https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w17897/w17897.pdf

On the road: Access to transportation infrastructure and economic growth in China

Recent studies have increasingly argued that the Chinese leadership uses Japan's imperialistic past as a tool for domestic and political bargaining. However, this argument fails to appreciate the embedded nature of negative memories within China. This article forwards an alternative argument by situating Japanese militaristic history within Chinese national identity. By examining a wide range of Chinese primary sources often underutilized by International Relations (IR) analysts, it moves beyond narrow, elite-centred explanations. The article argues that modern China's national identity has been characterized by an acute sense of ‘victimhood’ arising from its turbulent interactions with International Society, and that Japan plays an important role as an ‘Other’ which enhances China's self-image as a ‘victim’. Furthermore, it claims that Japan's emergence as an ‘Other’ in China's national identity is a by-product of China's attempts to regain its social and moral legitimacy within a post-Cold War ...

The importance of ‘Othering’ in China's national identity: Sino-Japanese relations as a stage of identity conflicts

An image of dynastic decline also emerges in the late Ch'ing period from the exploitation, careerism and inefficiency of local government, all spurs to popular rebellion. Certainly the most striking feature of Chinese social history in late imperial and modern times has been the phenomenal rise in population. The primary path to upward mobility in Ming and Ch'ing times was through education and the civil service examination system. Pressure upon existing channels of social mobility undoubtedly contributed to the characteristic pattern of political behaviour in Ch'ing China, the patronage network, in which patron-client relationships were made to bear more than their usual burden in the workings of the government. Grain tribute was one of the three great superintendencies administered by the central government in the provinces, the others being the salt monopoly and the Yellow River Conservancy. The concern of early nineteenth-century literati like Wei Yuan with the problems of frontier defence had a solid base in the eighteenth-century experience.

Dynastic decline and the roots of rebellion

This paper estimates the effect of access to transportation networks on regional economic outcomes in China over a twenty-period of rapid income growth. It addresses the problem of the endogenous placement of networks by exploiting the fact that these networks tend to connect historical cities. Our results show that proximity to transportation networks have a moderate positive causal effect on per capita GDP levels across sectors, but no effect on per capita GDP growth. We provide a simple theoretical framework with empirically testable predictions to interpret our results. We argue that our results are consistent with factor mobility playing an important role in determining the economic benefits of infrastructure development.

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On the Road: Access to Transportation Infrastructure and Economic Growth in China

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT The Taiping Rebellion (1851–64) was in many respects the hinge between China's pre-modern and modern histories. Its gigantic human catastrophes in the interior formed a backdrop for early Sino-Western treaty relations along the coast, and, along with the treaty system itself, gave notice of the imminent collapse of China's traditional order. Some themes of the rebellion had deep historical roots, while others grew from problems peculiar to the Ch'ing period. The enormities of social injustice, the decline of imperial and local administration, and the loss of bureaucratic morale are themes common to dynastic crises. Soaring population growth and massive internal migration were Ch'ing problems whose effects had been felt in social disorder and inter-ethnic conflict since the eighteenth century. Yet foreign contact itself had provided a new historical catalyst: an alien religion that generated a furious assault on China's existing social structure and values. The way this assault was met by the ruling elite conditioned the political and social environment of China's modern history. The social background The anarchy that gripped Kwangsi province by the 1840s stemmed partly from the disruptive effects of foreign contact, and partly from the region's unique social complexity. From 1795 to 1809 the south and south-eastern coasts had been scourged by bands of pirates, some sponsored by impecunious rulers of Annam (Vietnam). In Kwangsi these corsairs forged onshore links with Triad chapters (see chapter 3, p. 134), and a complex pattern of outlawry began to emerge. It was not long thereafter that the south China underworld entered the more lucrative field of opium distribution, as the drug traffic began to flourish in the 1820s and 1830s.

The Taiping Rebellion

The slow growth of railways is undoubtedly one of the most astonishing features of the history of modernization in China. The Chinese government often gave as its reasons for opposition to railway development the fact that improved communications would facilitate foreign military expansion, that railways obstructed the feng-shui, that mandarin and peasant alike were opposed to the railway, and that railways destroyed the livelihood of the common people. But, until recently, these explanations have never been given serious consideration, despite the fact that Ch'ing officials discussed railway-policy in these terms in a major debate in 1866–67. This is partly because historians have found it difficult to accept Chinese objections to railway development at their face-value, and partly because Chinese officials themselves, seeing that foreigners were unimpressed by Chinese arguments against railway construction, offered others which they thought would be more acceptable to the Western mind. This essay, however, tries to analyse Chinese objections as a coherent body of thought that might be said to xpress 'Confucian Patriotism'. It considers in detail the events surround-ing the destruction of the Woosung railway.

Confucian Patriotism and the Destruction of the Woosung Railway, 1877

Introduction 1. Early Years 2. A Local Official in Kiangsi 1856-59 3. TheGovernor of Kiangsi 1862-65 4. First Encounters with Foreigners 5. Director General of the Foochow Navy Yard 6. The Foochow: Early Developments1866-67 7. The Foochow Navy Yard: Adminstration and Personnel 1867-75 8. The Foochow Navy Yard: Building and Training Programmes 9. The Foochow Navy Yard: Financial Crises 10. The Next Steps in Defence Modernisation: Ma-wei and Beyond 11. Towards a pan for Self-Strengthening Conclusion Glossary of Chinese characters Bibliography Index.

Shen Pao-chen and China's Modernization in the Nineteenth Century

1st Ed. About 2,500 pp. in 4 vols. 2009 ISBN 978-0-684-31566-9. U.S. $495.00/4-vol. set. New title An exciting addition to Scribner’s World History program, the Encyclopedia of Modern China is designed for academic and professional users — from advanced high school students and undergraduates to professors, journalists and business people — as well as public library patrons. The Encyclopedia showcases the work of an international body of prominent scholars, who offer accessible, original and authoritative analysis of all aspects of the history and culture of China since 1800.

Encyclopedia of modern China

The Foochow Navy Yard was founded in 1866 by Tso Tsung-t'ang with the assistance of two French naval officers. In their opinion, they had provided ample funding for the enterprise, which was to construct a modern naval dockyard and academy, to build sixteen gunboats, and to train the Chinese in all aspects of naval construction, marine engineering, navigation and command of the small squadron, all within a five-year period. By a liberal interpretation of the contract, Tso managed to commit the government to funding the project for a total of seven years, up to early 1874. Since the objectives were by and large attained by that date, one could say that the Navy Yard was a success.

Keeping the Foochow Navy Yard Afloat: Government Finance and China's Early Modern Defence Industry, 1866–75

This study examines the development of labour organisation and industrial action among workers in government enterprises in the late Qing (1860-1912). Because these were the largest industrial enterprises using the most advanced machinery, one expects that the workers in them would play the leading role in labour organisation. Further, during the centuries-long gestation period, the period of embryonic capitalism, workers in traditional enterprises had already developed a tradition of industrial action. Yet this tradition of protest did not appear to have contributed much to labour activism in the modern government works. Quite the contrary, it was in private industries, whether Chinese- or foreign-owned, that we find a higher level of labour organisation and activism. This is an unexpected discovery, for which an explanation is attempted.

David Pong

Papers

Confucian Patriotism and the Destruction of the Woosung Railway, 1877

Shen Pao-chen and China's Modernization in the Nineteenth Century

Encyclopedia of modern China

Keeping the Foochow Navy Yard Afloat: Government Finance and China's Early Modern Defence Industry, 1866–75

Government Enterprises & Industrial Relations in Late Qing China