The Age of Openness: China Before Mao by Dikötter Frank

Author:Dikötter, Frank [Dikötter, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics, History, Modern Chinese History
ISBN: 9780520258815
Amazon: 0520258819
Goodreads: 6033999
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2008-07-01T07:00:00+00:00

5 - Open Markets

A popular image, found for instance in John K. Fairbank’s assertion that ‘hostility toward alien things’ characterised the Qing,1 has it that foreign commodities were rejected by a xenophobic and self-sufficient empire. This is not the place to review the literature on the economic links forged with the rest of the world under the Qing: suffice it to say that the empire was not hermetically closed from the outside world, as a thriving maritime commerce allowed a range of goods, from cheap flints to expensive watches, to be imported, some of them being made available to large sections of the population. We should also note that a growing number of objects from abroad were copied at low cost to address the needs of a large but relatively poor population, a trend sustained by a long-standing tradition of manufacturing goods from foreign patterns, the use of component parts produced by individual workers in the assembly of complex objects, the spread of small enterprises in an expanding market from the sixteenth century onwards, and the availability of cheap labour because of a rapidly growing population. In short, already by the end of the nineteenth century, the everyday lives of a significant number of people in the empire were inextricably linked to global trends, from the yarn for clothes, the iron for tools or the oil in lamps for ordinary farmers to electric fans and imported phonographs in wealthy households.2

Our concern here, however, is with the first half of the twentieth century, and a number of important changes did occur to open up the movement of goods. As noted in Chapter 3, foreigners could build factories and manage workshops as a result of the Treaty of Shimonoseki signed at the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895. A spectacular burst of economic activity ensued in the following decade, as economic historians have noted. The readiness with which local merchants adopted modern technology, in particular after 1895, was remarkable. The scale of private investments also increased after the Sino-Japanese War, as not only merchants but also officials encouraged commercial activities which could help the country to recover rights to the exploitation of economic resources that had been lost to foreign companies.

The need for a legal basis for commerce and investment — crucial in opening up the economy — grew with the demand for greater capital in the years following the Shimonoseki Treaty, and culminated in the introduction of a Company Law in 1904. As David Faure shows, the balance of power between merchants and officials was overhauled: no longer was trade a privilege granted by imperial charter but a right for every citizen in return for tax.3 The new law which gave recognition to company incorporation and limited liability was part of a broader shift towards a more open economy, as a Ministry of Commerce and chambers of commerce were created during the New Policies. Initiatives to open up the economy to foreign trade continued after 1911, one example being

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