of politics. Silk and cotton were the two most important modern industries; the producer goods sector, which was crucial after 1949, played an important (though lesser) role.
  652.  
  653. Handicraft Industries
  654. There are major unresolved issues in relation to the fate of handicraft industries in China up to the Sino-Japanese War. Did the handicraft textile industries in particular follow the path outlined by Karl Marx, in which their existence was undermined by competition first from foreign and later from domestically produced factory products? How far did foreign products penetrate the interior, or did China’s hinterland remain dominated by premodern modes of production? Feuerwerker 1970 presented an early challenge to the standard view of the decline of handicraft textiles following the development of trade and modern industry. Ma and Wright 2010 takes the argument a step further by adding a subregional dimension. Xu 1992 offers a treatment of handicraft cloth in the lower Yangzi. Grove 2006 shows how some areas were able to use modern inputs and links with Japan to develop a flourishing trade. Zelin 2005 analyzes the impact of the introduction of steam technology on the fate of brine wells in Sichuan.
  655.  
  656. Feuerwerker, Albert. “Handicraft and Manufactured Cotton Textiles in China, 1871–1910.” Journal of Economic History 30.2 (1970): 338–378.
  657.  
  658. DOI: 10.1017/S0022050700066845Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  659.  
  660. A pioneering paper challenging the thesis that the growth of modern textile production (both foreign and Chinese) destroyed traditional handicraft production. On the basis of quantitative estimates, the paper concludes that whereas handicraft spinning declined, causing disruption for peasant households, weaving and cloth production held up strongly up to the 1930s. Available online by subscription.
  661.  
  662. Find this resource:
  663.  
  664. Grove, Linda. A Chinese Economic Revolution: Rural Entrepreneurship in the Twentieth Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.
  665.  
  666. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  667.  
  668. A detailed study of the Gaoyang textile center in Hebei, the leading example of semimodernized handicraft production in republican China. The author focuses on the importance of local entrepreneurship and stresses the links between so-called native industry and the world market.
  669.  
  670. Find this resource:
  671.  
  672. Ma Junya, and Tim Wright. “Industrialisation and Handicraft Cloth: The Jiangsu Peasant Economy in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.” Modern Asian Studies 44.6 (2010): 1337–1372.
  673.  
  674. DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X09990333Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  675.  
  676. A nuanced contribution to the debate on the relationship between factory and handicraft textiles that argues that the experiences of different subregions differed substantially. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  677.  
  678. Find this resource:
  679.  
  680. Xu Xinwu 徐新吾. Jiangnan tubushi (江南土布史). Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 1992.
  681.  
  682. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  683.  
  684. Study of the history of handicraft cotton cloth in Shanghai and other regions of the lower Yangzi. Covers issues such as the impact of foreign yarn on local handicrafts.
  685.  
  686. Find this resource:
  687.  
  688. Zelin, Madeleine. The Merchants of Zigong: Industrial Entrepreneurship in Early Modern China. Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
  689.  
  690. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  691.  
  692. This study of China’s main center for the production of salt, through drilling for brine, challenges many generalizations about early modern Chinese business and society. Five chapters deal with the introduction of new technology in the early 20th century and the industry’s decline under the impact of the fiscal demands of the warlords.
  693.  
  694. Find this resource:
  695.  
  696. The Modern Silk Industry
  697. The importance of silk for China’s exports has meant that the silk industry has attracted a lot of scholarly attention. Li 1981, Xu 1990, and Soda 1994 are the classic studies of silk and the silk trade in English, Chinese, and Japanese, respectivelyeach bringing somewhat different concerns to the subject. Bell 1999 uses silk as a way to examine the relationship between modern industry and peasant households, and Okumura 2004 uses it as a broader means to understand capitalism and socialism in modern China.
  698.  
  699. Bell, Lynda S. One Industry, Two Chinas: Silk Filatures and Peasant-Family Production in Wuxi County, 1865–1937. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.
  700.  
  701. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  702.  
  703. Examines the silk industry in Wuxi, the most important light industrial center outside Shanghai, and its relationship to peasant family production. Takes a generally pessimist position that silk did not enrich the Wuxi peasantry. Points to increased tension between local elites and the state beginning in the 1910s.
  704.  
  705. Find this resource:
  706.  
  707. Li, Lillian M. China’s Silk Trade: Traditional Industry in the Modern World, 1842–1937. Harvard East Asian Monograph 97. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1981.
  708.  
  709. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1tfjb18Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  710.  
  711. A pioneering study of the transformation of the Chinese traditional silk industry initiated by foreign trade and the later decline of that industry resulting from Japanese competition and the Great Depression.
  712.  
  713. Find this resource:
  714.  
  715. Okumura Satoshi 奥村哲. Chūgoku no shihonshugi to shakaishugi: Kin-gendai shizō no saikōsei (中国の資本主義と社会主義–近現代史像の再構成). Tokyo: Sakurai Shoten, 2004.
  716.  
  717. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  718.  
  719. Uses mainly the silk industry to explore key issues of capitalism and socialism in modern Chinese history. Part 1 focuses on the relationship of the government to the development of silk filatures before and during the Great Depression, Part 2 looks at the role of silk in the rural economy of Wuxi, and Part 3 considers issues of capitalism and socialism in the context of the Chinese Revolution.
  720.  
  721. Find this resource:
  722.  
  723. Soda Saburō 曽田三郎. Chūgoku kindai seishigyō shi no kenkyū (中国近代製糸業史の研究). Tokyo: Kyūko Shoin, 1994.
  724.  
  725. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  726.  
  727. Comprehensive study of the modern Chinese silk industry up to the late 1920s. Discusses capital, trade, and labor with chapters on labor disputes and the May Thirtieth Incident.
  728.  
  729. Find this resource:
  730.  
  731. Xu Xinwu 徐新吾. Zhongguo jindai saosi gongye shi (中国近代缫丝工业史). Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1990.
  732.  
  733. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  734.  
  735. Most detailed study in Chinese, by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, covering the emergence of the modern silk industry (1843–1894), its development (1895–1928), its crisis and decline (1929–1936), and its complete bankruptcy (1937–1949).
  736.  
  737. Find this resource:
  738.  
  739. The Cotton Industry
  740. Cotton was the other big consumer goods industry. Fong 1932 and Yan 1963 were influential early Chinese studies. Kraus 1980 offers a mainly quantitative analysis, Mori 2001 a relatively wide-ranging study, and Kubo 2005 a study of enterprise operation. Zeitz 2013 is important both for its methods and for its conclusions on differential productivity levels.
  741.  
  742. Fong, H. D. (Fang Xianting 方显廷). Cotton Industry and Trade in China. Tianjin, China: Nankai Institute of Economics, 1932.
  743.  
  744. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  745.  
  746. Fang was one of China’s leading economists, and with Franklin L. Ho (He Lian 何廉) ran the influential Nankai Institute of Economics. He wrote widely on the cotton industry and trade, among other topics. The book, which was later published in Chinese, focuses on issues of poor management and organization.
  747.  
  748. Find this resource:
  749.  
  750. Kraus, Richard A. Cotton and Cotton Goods in China, 1918–1936. New York: Garland, 1980.
  751.  
  752. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  753.  
  754. A reprint of the author’s PhD dissertation, this is a mainly economic and quantitative study of Chinese cotton production and consumption between the wars. Concludes that the main constraint on the success of the industry was demand, not supply.
  755.  
  756. Find this resource:
  757.  
  758. Kubo Tōru 久保亨. Senkenki Chūgoku no mengyō to kigyō keiei (戦間期中国の綿業と企業経営). Tokyo: Kyūko Shoin, 2005.
  759.  
  760. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  761.  
  762. A first-rate study of enterprise management in the Chinese cotton textile industry in the interwar period. Includes case studies of technologically led management at Xinyu Company (Shanghai), Sino-Japanese competition in Qingdao, the requirements for survival of a company in the interior (Shanxi), and the role of the Jincheng Bank in industry.
  763.  
  764. Find this resource:
  765.  
  766. Mori Tokihiko 森時彦. Chūgoku kindai mengyōshi no kenkyū (中国近代綿業史の研究). Tōyō shi kenkyū sōkan. Kyoto: Kyoto Daigaku Gakujutsu Shuppankai, 2001.
  767.  
  768. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  769.  
  770. Study—quantitative where possible—of the development of the modern Chinese cotton industry with case studies of Shashi and Wujin and Hunan Number One Cotton Mill.
  771.  
  772. Find this resource:
  773.  
  774. Yan Zhongping 严中平. Zhongguo mianfengzhi shi gao, 1289—1937 (中国棉纺织史稿, 1289–1937). Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe, 1963.
  775.  
  776. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  777.  
  778. Originally published in 1942. Examines the industry as an example of the emergence and development of Chinese capitalism. Useful statistical appendices.
  779.  
  780. Find this resource:
  781.  
  782. Zeitz, Peter. “Do Local Institutions Affect all Foreign Investors in the Same Way? Evidence from the Interwar Chinese Textile Industry.” Journal of Economic History 73.1 (2013): 117–141.
  783.  
  784. DOI: 10.1017/S0022050713000041Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  785.  
  786. Important study comparing productivity in Chinese, Japanese, and British cotton textile factories in China. Strong quantitative and theoretical elements. Concludes that British and Chinese-owned mills fell behind Japanese-owned mills in productivity because of the influence of the contract labor system (“forepersons”) and the consequent role of the Green Gang. Japanese mills exercised greater direct control over the production process.
  787.  
  788. Find this resource:
  789.  
  790. Producer Goods Industries
  791. Rawski 1980 is a brief overview. Wright 1984 looks at coal mining, the largest producer goods industry. Few works cover issues of technology and technology transfer in the early 20th century, but Fang 2011 and Fang 2013 examine those issues in relation to the steel industry.
  792.  
  793. Fang Yibing 方一兵. Hanyeping Gongsi yu Zhongguo jindai gangtie jishu yizhi (汉冶萍公司与中国近代钢铁技术移植). Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2011.
  794.  
  795. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  796.  
  797. Examines technology transfer in iron and steel in the context of China’s pioneer steelworks: Hanyeping. Concludes that Hanyeping’s failure after 1914 was not essentially due to technical factors but to unfavorable macro and micro environments. The story of modern industrial technology is the story of engineers and technicians.
  798.  
  799. Find this resource:
  800.  
  801. Fang Yibing 方一兵. Zhong-Ri jindai gangtie jishu shi bijiao yanjiu: 1868–1933 (中日近代钢铁技术史比较研究 1868–1933). Jinan, China: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe, 2013.
  802.  
  803. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  804.  
  805. This is an important work that compares the technological histories of the steel industries in China and Japan. It concludes that there was little transfer of technology from Japanese steel enterprises in China.
  806.  
  807. Find this resource:
  808.  
  809. Rawski, Thomas G. China’s Transition to Industrialism: Producer Goods and Economic Development in the Twentieth Century. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1980.
  810.  
  811. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  812.  
  813. Chapter 1 deals with the pre-1937 situation, and concludes that the history of Chinese industry demonstrates the positive effects of foreign trade.
  814.  
  815. Find this resource:
  816.  
  817. Wright, Tim. Coal Mining in China’s Economy and Society, 1895–1937. Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature, and Institutions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
  818.  
  819. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  820.  
  821. Analysis of China’s largest producer goods industry using conventional economic categories. Like Kraus 1980 (cited under Cotton Industry), concludes that with the exception of disruption of the transport system during the civil wars of the 1920s, the main constraints on the industry’s growth were demand, not supply.
  822.  
  823. Find this resource:
  824.  
  825. Currency and Banking
  826. The financial sector and the banks have attracted substantial scholarly attention. Kuroda 2005 is an overview of the changes in China’s complex monetary system up to its unification in the mid-1930s. Studies of banking have generally centered on the adequacy or otherwise of traditional methods of operation, the gradual adoption of modern methods by Chinese enterprises, and competition between Chinese and foreign providers. King 1987–1991 focuses on the largest foreign bank, whereas Cheng 2003 and Sheehan 2003 examine Chinese banks in Shanghai and Tianjin.
  827.  
  828. Cheng, Linsun. Banking in Modern China: Entrepreneurs, Professional Managers, and the Development of Chinese Banks, 1897–1937. Cambridge Modern China. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  829.  
  830. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  831.  
  832. Study of the emergence and operation of the major modern banks in China up to 1937. Argues that modern bankers were the leaders of Chinese business in the early 20th century and that they would have registered greater achievements but for the Japanese invasion.
  833.  
  834. Find this resource:
  835.  
  836. King, Frank H. H. The History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. 4 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987–1991.
  837.  
  838. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  839.  
  840. A massive and comprehensive history of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank based on extensive use of bank archives and many other sources, including some in Chinese. The bank was the largest foreign bank in China, though its operations were not limited to that country.
  841.  
  842. Find this resource:
  843.  
  844. Kuroda, Akinobu 黒田明伸. “The Collapse of the Chinese Imperial Monetary System.” In Japan, China, and the Growth of the Asian International Economy, 1850–1949. Edited by Kaoru Sugihara, 103–126. Japanese Studies in Economic and Social History 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
  845.  
  846. DOI: 10.1093/0198292716.003.0005Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  847.  
  848. Clear exposition of the decline of the traditional monetary system and its replacement initially by provincially based currencies and then, beginning c. 1914, by the Yuan Shikai dollar. The author studies the subject more extensively in Japanese in Chūka teikoku no kōzō to sekai keizai (中華帝国の構造と世界経済) (Nagoya, Japan: Nagoya Daigaku Shuppankai, 1994).
  849.  
  850. Find this resource:
  851.  
  852. Sheehan, Brett. Trust in Troubled Times: Money, Banks, and State-Society Relations in Republican Tianjin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
  853.  
  854. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  855.  
  856. Study of Chinese banks in Tianjin under the warlords and the Nationalists. Emphasizes the at least partly successful efforts of bankers to build up impersonal—as well as the more commonly studied personal—trust.
  857.  
  858. Find this resource:
  859.  
  860. Trade and Transportation
  861. Commerce and transport are also key sectors of the economy that have attracted scholarly attention. The railways were both a prominent embodiment of imperialist influence in China and the catalyst for major changes in the Chinese economy. A very sophisticated analysis of their impact is in Huenemann 1984, whereas Elleman and Kotkin 2010 examines Manchuria, the region where the railways played the greatest role. In commerce, whereas foreign enterprises dominated the import-export sector, Chinese enterprises were much more successful in maintaining their control over domestic commerce. Cochran 2000 considers some of the ways that Chinese, Japanese, and Western enterprises attempted to penetrate the Chinese market. Gardella 1994 analyzes the case of China’s major 19th-century export, tea, whereas Rowe 1990 is a study of the rise of trade in tung oil, the most important export in the 1930s. Merchants played an important political and social as well as economic role, and Yu 1993 is one example of Yu Heping’s substantial work on the modern Chinese merchant class.
  862.  
  863. Cochran, Sherman. Encountering Chinese Networks: Western, Japanese, and Chinese Corporations in China, 1880–1937. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
  864.  
  865. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  866.  
  867. Six case studies of Chinese, Japanese, and Western firms operating in China focus on the dynamics between Chandlerian corporate hierarchies and the social networks typical of Chinese society. Argues against both inevitable convergence and Chinese exceptionalism.
  868.  
  869. Find this resource:
  870.  
  871. Elleman, Bruce A., and Stephen Kotkin, eds. Manchurian Railways and the Opening of China: An International History. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2010.
  872.  
  873. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  874.  
  875. Includes essays on technological transfer and on the key South Manchurian Railway Company (SMR) up to the 1930s.
  876.  
  877. Find this resource:
  878.  
  879. Gardella, Robert. Harvesting Mountains: Fujian and the China Tea Trade, 1757–1937. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
  880.  
  881. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  882.  
  883. Study of the organization and magnitude of the tea trade in Fujian, a major (though not the only) site of tea production. Concludes that the tea trade brought growth but not economic transformation. In the end peasant production in Fujian was unable to compete with plantation production in South Asia.
  884.  
  885. Find this resource:
  886.  
  887. Huenemann, Ralph William. The Dragon and the Iron Horse: The Economics of Railroads in China, 1876–1937. Harvard East Asian Monograph 109. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1984.
  888.  
  889. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1tfj91sSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  890.  
  891. One of the most sophisticated studies of China’s modern economy, equally important on the foreign impact and on the railways’ contribution to development. The construction of railways was an irresistible trend and brought benefits to China’s economy, though possibly not as much as if they had been Chinese owned.
  892.  
  893. Find this resource:
  894.  
  895. Rowe, William T. “Tung Oil in Central China: The Rise and Fall of a Regional Export Staple.” Paper presented at the Second Conference on Modern Chinese Economic History, held at Academia Sinica, 5–7 January 1989. In China’s Market Economy in Transition. Edited by Yung-san Lee and Ts’ui-jung Liu, 355–384. Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1990.
  896.  
  897. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  898.  
  899. Tung oil was China’s most important export product in the 1930s, and this paper is a nuanced study of the trade.
  900.  
  901. Find this resource:
  902.  
  903. Yu Heping 虞和平. Shanghui yu Zhongguo zaoqi xiandaihua (商会与中国早期现代化). Zhongguo xiandaishi congshu. Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1993.
  904.  
  905. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  906.  
  907. Study of chambers of commerce by one of Shanghai’s leading historians. Examines the economic, social, and political role of the chambers. Takes note of the influence of chambers run by foreign merchants.
  908.  
  909. Find this resource:
  910.  
  911. Foreign Trade and Investment
  912. Debates on the impact of foreign trade and investment on China’s economy focus on two dimensions. The first dimension is extent of impact. Did foreign trade and investment bring about a great transformation in the Chinese economy, or did the economy continue largely along traditional lines up to 1949 or even beyond? Murphey 1974 argues that the foreign-dominated treaty ports were small enclaves with few links to the broader hinterland in the interior of China. The second dimension is to what extent the existing impact was harmful to the development of China’s economy. Dernberger 1975 is a useful overview. The most thorough treatment of the issue is Hou 1965, whereas Moulder 1977 is a work of theoretical synthesis from a radical point of view. Complex methodological issues are involved, and they are dealt with briefly in Wright 1986. Trade and tariff issues and their impacts on development are covered in Kubo 2005, whereas Chen 1996 analyzes China’s balance of payments.
  913.  
  914. Chen Zhengping 陈争平. 1895–1936 nian Zhongguo guoji shouzhi yanjiu (1895–1936年中国国际收支研究). Dongfang lishi xueshu wenku. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1996.
  915.  
  916. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  917.  
  918. Study of modern China’s balance of payments by one of the leading Chinese economic historians of his generation.
  919.  
  920. Find this resource:
  921.  
  922. Dernberger, Robert F. “The Role of the Foreigner in China’s Economic Development, 1840–1949.” Paper presented at a conference sponsored by the Subcommittee for Research on the Chinese Economy of the Joint Committee on Contemporary China, Social Science Research Council, and the American Council of Learned Societies, Bermuda, June 1973. In China’s Modern Economy in Historical Perspective. Edited by Dwight H. Perkins, 19–47. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1975.
  923.  
  924. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  925.  
  926. Survey that argues that the foreign impact was a necessary agent to start China on the road to economic modernization, that the Chinese economy made substantial gains from foreign trade and investment, and that the greatest barrier to development was the Chinese government, not the foreigners.
  927.  
  928. Find this resource:
  929.  
  930. Hou, Chi-ming. Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China, 1840–1937. Harvard East Asian Series 21. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965.
  931.  
  932. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  933.  
  934. A pioneering study of the impact of foreign investment in China. Rebuts possible impacts in oppressing modern Chinese enterprise, destroying traditional handicrafts, or draining resources through unfavorable terms of trade. Its conclusion that foreign investment had little if any deleterious economic effect was heavily criticized by radical scholars.
  935.  
  936. Find this resource:
  937.  
  938. Kubo, Toru 久保亨. “The Tariff Policy of the Nationalist Government, 1929–36: A Historical Assessment.” In Japan, China, and the Growth of the Asian International Economy, 1850–1949. Edited by Kaoru Sugihara, 145–176. Japanese Studies in Economic and Social History 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
  939.  
  940. DOI: 10.1093/0198292716.003.0007Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  941.  
  942. Shows the importance of China’s regaining of tariff autonomy in 1929 both for industrial development and for government finances. However, it was no panacea, and many problems remained. The author has dealt with these issues more extensively in Japanese in Senkanki Chūgoku “jiritsu e no mosaku”: Kanzei tsūka seisaku to keizai hatten (戦間期中国”自立への模索”: 関税通貨政策と経済発展) (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1999).
  943.  
  944. Find this resource:
  945.  
  946. Moulder, Frances V. Japan, China, and the Modern World Economy: Toward a Reinterpretation of East Asian Development ca. 1600 to ca. 1918. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
  947.  
  948. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  949.  
  950. Classic statement of the argument that, from similar starting points in their traditional economies, the failure of China’s economic development in comparison with Japan’s was due to China’s greater level of incorporation into the world economy.
  951.  
  952. Find this resource:
  953.  
  954. Murphey, Rhoads. “The Treaty Ports and China’s Modernization.” In The Chinese City between Two Worlds. Edited by Mark Elvin and G. William Skinner, 17–71. Studies in Chinese Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974.
  955.  
  956. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  957.  
  958. Reviews the role of the treaty ports in China’s economy and society. Concludes that the treaty ports reflected a deep dualism involving a small modernizing sector having little linkage to or effect on the traditional economy in the hinterland. The Communist revolution was partly a reaction against this modern sector.
  959.  
  960. Find this resource:
  961.  
  962. Wright, Tim. “Imperialism and the Chinese Economy: A Methodological Critique of the Debate.” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 18.1 (1986): 36–45.
  963.  
  964. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  965.  
  966. Contends that the debate on the impact of imperialism has been bedeviled by a conflation of the political and the economic, by failure to establish clearly which economic variable is being impacted upon, and by insufficient care to specify the counterfactual situation with which the actual history is being compared.
  967.  
  968. Find this resource:
  969.  
  970. Japanese Trade and Investment in China
  971. Because of the broader impact of Japanese imperialism, Japanese investment has been even more heavily criticized than Western. Duus, et al. 1989; Xu 2009; and Hagiwara 2000 offer interpretations of different aspects of that investment. Tomizawa, et al. 2011 brings together both Chinese and Japanese scholars to study the issues. Chen 2004 covers the important issue of coal mining and provides a viewpoint from Taiwan.
  972.  
  973. Chen Ciyu 陳慈玉. Riben zai Hua meiye touzi sishinian (日本在華煤業投資四十年). Taibei: Daoxiang chubanshe, 2004.
  974.  
  975. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  976.  
  977. Chen is one of the leading economic historians working in Taiwan. She covers Japanese investment in Manchuria, Shandong, and Shanxi. Separate chapters deal with the wartime period and with mine workers. Makes extensive use of Japanese sources.
  978.  
  979. Find this resource:
  980.  
  981. Duus, Peter, Ramon H. Myers, and Mark R. Peattie, eds. The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895–1937. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.
  982.  
  983. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  984.  
  985. Very important collection of high-quality articles, including Duus on the Japanese cotton mills in China, William Wray on the service enterprises, and Myers and Nakagane Katsuji on Manchuria.
  986.  
  987. Find this resource:
  988.  
  989. Hagiwara Mitsuru 萩原充. Chūgoku no keizai kensetsu to Nitchū kankei: Tainichi kōsen e no jokyoku, 1927–1937 nen (中国の経済建設と日中関係: 対日抗戦への序曲, 1927–1937年). Kyoto: Mineruva Shobō, 2000.
  990.  
  991. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  992.  
  993. Important study focusing on Japan’s part in China’s economic development, particularly during the Nanjing decade. Case studies of the role of Hanyeping Company in the steel industry, railway construction, and Japanese expansion in North China.
  994.  
  995. Find this resource:
  996.  
  997. Tomizawa Yoshia 富沢芳亜, Kubo Tōru 久保亨, and Hagawara Mitsuru萩原充, eds. Kindai Chūgoku o ikita Nikkei kigyō (近代中国を生きた日系企業). Suita, Japan: Ōsaka daigaku shuppankai, 2011.
  998.  
  999. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1000.  
  1001. Important collection of essays by Japanese and Chinese scholars on Japanese businesses in China. Six chapters cover the key industry of cotton textiles, while four others deal with coal, iron, bone meal fertilizer, and flour. Covers a range of issues including technology transfer and labor management.
  1002.  
  1003. Find this resource:
  1004.  
  1005. Xu Jinsheng 许金生. Jindai Shanghai Rizi gongye shi, 1884–1937 (近代上海日资工业史, 1884–1937). Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 2009.
  1006.  
  1007. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1008.  
  1009. Extensive analysis of Japanese industrial investments in Shanghai. Concludes that, objectively, Japanese capital played a major role in the introduction of modern technology into China, while Chinese enterprises could learn from Japanese management methods.
  1010.  
  1011. Find this resource:
  1012.  
  1013. Manchuria
  1014. Manchuria, as something of a special case in China’s pre-1949 economic history, has attracted scholars’ attention for a number of reasons. First, beginning in 1905, Manchuria was overwhelmingly dominated by the Japanese and so has become a case study of the impact of imperialism in China. Bix 1972 and Myers 1973 are a famous exchange on this issue. Second, Manchuria was to some extent a frontier economy, and Gottschang 1987 is the key analysis of the massive migration of Chinese workers to the region. Third, Manchuria showed stronger economic growth than other regions, and Sun 1969, Chao 1983, Yamamoto 2003, and Wright 2007, in different ways, chart the parameters of that growth. Yasutomi 1998 covers the important financial aspects of the Japanese presence.
  1015.  
  1016. Bix, Herbert. “Japanese Imperialism and the Manchurian Economy, 1900–31.” China Quarterly 51 (1972): 425–443.
  1017.  
  1018. DOI: 10.1017/S0305741000052231Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1019.  
  1020. Argues that the Japanese presence underdeveloped the traditional economy of Manchuria and created a colonial-type dual economy. The modern sector was mainly involved in extracting agricultural and mineral products in the interests of Japan. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1021.  
  1022. Find this resource:
  1023.  
  1024. Chao, Kang (Zhao Gang 赵冈). The Economic Development of Manchuria: The Rise of a Frontier Economy. Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies 43. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1983.
  1025.  
  1026. DOI: 10.3998/mpub.19151Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1027.  
  1028. Analyzes the development of Manchuria as a frontier economy. Extensive appendixes summarize statistical information on the Manchurian economy and provide GDP estimates for the benchmark years of 1924, 1926, 1929, 1934, 1936, 1939, and 1941.
  1029.  
  1030. Find this resource:
  1031.  
  1032. Gottschang, Thomas R. “Economic Change, Disasters, and Migration: The Historical Case of Manchuria.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 35.3 (1987): 461–490.
  1033.  
  1034. DOI: 10.1086/451600Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1035.  
  1036. A quantitative analysis of Chinese migration to Manchuria in the early 20th century. Crucially contends that “pull” factors were more important than “push” factors in triggering the migration of approximately 25 million people. Migration yielded benefits both to Manchuria and to the migrants’ home areas of Shandong and Hebei. Available online by subscription.
  1037.  
  1038. Find this resource:
  1039.  
  1040. Myers, Ramon H. “Economic Development in Manchuria under Japanese Imperialism: A Dissenting View.” China Quarterly 55 (1973): 547–559.
  1041.  
  1042. DOI: 10.1017/S0305741000009152Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1043.  
  1044. A response to Bix 1972. Argues that the peasantry did gain from the commercialization of agriculture in the early 20th century and that the Japanese presence was a catalyst for development. Available online by subscription.
  1045.  
  1046. Find this resource:
  1047.  
  1048. Sun, Kungtu C. The Economic Development of Manchuria in the First Half of the Twentieth Century. Harvard East Asian Monograph 28. Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1969.
  1049.  
  1050. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1tg5hhdSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1051.  
  1052. Part original source (Sun worked in China as an economist and statistician before 1949), part academic study of the development of Manchuria. Some of Sun’s quantitative estimates have underlain later works.
  1053.  
  1054. Find this resource:
  1055.  
  1056. Wright, Tim. “The Manchurian Economy and the 1930s World Depression.” Modern Asian Studies 41.5 (2007): 1073–1112.
  1057.  
  1058. DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X06002630Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1059.  
  1060. Develops quantitative estimates for the Manchurian GDP annually for 1924–1937. Maintains that even in an area much more integrated into the world economy than the rest of China, climatic shocks were still a more serious problem than was the global depression. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1061.  
  1062. Find this resource:
  1063.  
  1064. Yamamoto Yūzō 山本有造. “Manshūkoku” keizaishi kenkyū (「満洲国」経済史研究). Nagoya, Japan: Nagoya daigaku shuppankai, 2003.
  1065.  
  1066. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1067.  
  1068. The summation of the work of Yamamoto, the leading Japanese economic historian working on Manchuria, on the economic history of the region. Includes estimates for the Manchurian GDP in 1937 and 1939.
  1069.  
  1070. Find this resource:
  1071.  
  1072. Yasutomi Ayumu 安冨歩著. Finance in “Manchukuo,” 1932–45. International Studies Discussion Paper IS/98/345. London: Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, 1998.
  1073.  
  1074. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1075.  
  1076. Yasutomi is the most important writer on finance and currency issues in Manchuria. His longer work in Japanese is “Manshūkoku” no kinyū (「満洲国」の金融), 2 vols. (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1997).
  1077.  
  1078. Find this resource:
  1079.  
  1080. Business History
  1081. Both the needs of the Chinese Communist Party and the dictates of American modernization theory found it convenient to portray Chinese business management in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as mired in tradition and failing to embrace the Weberian requirements of a modern society. More recently a much more nuanced picture has emerged that addresses a broader range of issues, such as the introduction of a legal framework for business enterprise, on which Kirby 1995 is the most influential study; the nature of state enterprises (Bian 2005); and the introduction of modern management methods (Morgan 2006). Brown 1996 is a comprehensive collection of key papers on Chinese business history, whereas Gardella, et al. 1998 contains a series of critical surveys.
  1082.  
  1083. Bian, Morris L. The Making of the State Enterprise System in Modern China: The Dynamics of Institutional Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
  1084.  
  1085. DOI: 10.4159/9780674020931Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1086.  
  1087. Study of governance structures, management and incentive mechanisms, and the provision of social services and welfare in defense-related industries in China under the Nationalists. This book argues that the industries were the origin of the state-owned enterprise, or danwei (work unit), system in urban China under the People’s Republic of China.
  1088.  
  1089. Find this resource:
  1090.  
  1091. Brown, R. Ampalavanar, ed. Chinese Business Enterprise. 4 vols. London: Routledge, 1996.
  1092.  
  1093. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1094.  
  1095. A collection of more than eighty seminal papers on Chinese business history covering, among other topics, business organization, finance and investment, networks, marketing, and relationships with the state. Includes some works listed in this article and many others as well.
  1096.  
  1097. Find this resource:
  1098.  
  1099. Gardella, Robert, Jane K. Leonard, and Andrea McElderry, eds. Special Issue: Special Studies in Chinese Business History; Interpretive Trends and Priorities for the Future. Chinese Studies in History 31.3–4 (1998).
  1100.  
  1101. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1102.  
  1103. A collection of survey articles on Chinese business history in China, Taiwan, and the West.
  1104.  
  1105. Find this resource:
  1106.  
  1107. Kirby, William C. “China Unincorporated: Company Law and Business Enterprise in Twentieth-Century China.” Journal of Asian Studies 54.1 (1995): 43–63.
  1108.  
  1109. DOI: 10.2307/2058950Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1110.  
  1111. Influential study of the introduction of commercial law into China. Argues that although it was useful in acting as a control on the foreign presence and in strengthening the state, commercial law did not lead to the private corporation becoming the dominant force in the Chinese economy. Available online by subscription.
  1112.  
  1113. Find this resource:
  1114.  
  1115. Morgan, Stephen L. “Transfer of Taylorist Ideas to China, 1910–1930s.” Journal of Management History 12.4 (2006): 408–424.
  1116.  
  1117. DOI: 10.1108/17511340610692761Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1118.  
  1119. Intellectual history of the process of the introduction of modern management ideas (Taylorism) to China. Scientific management was influential in China before World War II, showing the early impact of globalization. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1120.  
  1121. Find this resource:
  1122.  
  1123. Enterprise Studies
  1124. The works included here address issues similar to those listed under Business History through focusing on one or two specific enterprises. Feuerwerker 1958 is the classic study of the travails of bureaucratic management, albeit mainly in the late 19th century. Cochran 1980 examines Sino-foreign competition, Matsumoto 2010 the fate of a foreign enterprise before and after 1949, Köll 2003 the relationship between networks and enterprise institutionalization, and Chan 2006 the building of business groups by a former comprador.
  1125.  
  1126. Chan, Kai Yiu. Business Expansion and Structural Change in Pre-war China: Liu Hongsheng and His Enterprises, 1920–1937. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006.
  1127.  
  1128. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1129.  
  1130. Using extensive archival materials, this study focuses on Liu Hongsheng, who started out as a comprador to the Anglo-Chinese Kailuan Mining Administration and then set out to become China’s “match king” and a major player in the cement and banking industries.
  1131.  
  1132. Find this resource:
  1133.  
  1134. Cochran, Sherman. Big Business in China: Sino-Foreign Rivalry in the Cigarette Industry, 1890–1930. Harvard Studies in Business History 33. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.
  1135.  
  1136. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1137.  
  1138. A pioneering study of Chinese business history, focusing on the competition between the leading Chinese cigarette company and British American Tobacco. Examines issues of imperialist exploitation, economic nationalism, and entrepreneurship. Ends with an agnostic conclusion as to whether indigenous enterprise can compete with multinational companies.
  1139.  
  1140. Find this resource:
  1141.  
  1142. Feuerwerker, Albert. China’s Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsuan-huai (1844–1916) and Mandarin Enterprise. Harvard East Asian Studies 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958.
  1143.  
  1144. DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674333734Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1145.  
  1146. Although predominantly on the pre-1895 period, this work is included because of its seminal influence on Chinese business history. The work is a study of China’s leading official entrepreneur and the shipping company he ran. Argues that late-Qing enterprises foreshadowed the “bureaucratic capitalism” of the 1930s and 1940s.
  1147.  
  1148. Find this resource:
  1149.  
  1150. Köll, Elisabeth. From Cotton Mill to Business Empire: The Emergence of Regional Enterprises in Modern China. Harvard East Asian Monograph 229. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003.
  1151.  
  1152. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1tg5gphSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1153.  
  1154. Study of Zhang Jian’s 张謇 Dasheng enterprises in Nantong. Contains chapters on industrial work, corporate structure, and business performance. Emphasizes the importance of institutionalization and networks in the development of Chinese corporations, though the shortcomings of personal control became evident in the context of succession.
  1155.  
  1156. Find this resource:
  1157.  
  1158. Matsumoto, Toshiro 松本俊郎. “Continuity and Discontinuity from the 1930s to the 1950s in Northeast China: The ‘Miraculous’ Rehabilitation of the Anshan Iron and Steel Company Immediately after the Chinese Civil War.” In The International Order of Asia in the 1930s and 1950s. Edited by Shigeru Akita and Nicholas J. White, 255–273. Modern Economic and Social History. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010.
  1159.  
  1160. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1161.  
  1162. Important as one of the few works spanning the 1949 divide. The author deals with the issues in more detail in Japanese in Manshūkoku kara shin Chūgoku e: Anzan tekkōgyō kara mita Chūgoku tōhoku no saihen katei, 1940–1954 (満州国から新中国へ：鞍山鉄鋼業から見た新中国東北の再編過程, 1940–1954) (Nagoya, Japan: Nagoya daigaku shuppankai, 2000).
  1163.  
  1164. Find this resource:
  1165.  
  1166. The Role of the State
  1167. A state either too weak to promote economic development or, often, only interested in promoting its own interests at the cost of economic development has been frequently cited as a major obstacle to modern China’s economic growth. Du 1991 covers the relationship between the state and capitalism over the whole period between the First Opium War and World War II. Few have had much positive to say about the warlord governments, but there is much more controversy over the record of the Nationalist government (1927–1949), especially before the outbreak of war, during the Nanjing decade (1927–1937). Paauw 1957 and Coble 1986 provide the classic statements of the position that the Nationalist government was basically predatory on economic activity, concerned only with advancing its own interests. Young 1971 builds on the author’s own experiences as a financial adviser to give a more positive view of the Nationalists’ promotion of economic development. Kirby 2000 is an influential statement of the increasingly common perception of the Nationalists as in part originators of the developmental state that emerged in China after 1949.
  1168.  
  1169. Coble, Parks M. Jr. The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government, 1927–1937. 2d ed. Harvard East Asian Monograph 94. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1986.
  1170.  
  1171. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1172.  
  1173. Influential book on the relationship between the Shanghai capitalists and the Nanjing regime. Rejects the thesis that there was an alliance between the government and the capitalists. Rather than promoting development, the Nationalist state was essentially an autonomous force based on the military, ruling in its own interests.
  1174.  
  1175. Find this resource:
  1176.  
  1177. Du Xuncheng 杜恂诚. Minzu zibenzhuyi yu jiu Zhongguo zhengfu, 1840–1937 (民族资本主义与旧中国政府, 1840–1937). Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1991.
  1178.  
  1179. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1180.  
  1181. Study of relations between Chinese capitalism and capitalists and the successive Chinese governments between 1840 and 1937 by one of Shanghai’s most prominent economic historians.
  1182.  
  1183. Find this resource:
  1184.  
  1185. Kirby, William C. “Engineering China: Birth of the Developmental State, 1928–1937.” In Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond. Edited by Wen-hsin Yeh, 137–160. Studies on China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
  1186.  
  1187. DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520219236.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1188.  
  1189. Examines the embryonic emergence of a developmental state and economic planning in China under the Nationalists, focusing on urban construction and electrification, collaboration with the League of Nations, and the creation of a cadre of trained technicians, especially engineers.
  1190.  
  1191. Find this resource:
  1192.  
  1193. Paauw, Douglas S. “The Kuomintang and Economic Stagnation, 1928–37.” Journal of Asian Studies 16.2 (1957): 213–220.
  1194.  
  1195. DOI: 10.2307/2941379Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1196.  
  1197. Argues that despite some attempts by the government to establish the technical prerequisites for economic growth, the lack of institutional change—especially the failure to introduce agrarian reform and the emergence of bureaucratic capitalism—led to continuing stagnation. The government’s objective was not growth but control by the few. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  1198.  
  1199. Find this resource:
  1200.  
  1201. Young, Arthur N. China’s Nation-Building Effort, 1927–1937: The Financial and Economic Record. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 1971.
  1202.  
  1203. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1204.  
  1205. Emphasizes centrally fiscal and monetary affairs, in which the author played a personal role, but also deals with economic modernization. The book acknowledges the weaknesses and shortcomings of the Nationalist regime but argues that the nation-building effort showed evidence of growing strength when interrupted by the Japanese invasion in 1937.
  1206.  
  1207. Find this resource:
  1208.  
  1209. Economic Thought
  1210. As in late Imperial China, the role of the state was prominent in economic thought in republican China. Economic thought in that period involved at least three competing streams: traditional Chinese ideas, Marxist economics, and various strands of more conventional Western economics. Sun 2011 is a convenient overview of the total picture. Trescott 2007 is the leading introduction to the introduction of Western economic ideas. Borokh 2013 examines the relationship between traditional Chinese economic thought and Western economic theories, while Borokh 2014 examines the state-centered approach that became dominant in the 1930s and 1940s. Although varieties of Western economics dominated the universities and much of the specialist publications, in the wider sphere Marxist ideas were more important, and Dirlik 1978 covers one of the major debates involving Marxist economists and historians.
  1211.  
  1212. Borokh, Olga N. “Chinese Tradition Meets Western Economics.” In Thoughts on Economic Development in China. Edited by Ying Ma and Hans-Michael Trautwein, 136–157. London: Routledge, 2013.
  1213.  
  1214. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1215.  
  1216. Olga Borokh is one of the leading Russian scholars on China’s modern economic and intellectual history. Here she analyzes the ideas of Tang Qingzeng on the relationship between modern Western economics and traditional Chinese ideas on economic issues. Tang saw the emphasis of traditional thought on distribution over growth as inappropriate for China’s current situation.
  1217.  
  1218. Find this resource:
  1219.  
  1220. Borokh, Olga N. “Discussions of ‘Controlled Economy’ in Republican China (1930s–1940s).” Far Eastern Affairs 42.1 (2014): 78–97.
  1221.  
  1222. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1223.  
  1224. This article analyzes the attraction of ideas of the “controlled economy” in China between 1932 and the 1949 revolution. Emphasizes that most economists at the time distinguished “controlled economy” from “planned economy” and saw it as part of a mixed economy.
  1225.  
  1226. Find this resource:
  1227.  
  1228. Dirlik, Arif. Revolution and History: The Origins of Marxist Historiography in China, 1919–1937. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
  1229.  
  1230. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1231.  
  1232. Listed here in recognition of the importance of Marxism in broader debates on the economy. While much of what was discussed in the “social history controversy” would not count as economic history today, some of it touched on issues such as commercialization and the nature of rural society.
  1233.  
  1234. Find this resource:
  1235.  
  1236. Sun Daquan 孙大权. “Minguo shiqi de Zhongguo jingjixue yu jingji sixiang” 民国时期的中国经济学与经济思想. Guizhou caijing xueyuan xuebao 贵州财经学院学报 6 (2011): 66–73.
  1237.  
  1238. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1239.  
  1240. Sun Daquan of Fudan University is one of the leading scholars in China of economic thought in the republican period. This article, in addition to some quantitative information on publications, has a useful (but very brief) outline of the major schools of thought and the major controversies in Chinese economics at this time.
  1241.  
  1242. Find this resource:
  1243.  
  1244. Trescott, Paul B. Jingji Xue: The History of the Introduction of Western Economic Ideas into China, 1850–1950. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2007.
  1245.  
  1246. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1247.  
  1248. Mainly institutional rather than intellectual history of (non-Marxist) Western economics in republican China. Focuses on Chinese economists who did graduate study in the West. Full of fascinating information. Author believes Chinese (and Western) economists of the time paid insufficient attention to the benefits of the free market.
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