Economic history
Economic history research is one of the research fields that have developed rapidly in order to meet the needs of economic development and the shift of work focus to socialist modernization since China’s reform and opening up. It has also made a large number of new achievements. In the last ten years, scholars have paid most attention to the following topics.
(1) A wide range of studies have been made on the fiscal and financial issues in and after the late Qing Dynasty, as well as the tax systems and taxation, currency and monetary system reform, etc.
As for the fiscal and financial issues in and after the late Qing Dynasty, some scholars have discussed the relationship between the issuance of Zhaoxin Stock by the Qing government in 1898 and the financial industry. They argued that this case showed that the national finance of the late Qing Dynasty had relied on the financial industry, and the initial development of new banks had also depended on the support of the national fiscal and financial policy. Some scholars have discussed how the financial budget system implemented by the Qing government in 1908, as a new Western-style system, was transplanted and grafted into the old Chinese financial system, and what difficulties it faced and what consequences it caused; they also studied the central financial issues in the late Qing Dynasty from the perspective of a financial supervision system, holding that although some efforts had been made in financial supervision in the late Qing Dynasty, it was impossible to save its financial decline due to the defects of its own system. Some scholars have investigated the tax credit system in the late Qing Dynasty, holding that the central government and local governments had advocated the implementation of information transparency based on credit records in the late Qing Dynasty, which ended in failure due to the lack of pilot and supporting reforms.80 Some scholars discussed the early Beijing Government’s reorganization of provincial banks, and thought that this action reflected the Beijing Government’s determination to unify monetary and fiscal systems and modernize China’s financial industry. However, due to the political turmoil caused by the Hongxian Imperial Movement and the contradiction between the central and local governments, it started prosperously but ended in failure. Some scholars discussed the main contents of monetary supervision and the change of supervision institutions during the Beijing Government period, which reflected that the government had attached great importance to financial supervision at that time. Some scholars also investigated the run on the Bank of China and Bank of Communications during this period, and thought that this was the result of the government and banks’ discredit, reflecting the fatal defects of the financial and even the political and economic systems.81 Some scholars reexamined the local public debts during the Nanjing National Government period from the perspective of the financial relationship between the central and local governments, some scholars investigated the evolution of the rural cooperative financial system with the establishment of a cooperative
Chinese history studies 2009 to 2019 275 treasury as its main content, and some scholars also investigated the financial policy conflicts between the Jiangsu and Zhejiang financial bourgeoisie and the Nanjing National Government in the first half of the 1930s, pointing out that Nanjing National Government took the opportunity to take a series of measures to erode and control the financial capital of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and establish the dominant position of the financial capital monopolized by the Kuomintang bureaucrats, which made China embark on the development path of bureaucratic monopoly capitalism.82 Some scholars analyzed China’s domestic financial market circles in the 1930s from the hierarchical system of exchange, holding that from a macro perspective, the regional financial circles had been obviously formed in modern China, while the long-distance exchange relationship was relatively small, and the linkage and transmission of the national financial market still centered on regional exchange.83 Some scholars discussed the gains and losses of the banking supervision system of Chongqing National Government during the Anti-Japanese War, and thought that its diversified banking supervision system had played a positive role in maintaining the wartime financial stability. However, due to the weak leadership of the central government and accumulated contradictions, its actual effect was insufficient, so the inflation became increasingly serious in the later period of the war. Some scholars held that the supervision of local banks by the National Government during the Anti-Japanese War had not only promoted economic development and social stability, but also strengthened the government’s control over finance, and finally established its monopoly on banks and even the whole economy. Some other scholars discussed the national government’s silver deposit in Beijing and Tianjin during the Anti-Japanese War, holding that after their occupation of Beijing and Tianjin, the Japanese had tried to encroach on the tens of millions of silver deposited by the National Government in the British and American Settlements in Beijing and Tianjin. In this wrestling with the Japanese army, China lost some silver, but strategically achieved the goal of preventing the alliance of Britain and Japan, and after the outbreak of the European War, the Sino-British-Japanese relations gradually entered the track envisaged by China or Jiang Jieshi.84 Some scholars also discussed the evolution and characteristics of the bond market supervision in modern China, and the complex relationship between the development model of financial industry and social transformation in modern China.85
As for the tax system, some scholars have investigated the changes of the customs system and tariff system in Guangdong during the Daoguang and Xianfeng period, holding that both the central government of Qing Dynasty and Guangdong had an obvious desire to return to the original Canton System (the One-Port Trade System), but the changes in the external environment and the outbreak of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement had made this effort come to naught. Some other scholars, based on the long-term wartime financial operation mode in the late Qing Dynasty, re-explored Zuo Zongtang’s raising of revenue for the Western Expedition during Tongzhi and Guangxu’s reign, arguing that the wartime mode that soldiers’ pay and provisions supported by finance in the late Qing Dynasty had developed to a new stage.86 Through investigation, some scholars held that the treasury of the Board of Revenue during Xianfeng’s reign had changed greatly in terms of the specific contents, quantity and scale of its income and expenditure. Its importance in the national financial operation and allocation had also been reduced greatly, reflecting the Qing government’s ability to cope with the financial crisis under the action of internal and external forces, and the changing trend that the financial operation was gradually breaking away from the old track. Some scholars have re-explored the aftermath of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the landmark event of the “Tongzhi Restoration” - Jiangsu tax reduction, pointing out that the governor-general and other provincial officials had always played a leading role in this event. The important motivation of Emperor Tongzhi’s tax reduction was to reduce the burden of the local officials suffering from the pressure of heavy taxes.87 Some scholars studied the Beijing Government’s reform of dividing the national tax and the local tax, pointing out that this reform had been subject to the entanglement of the provincial system, the opposition between legislative and administrative organs and the continuous financial crisis, which finally forced the Beijing Government to abandon the two-tax system.88 Some scholars inspected Nanjing National Government’s three reforms in the central and local fiscal revenue and expenditure system from 1927 to 1936, and pointed out that the reform gradually established the modern fiscal system of tax distribution, which was in line with the historical trend. However, because many mistakes were made in fiscal decentralization, the efforts of centralization were countered.89 Some scholars analyzed the interaction among the government, chambers of commerce and businessmen in the process of levying income tax in 1936, as well as the tax payment of foreigners.90 Some scholars discussed the tax rate of business tax in the Republic of China, and pointed out that during the Nanjing National Government period, the business tax had changed from a fixed tax rate implemented by the Beijing Government to proportional tax rate, and there were two modes in the tax rate design of local business tax: differential proportional tax rate and single proportional tax rate. In order to increase fiscal revenue, the National Government gradually unified and greatly increased the business tax rate during the Anti-Japanese War and the Civil War period, which had brought heavy tax burdens to businessmen and ordinary people. After investigating the implementation process of estate tax in China, some scholars argued that although the Design Committee of the Ministry of Finance headed by American experts decided that estate tax was not suitable for China, powerful provincial officials and educational circles repeatedly called for the levy of estate tax in order to meet their own funding needs, which finally contributed to the rapid completion of the legislative process and implementation of estate tax after the outbreak of the overall Anti-Japanese War.91 The evolution of the traditional tax system in modern China and the fiscal and taxation systems in some special areas have
Chinese history studies 2009 to 2019 277 also attracted scholars’ attention. For example, some scholars studied the taxfarming system in the villages of modern North China, some scholars studied the role of rural leaders in rural taxation in the Republic of China, and some scholars revealed that during the Japanese occupation of Qingdao from 1914 to 1922, the monopolistic system of opium was implemented in order to earn fiscal revenue.92
As for the tax issue, some scholars pointed out that the view of “Daoguang Depression” could not hold water, and the tariff income during Jiaqing and Daoguang period still maintained the level of more than 5 million taels, which did not drop significantly compared with that of the Qianlong period. Some scholars pointed out that after 1879, the revenue of Lijin in Qing Dynasty was over 20 million taels, and even exceeded 30 million after 1903. Some scholars argued that, from the practical point of view, the finance in the late Qing Dynasty was not at the end of its tether.93
With regard to the relationship between the currency and China’s economic growth, some scholars have found that the development of China’s modern capital market was quite alienated from the development of China’s modern industrialization. It was not closely related to the development of China’s modern enterprises, especially the joint-stock enterprises, and even disconnected in some periods. However, through the case study of Kailuan Coal Mine, some scholars put forward that the role and influence of foreign capital did promote the overall modernization of China over a long period of time.94 Some scholars pointed out that the great development of modern Chinese finance mainly occurred from 1921 to 1936. However, some scholars argued that although the monetization degree of China’s economy increased steadily in the 1930s, the negative seeds were planted because the restraint mechanism was not established. Some scholars also held that the import and the amount of money were the main influencing factors of China’s economic growth. During the First World War, China’s capital goods import was severely blocked, and the international silver price increased, leading to the outflow of silver, which jointly hit China’s economy.95 Some other scholars investigated the silver currency stock and the total money supply in modern China, and on this basis questioned American scholar Thomas G. Rawski’s viewpoint, arguing that his silver currency estimation and the total money supply estimation could not be used as the basic variables to judge the macro-economic development trend in modern China. Some scholars also studied the change of state capital after the Anti-Japanese War, corrected some calculation errors, and made more in-depth analyses of the expansion, monopoly and harm of the state capital.96 As for the monetary reform, some scholars re-examined J. W. Jenks, an American monetary expert who came to China in 1904, and his monetary reform plan. They thought that the reasons why the Qing Government finally refused his monetary reform plan of introducing the gold exchange standard system could not simply be attributed to the resistance of local interests represented by the “localization of currency issuance” in the late Qing Dynasty, but were also because the plan failed to take into account China’s sovereignty and interests and was limited by relevant subjective and objective conditions. Some other scholars discussed the background of introducing the legal currency policy in 1935 and pointed out that the economic difficulties in the mid-1930s, especially the silver crisis caused by the implementation of the silver policy in the United States, were the direct catalyst for the reform of the legal currency; China’s monetary system was increasingly contrary to the outside world, which also stimulated the need for domestic monetary reform. With the gradual growth of China’s economic base, people at all levels naturally had certain expectations for flexible monetary policy.97 Some scholars held that the pace of legal currency reform in different areas was not consistent in practice. Chen Jitang was the biggest obstacle to Guangdong’s legal currency policy. The later determination of the exchange rate of Guangdong’s legal currency was the compromise between national and local interests after bargaining and negotiation among all parties. Some other scholars proposed that the decision-making level of the National Government had differences on the exchange of paper currency. In order to prevent inflation, Jiang Jieshi hoped to realize the exchangeability of legal currency in a certain sense. These arguments reflected the complexity that Chinese society faced when choosing its own economic development path under the background of the great changes in the global market system. There were also scholars who inspected the inside story of the gold yuan notes reform (Jin Yuan Quan) in 1948.98
(2) Research on the hot issues since the reform and opening up, such as chambers of commerce, business history, enterprise history and issues relating to agriculture, rural areas and farmers, has not been interrupted, and even made a lot of new progress
For the study of chambers of commerce, the academic circles during this period paid more attention to the intermediary role of chambers of commerce and trade associations. For example, some scholars held that Guangzhou Chamber of Commerce actively participated in the formulation and collection of business tax during the Republic of China, made efforts to cope with and mediate the business tax unrest, insisted on pleading for businessmen and fought against the unreasonable tax imposed by the government, which played the essential role of businessmen’s organizations. Some scholars also studied the ins and outs of the Tianjin Chamber of Commerce’s protest against the Japanese consul’s interference in the presidential election in 1919, and discussed the disputes over the re-election of Tianjin Chamber of Commerce in 1934 and the local government’s counter-measures.99 Some other scholars analyzed the position and role of Tianjin Trade Association in the price control system, pointing out that the Trade Association was entrusted by the government to bear the important responsibility of bargaining and price control, but at the same time, it “bargained with the local government” and raised the price level of its own trade through collective bargaining. Some scholars paid close attention to the relationship between businessmen and college education, holding that chambers of commerce played a key role in the
Chinese history studies 2009 to 2019 279 development of private universities, and also benefited national universities.100 Concerning the history of commerce, some scholars discussed the soybean futures market of Northeast China in the late Qing Dynasty, holding that the soybean futures market of Northeast China had developed to a considerable level and supported the effective operation of the whole distribution market and even the foreign trade system.101 Some scholars investigated the free trade reform of Changlu Salt Industry in the early years of the Republic of China, and pointed out that the so-called reform of Chinese officials and businessmen headed by Zhang Huan was actually the monopoly of contractors in the name of free trade.102 Some scholars studied the post transportation in Northwest China during the Anti-Japanese War, and thought that the post transportation system of Chongqing National Government effectively made up for the shortage of modern transportation capacity in Northwest China, but there were also some problems such as the imperfect management system, which reduced the effectiveness of post transportation.103 Some scholars discussed the prosperity of ocean shipping in Shanghai during the Anti-Japanese War, holding that it even exceeded that before the war. This was because Japan regarded Shanghai as a material transfer station in order to achieve the goal of “sustaining war by war”. Keeping this sea-lane unblocked also eased Japan’s tense relations with the United States, Britain and France due to its monopoly on shipping along the Yangtze River to a certain extent.104 On the study of enterprise history, some scholars have studied the relationship between Jiangnan gentry merchants and Western-style enterprises, thinking that the rise of charity relief in the late Qing Dynasty rewrote the previous failure experience of Jiangnan gentry merchants in Western-style enterprises and achieved remarkable things.105 Some scholars investigated the case that Shenxin No.7 Factory of Rongshi Group took the initiative to ask the government to intervene under the pressure of economic crisis in the 1930s, and pointed out that the Shenqi Incident inadvertently became the starting-point for the implementation of state-controlled economy.106 Some scholars have studied the reasons for the failure of Qingxi Ironworks in Guizhou, the first factory in China to use machines to smelt iron ore, holding that setting up a large machine iron smelting industry in Guizhou - which was located in a remote area, and had inconvenient transportation, a backward economy and no supporting resources - could not gain either government financial support or the backing of private capital markets, so it would inevitably fail. Other scholars took Kailuan Coal Mine in modern times as an example, and thought that the long-term output growth of this mine was not mainly due to the contribution of capital and labor, but the “residual value” including accumulated technical progress, organizational efficiency and improvement of management levels, etc. Therefore, focusing wisdom and strength on “software” should be the key to achieve modernization and substantial progress.107 On the issues relating to agriculture, rural areas and farmers, firstly, the issue of land rights has been valued by researchers. Some scholars have pointed out that land transaction was not necessarily a whole transaction of land ownership, but often a partial transaction of land ownership, usufruct and right of transfer. The separation of the three land rights provided a new understanding framework for re-understanding the property rights system in traditional villages. Some scholars also pointed out that the traditional land rights had interrelated multi-level rights and functions: the most basic one was the farming rights, the second one was the right to the added value, and the last one was the diversified transaction forms mediated by land, which had the financial function of inter-temporal adjustment. The multi-level nature of the land ownership promoted the tradability of land. Diversified transaction forms promoted the dynamic combination of land rights and production factors, thus improving the land output and economic efficiency.108 Some scholars have studied the ownership of non-agricultural land, pointing out that the policies like the nationalization of mountain forests, deed tax and real estate registration in the Republic of China had different influences on the ownership of mountain forests in Longquan and Jiande, Zhejiang Province. Formerly, the convention of taking contracts as the main confirmation certificate and the way of obtaining forest ownership by paying taxes under the supervision of Ceslm had been challenged, and the relationship between the government and the people in mountainous areas had become much closer.109 Some scholars have investigated the distribution of land rights in Hunan and Hubei during the Republic of China, pointing out that although the degree of uneven distribution of land rights in these two provinces was relatively close, their internal structures were quite different. The land rights in the core agricultural areas of Hubei Province were scattered, while those in the core agricultural areas of Hunan Province were concentrated. The reason was that a large number of high-level military and political officials emerged in the core agricultural areas of Hunan Province in modern times, and thus a considerable number of bureaucratic landlords appeared."0 Some scholars also discussed the causes, consequences and implementation of the National Government’s policy of “fostering owner-cultivators” during and after the Anti-Japanese War; some scholars have noticed that the transactions in the land market were also affected by the participants’ social network, but that kinship was only the information channel and credit guarantee for reaching the contract, not the restrictive factor or the priority factor.111 Based on the investigation of the big landowners in the villages of Xuzhou, Huaiyin and Haizhou, some scholars raised counter-questions to the voices that have appeared in recent years, which questioned China’s land concentration.112
In addition, concerning the issues relating to agriculture, rural areas and farmers, the following issues have also been noticed by researchers: First, whether China’s agricultural economy collapsed or developed in the Republic of China, especially in the 1930s. Through quantitative analyses of the farmer’s life in Dingxian County, some scholars put forward that the saying that the farmer’s life was deteriorating was indeed worth reconsideration, whereas the saying that the farmer’s living standard was greatly improved did not conform to historical facts. They emphasized that the rural economy was
Chinese history studies 2009 to 2019 281 a process of continuation and gradual change. Some scholars believed that, in terms of Henan from 1927 to 1937, it should be acknowledged that development was the general trend of China’s agricultural economy at that time. Some other scholars reconstructed the means of livelihood and its evolution track of a peasant family in Wuyuan in the middle and late 19th century, and discussed the influence of the dynasty system, regional market and international trade on their livelihood from a micro perspective.113 Second, the reason why farmers left their villages and moved to the cities. Some scholars held that farmers were rational calculators. Under the external ecological conditions and multiple institutional constraints, farmers still chose the production mode and lifestyle with agriculture as the main factor and industry and commerce as the auxiliary factor. Some other scholars argued that this judgment was far from the facts, and the vast majority of farmers simply could not have the so-called choice after rational calculation. They were just forced to make a living by either struggling to survive between urban and rural areas, or sticking to the barren land to scramble along. There were also scholars who held that the main reason why farmers left the villages and moved to the cities should be found in the development of the modern Chinese economy, especially the emergence of large machine industry, which had greatly promoted the development of the labor market.114 Third, the relationship between the state and peasants. Some scholars held that the state should take the position of coordinator in the complicated interest disputes of the local society, rather than play the role of the one-sided arbitrator. Some scholars held that the main contradiction in the rural society of Gansu was not between the landlords and the peasants, but between the local governments, warlords and peasants.115
(3) Historical GDP has become a new research hotspot, and quantitative research methods have been applied to research by many scholars, which has become a major feature of this period.
On the historical GDP research, there was Li Bozhong’s monograph China’s Early Modern Economy: Research on the GDP of Huating-Louxian Area in the 1820s (Zhonghua Book Company, 2010). Li pointed out that the stagnation and backwardness of the Jiangnan economy in early modern China was due to the Qing government’s blind attempts to leave Asia and enter Europe after the Opium War, transforming itself into a Western-style modern society and totally denying its historical tradition and accumulation. This led to a round of academic discussions on historical GDP research. Some scholars held that there existed mature methods and a complete set of index systems for GDP research, so the key point was not to follow the methods and indicators, but to collect and collate the historical data. They also estimated various indicators of agricultural production of the Qing Dynasty, such as the cultivated land area, grain yields per mu and total grain yields, total output value of the grain yields, total output value of the planting industry and total agricultural output value including forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, which was praised by scholars as the most comprehensive research in this field.116
Some scholars suggested that we should immediately carry out the research on “economic statistics of modern China”. Some scholars pointed out that when estimating the GDP of modern China, we should pay attention to the analysis of premise in the process of choosing theoretical models, and pay attention to the analysis of residual error when extrapolating data, and also should verify the results with data from other fields, so as to make them stand the academic test. Other scholars held that GDP should not be used as the main evaluation criteria when comparing ancient Chinese traditional society or modern Chinese dual transition society with Western capitalist countries, and we should especially avoid using the GDP figures obtained by estimation or measurement methods deviating from the definition or having defects in the model. Otherwise, it will improperly estimate the development level of China’s economy and cover up the fact that modern China had a dual economic structure and the ancient Chinese market economy was very limited.117
With regard to quantitative research methods, some scholars used the relevant data of 264 prefectures (/w) in 18 provinces of China at that time to investigate the specific effects and mechanisms of trade ports in promoting the long-term development of the modern economy, and pointed out that the closer a place was to the trade ports, the larger the urban population, the higher the population density and the higher the labor productivity it will have. The trading ports provided conditions for the emergence of modern new education. New things such as international students, new-style schools and church schools first arose at the trading ports, and then spread inland, which promoted the development of modern human capital. Some scholars used the visualization methods of historical spatial data to study the development context of economic history. Taking the spatial distribution of grain prices and the grain transportation and marketing network in the southern region of the Qing Dynasty as an example, they analyzed the four spatial gradients of rice prices from east to west in the southern region of the Qing Dynasty. Some scholars have found more than 2,000 cases of household and property confiscation in the central archives of the Qing Dynasty by means of electronic retrieval, pointing out that these cases occurred most frequently in Yongzheng, Qianlong and Guangxu period. Deficit and corruption were the most common accusations; the confiscation of officials’ household and property was not closely related to the law and regulations of the Qing Dynasty, but was closely related to the emperor’s personal will, preference and choice.118
