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Industrial Development of Mainland China 1912–1949

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

John K. Chang
John K. Chang
Affiliation:
Lafayette College
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Extract

In recent years much research work has been done on the economy of Communist China. With respect to economic development in the pre-Communist period, however, although several writers have attempted to view contemporary developments in the light of past performance, the existing stock of knowledge does not permit exact statements.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 1967 , pp. 56 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1967

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References

This paper was completed when I was a research economist at the University of Michigan. Part of it is based on my unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indexes of Industrial Production of Mainland China, 1912–1949 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1965), and the paper as a whole is, in a sense, a preliminary report of a larger study supported by the Committee on the Economy of China, Social Science Research Council and the University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies. Professor Alexander Eckstein, from whom I have received constant encouragement and enlightenment, has directed my research and commented on the drafts of this paper. I owe him a special debt of gratitude. I wish also to thank Professors C. Y. Cheng and Albert Feuerwerker for reading and commenting on an early draft of this paper.

1 See, for example, Chün, Kung, Chung-kuo hsin kung-yeh fa-chan shih ta-kang (outline history of the development of modern industry in China) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1933)Google Scholar; Ch'iian, Yang, “Wu-shih-nien-lai Chung-kuo chih kung-yeh,” in Tsui-chin chih wu-shih nien, Shen-pao-kuan wu-shih chou-nien chi-nien (the past fifty years, in commemoration of the Shen Pao's Golden Jubilee, 1872–1922) (Shanghai: Shen-pao, 1923); andGoogle ScholarTa-chin, Yang, Hsien-tai Chung-kuo shih-yeh chih (modern Chinese industry) (Changsha: Commercial Press, 1938), I, 1–29Google Scholar.

2 See, for example, Hung, Fred C., Rates and Patterns of Industrial Growth in Modem China, paper presented at the, 10th Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, New York, 1958; andGoogle ScholarWang, Foh-shen, Chinas Industrial Production, 1931–1946, Institute of Social Science, Academia Sinica, Nanking, 1948Google Scholar.

3 See, for example, Cheng, Y. K., Foreign Trade and Industrial Development of China (Washington, D.C.: The University Press of Washington, D.C., 1956), pp. 216–17Google Scholar.

4 Liu, Ta-Chung, China's National Income, 1931–1936 (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1946), Table 3, p. 12Google Scholar.

5 A 40 per cent or even lower coverage is not, however, uncommon in the studies of national industrial growth. See, for example, Burns, Arthur, Production Trends in the U.S. Since 1870 (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1934), pp. 17–20;Google ScholarHodgman, Donald R., Soviet Industrial Production, 1928–1951 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954), pp. 81–82; andGoogle ScholarFabricant, Solomon, The Output of Manufacturing Industries, 1899–1937 (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1940), pp. 351–52Google Scholar.

6 There is a large amount of descriptive literature on the development of various modem industries in China. The following works are most comprehensive: Ministry of Economic Affairs, Chung-kuo ching-chi nien-chien (Chinese economic yearbook), 1934Google Scholar; Chün, Kung, Chung-kuo hsin kung-yeh fa-chan shih ta-kang (outline history of the development of modern industry in China) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1933)Google Scholar; Ch'eng-lo, Wu, Chin-shih Chung-kuo shih-yeh t'ung-chih (history of modern industries in China) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1929), Vols. I and IIGoogle Scholar; Ta-chin, Yang, Hsien-tai Chung-kuo shih-yeh chih (modern Chinese industry) (Changsha: Commercial Press, 1938), Vols. I and II; andGoogle ScholarHou-p'ei, Hou, Chung-kuo chin-tai ching-chi fa-chan shih (history of economic development of modem China) (Shanghai: Ta-tung Book Company, 1929)Google Scholar.

7 It would be inappropriate to present here the raw data and their sources because of lack of space. This information and a discussion of its reliability can be found in Chang, John K., Indexes of Industrial Production of Mainland China, 1912–1949 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1965)Google Scholar.

8 For example, import prices in Shanghai increased about 42 per cent between 1926 and 1936. Shang-hai chieh-fang ch ien-hou wu-chia tzu-liao nui-pien (a compendium on commodity prices in Shanghai before and after the liberation) (Shanghai: The People's Publishing House, 1958), p. 61Google Scholar.

9 According to Ou's estimates for 1933, factory output was about 27 per cent of total industrial production; see his China's National Income, 1933 (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1947), I, 12Google Scholar.

10 Liu, T. C. and Yeh, K. C., The Economy of the Chinese Mainland: National Income and Economic Development, 1933–1959 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), Table 8, p. 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 C. M. Hou, based on a number of important economic growth indicators, e.g., exports and imports, pig-iron and coal production, yarn spindleage, and banking, argues that the modern sector of the Chinese economy grew continuously and at a constant rate in the long run. See his Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China, 1849–1937 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 125–27Google Scholar.

12 This is one of the areas in which research is still being done. I am hoping eventually to have separate indexes of industrial production for China proper ana for Manchuria.

13 Yu-lan, Chang, Chung-kuo yin-hang yeh fa-chan shih (history of Chinese banking) (Shanghai: People's Publishing House, 1957), pp. 51, 66Google Scholar.

14 See , Hou, Foreign Investment, pp. 137–38; andGoogle ScholarAllen, G. C. and Donni-thorne, A. G., Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Development, China and Japan (London: Allen and Unwin, 1954), pp. 144–45 and 166–69Google Scholar.

15 Chung-p'ing, Yen, ed., Chung-kuo chin-tai ching-chi shift t'ung-chi tzu-liao hsiian-chi (selected statistics on the economic history of modern China) (Peking: Scientific Publishing House, 1955), pp. 124, 127–29Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., pp. 139–40.

17 See , Liu and , Yeh, Economy of the Chinese Mainland, Table 8, p. 66Google Scholar; Pao-san, Ou, China's National Income, 1933 (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1947), I, 12, andGoogle ScholarCapital Formation and Consumers' Outlay in China (Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1949, p. 204). These gave almost identical estimates for the 1930'sGoogle Scholar.

18 A case in point here is the phenomenon that during the late 1920's and the early 1930's a particular political elite was quite concerned with China's industrialization and propagated the idea of modernization. Descriptive literature suggests that the rate of acceptance of the idea of change and reform was very high during this period. Broadly defined, this may be interpreted as a rapid increase in the accumulation of social overhead capital, or at least as a condition under which such accumulation may be accelerated. But the real economic payoff will come only after these forces of modernization have effectively worked through and penetrated the social and cultural fibers of th e economy. This may require a generation or two.

19 See, for example, Boserup, Mogens, “Agrarian structure and take off,” in Rostow, W. W., ed., The Economics of Take-off into Sustained Growth (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1963), pp. 201–24, especially pp. 202–03Google Scholar.

20 Rostow, W. W., “The Take-Off into Self-Sustained Growth,” The Economic Journal LXVI (03. 1956), p. 32Google Scholar.

21 Much has been written on this period. No attempt will be made to give a detailed account here. See, for example, K'ang-chan ch'ien shih-nien chih Chung-kuo (China during 1927–1937) (Hong Kong: Lung-Men Book Co. 1965), a collection of thirty-three articles on every phase of Chinese development during this decadeGoogle Scholar.

22 Full restoration was attained in a piecemeal fashion. The first tariff agreement was with the United States; it was signed in late 1928.

23 Though the plan never advance d from its draft form, due to many administrative and technical difficulties, it clearly exhibited the conscious effort made by the government to industrialize and modernize China and perhaps signified the emergence of political entrepreneurship. See Ch'en Kung-po, Ssu-nien tsung cheng lu (four years in government services) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1936)Google Scholar.

24 For a very detailed account of actual economic performance and construction during the decade, province by province, see , Kuomintang, Cbing-ch i chi-hua weiyüan-hui (Economic Planning Commission), shih nien lai chih Chung-kuo ching-chi chien-she (economic reconstruction of China during the past ten years) (Nanking: Kuomiritang Economic Planning Commission, 1937)Google Scholar.

25 See his Economic Planning in Underdeveloped Areas (New York: Fordham University Press, 1958), pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

26 Allen and Donnithome, in Western Enterprise, argued that “in more favourable political circumstances … the pace of industrialisation [in China] would then have been much faster than it was. … ” p. 181.