Industrialization Of China
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The industrialization of China refers to the process of
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
undergoing various stages of
industrialization Industrialisation (British English, UK) American and British English spelling differences, or industrialization (American English, US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an i ...
and technological revolutions. The focus is on the period after the
founding of the People's Republic of China The proclamation of the People's Republic of China was made by Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), on October 1, 1949, in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The government of a n ...
where China experienced its most notable transformation from a largely agrarian country to an industrialized powerhouse. Although the Chinese industrialization is largely defined by its 20th-century campaigns, especially those motivated by
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...
's political calls to " exceed the UK and catch the USA", China has a long history that contextualizes the proto-industrial efforts, and explains the reasons for delay of industrialization in comparison to
Western countries The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute the West. ...
. In 1952, 83 percent of the Chinese workforce were employed in
agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...
. The figure remained high, but was declining steadily, throughout the early phase of industrialization between the 1960s and 1990s. In view of the rapid population growth, however, this amounted to a rapid growth of the
industrial sector In macroeconomics, the secondary sector of the economy is an economic sector in the three-sector theory that describes the role of manufacturing. It encompasses industries that produce a finished, usable product or are involved in construc ...
in absolute terms, of up to 11 percent per year during the period. By 1977, the fraction of the workforce employed in agriculture had fallen to about 77 percent, and by 2012, to 33 percent.


Historical precursors of industrialization

In the
State of Wu Wu () was a state during the Western Zhou dynasty and the Spring and Autumn period, outside the Zhou cultural sphere. It was also known as Gouwu () or Gongwu () from the pronunciation of the local language. Wu was located at the mouth of th ...
of China, steel was first made, preceding the Europeans by over 1,000 years. The
Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...
saw intensive industry in steel production, and coal mining. No other premodern state advanced nearly as close to starting an industrial revolution as the
Southern Song The Song dynasty ( ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending ...
. The lack of potential customers for products manufactured by machines instead of artisans was due to the absence of a "middle class" in Song China which was the reason for the failure to industrialize. Western historians debate whether bloomery-based ironworking ever spread to China from the Middle East. Around 500 BC, however, metalworkers in the southern state of Wu developed an iron smelting technology that would not be practiced in Europe until late medieval times. In Wu, iron smelters achieved a temperature of 1130 °C, hot enough to be considered a
blast furnace A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being supplied above atmospheric pressure. In a ...
which could create cast iron.Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 544 gWoods, 49-50.Wagner, 52. At this temperature, iron combines with 4.3% carbon and melts. As a liquid, iron can be
cast Cast may refer to: Music * Cast (band), an English alternative rock band * Cast (Mexican band), a progressive Mexican rock band * The Cast, a Scottish musical duo: Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis * ''Cast'', a 2012 album by Trespassers William ...
into molds, a method far less laborious than individually forging each piece of iron from a bloom. Cast iron is rather brittle and unsuitable for striking implements. It can, however, be ''decarburized'' to steel or wrought iron by heating it in air for several days. In China, these ironworking methods spread northward, and by 300 BC, iron was the material of choice throughout China for most tools and weapons. A mass grave in
Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...
province, dated to the early 3rd century BC, contains several soldiers buried with their weapons and other equipment. The artifacts recovered from this grave are variously made of wrought iron, cast iron, malleabilized cast iron, and quench-hardened steel, with only a few, probably ornamental, bronze weapons. During the
Han dynasty The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...
(202 BC–220 AD), the government established ironworking as a state monopoly (yet repealed during the latter half of the dynasty, returned to private entrepreneurship) and built a series of large blast furnaces in
Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...
province, each capable of producing several tons of iron per day. By this time, Chinese metallurgists had discovered how to '' puddle'' molten pig iron, stirring it in the open air until it lost its carbon and became wrought iron. (In Chinese, the process was called ''chao'', literally,
stir frying Stir frying ( zh, c= 炒, p=chǎo, w=ch'ao3, cy=cháau) is a cooking technique in which ingredients are fried in a small amount of very hot oil while being stirred or tossed in a wok. The technique originated in China and in recent centuries ...
.) By the 1st century BC, Chinese metallurgists had found that wrought iron and cast iron could be melted together to yield an alloy of intermediate carbon content, that is,
steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...
.Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 197.Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 277.Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 563 g According to legend, the sword of
Liu Bang Emperor Gaozu of Han (2561 June 195 BC), also known by his given name Liu Bang, was the founder and first emperor of the Han dynasty, reigning from 202 to 195 BC. He is considered by traditional Chinese historiography to be one o ...
, the first Han emperor, was made in this fashion. Some texts of the era mention "harmonizing the hard and the soft" in the context of ironworking; the phrase may refer to this process. Also, the ancient city of Wan ( Nanyang) from the Han period forward was a major center of the iron and steel industry.Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 86. Along with their original methods of forging steel, the Chinese had also adopted the production methods of creating Wootz steel, an idea imported from
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
to China by the 5th century.Needham, Volume 4, Part 1, 282. The Chinese during the ancient Han dynasty were also the first to apply
hydraulic Hydraulics () is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counterpart of pneumatics, which concer ...
power (i.e. a
waterwheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the kinetic energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a large wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with numerous blade ...
) in working the inflatable bellows of the blast furnace. This was recorded in the year 31 AD, an innovation of the
engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...
Du Shi Du Shi (, d. 38'' Book of Later Han'', vol. 31Crespigny, 183.) was a Chinese hydrologist, inventor, mechanical engineer, metallurgist, and politician of the Eastern Han dynasty. Du Shi is credited with being the first to apply hydraulic power ...
,
prefect Prefect (from the Latin ''praefectus'', substantive adjectival form of ''praeficere'': "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area. A prefect' ...
of Nanyang.Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 370 Although Du Shi was the first to apply water power to bellows in metallurgy, the first drawn and printed illustration of its operation with water power came in 1313, in the
Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...
era text called the ''Nong Shu''.Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 371. In the 11th century, there is evidence of the production of steel in Song China using two techniques: a "berganesque" method that produced inferior, heterogeneous steel and a precursor to the modern Bessemer process that utilized partial decarbonization via repeated forging under a cold blast. By the 11th century, there was also a large amount of deforestation in China due to the iron industry's demands for
charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...
.Ebrey, 158. However, by this time the Chinese had figured out how to use bituminous coke to replace the use of charcoal, and with this switch in resources many acres of prime timberland in China were spared. This switch in resources from charcoal to
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...
was later used in Europe by the 17th century. The economy of the Song dynasty was one of the most prosperous and advanced economies in the medieval world. Song Chinese invested their funds in joint stock companies and in multiple sailing vessels at a time when monetary gain was assured from the vigorous overseas trade and indigenous trade along the Grand Canal and Yangzi River.Ebrey et al., 157. Prominent merchant families and private businesses were allowed to occupy industries that were not already government-operated
monopolies A monopoly (from Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce a particular thing, a lack of viable sub ...
.Ebrey et al., 164. Both private and government-controlled industries met the needs of a growing Chinese population in the Song.Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 23. Both artisans and merchants formed
guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular territory. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradespeople belonging to a professional association. They so ...
s which the state had to deal with when assessing taxes, requisitioning goods, and setting standard worker's wages and prices on goods.Gernet, 88, 94. The
iron industry Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's ...
was pursued by both private
entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...
s who owned their own smelters as well as government-supervised smelting facilities.Wagner, 178–179.Wagner, 181–183. The Song economy was stable enough to produce over a hundred million kg (over two hundred million lb) of
iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...
product a year.Ebrey et al., 158. Large scale
deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. Ab ...
in China would have continued if not for the 11th-century innovation of the use of
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...
instead of
charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...
in
blast furnace A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being supplied above atmospheric pressure. In a ...
s for smelting
cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...
. Much of this iron was reserved for military use in crafting weapons and armoring troops, but some was used to fashion the many iron products needed to fill the demands of the growing indigenous market. The iron trade within China was furthered by the building of new
canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...
s which aided the flow of iron products from production centers to the large market found in the capital city.Embree 339. The annual output of minted copper currency in 1085 alone reached roughly six billion coins.Ebrey et al., 156. The most notable advancement in the Song economy was the establishment of the world's first government issued paper-printed money, known as
Jiaozi ''Jiaozi'' or Gyoza (; ) are a type of Chinese dumpling. ''Jiaozi'' typically consist of a ground meat or vegetable filling wrapped into a thinly rolled piece of dough, which is then sealed by pressing the edges together. ''Jiaozi'' can be ...
(''see also Huizi''). For the printing of
paper money Paper money, often referred to as a note or a bill (North American English), is a type of negotiable promissory note that is payable to the bearer on demand, making it a form of currency. The main types of paper money are government notes, which ...
alone, the Song court established several government-run
factories A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...
in the cities of
Huizhou Huizhou ( zh, c= ) is a city in east-central Guangdong Province, China, forty-three miles north of Hong Kong. Huizhou borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou to the west, Shenzhen and Dongguan to the southwest, Shaoguan to the north, Hey ...
,
Chengdu Chengdu; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ; Chinese postal romanization, previously Romanization of Chinese, romanized as Chengtu. is the capital city of the Chinese province of Sichuan. With a ...
,
Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...
, and Anqi.Needham, Volume 5, Part 1, 48. The size of the workforce employed in paper money factories was large; it was recorded in 1175 that the factory at Hangzhou employed more than a thousand workers a day. The economic power of Song China heavily influenced foreign economies abroad. The Moroccan
geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...
al-Idrisi Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani as-Sabti, or simply al-Idrisi (; ; 1100–1165), was an Arab Muslim geographer and cartographer who served in the court of King Roger II at Palermo, Sicily. Muhammad al-Idrisi was born in C ...
wrote in 1154 of the prowess of Chinese merchant ships in the Indian Ocean and of their annual voyages that brought iron, swords, silk, velvet, porcelain, and various textiles to places such as
Aden Aden () is a port city located in Yemen in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula, on the north coast of the Gulf of Aden, positioned near the eastern approach to the Red Sea. It is situated approximately 170 km (110 mi) east of ...
(
Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...
), the
Indus River The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayas, Himalayan river of South Asia, South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in the Western Tibet region of China, flows northw ...
, and the
Euphrates The Euphrates ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originati ...
in modern-day Iraq.Shen, 159–161. Foreigners, in turn, affected the Chinese economy. For example, many West Asian and Central Asian
Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
s went to
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
to trade, becoming a preeminent force in the import and export industry, while some were even appointed as officers supervising economic affairs.Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 465. Sea trade with the Southeast Pacific, the Hindu world, the Islamic world, and the East African world brought merchants great fortune and spurred an enormous growth in the
shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other Watercraft, floating vessels. In modern times, it normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation th ...
industry of Song-era
Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...
province. However, there was risk involved in such long overseas ventures. To reduce the risk of losing money on maritime trade missions abroad, the historians Ebrey, Walthall, and Palais write:
ong erainvestors usually divided their investment among many ships, and each ship had many investors behind it. One observer thought eagerness to invest in overseas trade was leading to an outflow of copper cash. He wrote, 'People along the coast are on intimate terms with the merchants who engage in overseas trade, either because they are fellow-countrymen or personal acquaintances... hey give the merchantsmoney to take with them on their ships for purchase and return conveyance of foreign goods. They invest from ten to a hundred strings of cash, and regularly make profits of several hundred percent'.Ebrey et al., 159.


Reasons for the delay in industrialization

Some historians such as David Landes and
Max Weber Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...
credit the different belief systems in China and Europe with dictating where the revolution occurred. The religion and beliefs of Europe were largely products of Judaeo-Christianity,
Socrates Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition ...
,
Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born  BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
, and
Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
. Conversely, Chinese society was founded on men like
Confucius Confucius (; pinyin: ; ; ), born Kong Qiu (), was a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Much of the shared cultural heritage of the Sinosphere originates in the phil ...
,
Mencius Mencius (孟子, ''Mèngzǐ'', ; ) was a Chinese Confucian philosopher, often described as the Second Sage () to reflect his traditional esteem relative to Confucius himself. He was part of Confucius's fourth generation of disciples, inheriting ...
,
Han Feizi The ''Han Feizi'' () is an ancient Chinese text attributed to the Chinese Legalism, Legalist political philosopher Han Fei. It comprises a selection of essays in the Legalist tradition, elucidating theories of state power, and synthesizing the m ...
( Legalism),
Lao Tzu Laozi (), also romanized as Lao Tzu #Name, among other ways, was a semi-legendary Chinese philosophy, Chinese philosopher and author of the ''Tao Te Ching'' (''Laozi''), one of the foundational texts of Taoism alongside the ''Zhuangzi (book) ...
(
Taoism Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ' ...
), and
Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...
(
Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
). The key difference between these belief systems was that those from Europe focused on the individual, while Chinese beliefs centered around relationships between people. The family unit was more important than the individual for the large majority of Chinese history, and this may have played a role in why the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...
took much longer to occur in China. There was the additional difference as to whether people looked backwards to a reputedly glorious past for answers to their questions or looked hopefully to the future. Further scholarship, such as that of Joel Makyr suggests that one of the main driving forces that led to Europe industrializing sooner than China was a culture of interstate competition. Because China was the regional hegemonic power there was no large threat from the 17th century onwards. In Europe, where there was no clear hegemonic power, the power struggle created a competition model which allowed for economic, cultural, and technological progress that was unseen in China. Other factors include a Chinese culture of status-quo stability, meaning that revolutionary new ideas which called into question the historical or cultural narrative of China were largely suppressed, meaning there was little space for innovation comparable to Europe. Although this view may supplement a larger narrative, it is by no means definitive and is only one piece of the multi-faceted phenomena of why China experienced industrialization later in its history compared to Western nations.


The English school

By contrast, there is a historical school which Jack Goldstone has dubbed the "English school" which argues that China was not essentially different from Europe, and that many of the assertions that it was are based on bad historical evidence. Mark Elvin argues that China was in a high-level equilibrium trap in which the non-industrial methods were efficient enough to prevent use of industrial methods with high initial capital. Kenneth Pomeranz, in the ''Great Divergence'', argues that Europe and China were remarkably similar in 1700, and that the crucial differences which created the Industrial Revolution in Europe were sources of
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...
near manufacturing centers, and raw materials such as food and wood from the
New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...
, which allowed Europe to expand economically in a way that China could not. Some have compared England directly to China, but the comparison between England and China has been viewed as a faulty one, since China is so much larger than England. A more relevant comparison would be between China's
Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...
Delta region, China's most advanced region, the location of
Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...
,
Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...
and contemporary
Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
, and England. This region of China is said to have had similar labor costs to England.Andre Gunder Frank ''reORIENT'' University of England Press, 1998. p. 312 According to Andre Gunder Frank, "Particularly significant is the comparison of Asia's 66 percent share of world population, confirmed above all by estimates for 1750, with its 80 percent share of production in the world at the same time. So, two thirds of the world's people in Asia produced four-fifths of total world output, while one-fifth of world population in Europe produced only a part of the remaining one-fifth share of world production, to which Europeans and Americans also contributed."Andre Gunder Frank ''reORIENT'' University of England Press, 1998. p. 173 China was one of Asia's most advanced economies at the time and was in the middle of its 18th-century boom brought on by a long period of stability under the
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
.


Industrialization of the People's Republic of China

Industrialization of China did occur on a significant scale only from the 1950s. Beginning in 1953 Mao introduced a 'Five Year Plan' reminiscent of Soviet industrialization efforts. This five-year plan would signify the People's Republic of China first large scale campaign to industrialize. Drawing heavily from Soviet success, the plan was characterized by intense collectivization and economic centralization. Soviet assistance was crucial in this undertaking, China “received the most advanced technology available within the Soviet Union, and in some cases this was the best in the world”. Several thousand Soviet Technical advisors went on to oversee and guide 156 industrial projects. Soviet assistance during this stage constituted about half of industrial production and development. Because of Soviet assisted development, agricultural and industrial output value grew from 30% in 1949 to 56.5% in 1957, and heavy industry saw similar growth from 26.4% to 48.4%. Therefore, the Soviet assistance in kickstarting industrialization was a key component in the larger process of Chinese industrialization, and economic development as a whole. The Maoist
Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward was an industrialization campaign within China from 1958 to 1962, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Party Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to transform the country from an agrarian society into an indu ...
() was the plan used from 1958 to 1961 to transform the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
from a primarily
agrarian economy An agrarian society, or agricultural society, is any community whose economy is based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland. Another way to define an agrarian society is by seeing how much of a nation's total production is in agricultur ...
by peasant farmers into a modern
communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
society through the process of agriculturalization and industrialization. Mao Zedong anticipated agriculture and industry (shorthand 'grain and steel') as the foundations of any economic progress or national strengthening. Thus, The Great Leap forward heavily relied on and lent attention to these two sectors to establish a strong economic base from which further developments could originate. Ideological motivations for this transformation are widely varied. Chinese experience of foreign occupation had widespread effects on the national mentality, compelling leaders to establish a strong, autonomous and self sufficient state. A primary factor however was Cold War cultural, and economic competition with the West. Hearing of the Soviet Union's plan to surpass the United States in industrial output, Mao Zedong claimed "Comrade Khrushchev has told us, the Soviet Union 15 years later will surpass the United States of America. I can also say, 15 years later, we may catch up with or exceed the UK."
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...
based this program on the Theory of Productive Forces. The Great Leap Forward ended in catastrophe, high volumes of resources were directed to the industrial projects of the campaign. When the industrial projects failed to produce the expected output, there was a lack of resources including tools, farming equipment and infrastructure upon which the agricultural sector was relying upon. In conjunction with widespread drought towards the end of the period, a widespread famine occurred. The overall result of the Great Leap Forward was an actual, albeit temporary, shrinking of the Chinese economy. However, from 1952 to 1978 GDP per capita grew at an average rate of 3.6%, outpacing inflation. Another trend from The Great Leap Forward, was the steady decline of those employed in the agricultural sector, as the industrial sector grew. Furthermore, as China began to rely more heavily on industrial output, the value added to the GDP by agriculture also declined, going from 70% in 1952, to 30% in 1977. During this time period several notable industries within China experienced significant growth in their annual production: annual steel production grew from 1.3 million tons to 23 million tons, coal grew from 66 million tons to 448 million tons, electric power generation increased from 7 million to 133 billion kilowatt-hours, and cement production rose from 3 million to 49 million tons per year. As political stability was gradually restored following the
Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...
of the late 1960s, a renewed drive for coordinated, balanced development was set in motion under the leadership of Premier
Zhou Enlai Zhou Enlai ( zh, s=周恩来, p=Zhōu Ēnlái, w=Chou1 Ên1-lai2; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman, diplomat, and revolutionary who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China from September 1954 unti ...
. To revive efficiency in industry,
Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
committees were returned to positions of leadership over the revolutionary committees, and a campaign was carried out to return skilled and highly educated personnel to the jobs from which they had been displaced during the Cultural Revolution. Universities began to reopen, and foreign contacts were expanded. Once again the economy suffered from imbalances in the capacities of different industrial sectors and an urgent need for increased supplies of modern inputs for agriculture. In response to these problems, there was a significant increase in investment, including the signing of contracts with foreign firms for the construction of major facilities for chemical fertilizer production, steel finishing, and oil extraction and refining. The most notable of these contracts was for thirteen of the world's largest and most modern chemical fertilizer plants. During this period, industrial output grew at an average rate of 11 percent a year. At the milestone Third Plenum of the National Party Congress's 11th Central Committee which opened on December 22, 1978, the party leaders decided to undertake a program of gradual but fundamental reform of the economic system. They concluded that the
Maoist Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic o ...
version of the centrally
planned economy A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, ...
had failed to produce efficient economic growth and had caused China to fall far behind not only the industrialized nations of the West but also the new industrial powers of
Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
:
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
,
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
,
Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...
,
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
, and
Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
. In the late 1970s, while Japan and Hong Kong rivaled European countries in modern technology, China's citizens had to make do with barely sufficient food supplies, rationed clothing, inadequate housing, and a service sector that was inadequate and inefficient. All of these shortcomings embarrassed China internationally. The purpose of the reform program was not to abandon
communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...
but to make it work better by substantially increasing the role of
market mechanism In economics, the market mechanism is a mechanism by which the use of money exchanged by buyers and sellers with an open and understood system of value and time trade-offs in a market tends to optimize distribution of goods and services in at ...
s in the system and by reducing—not eliminating—government planning and direct control. The process of reform was incremental. New measures were first introduced experimentally in a few localities and then were popularized and disseminated nationally if they proved successful. By 1987 the program had achieved remarkable results in increasing supplies of food and other consumer goods and had created a new climate of dynamism and opportunity in the economy. At the same time, however, the reforms also had created new problems and tensions, leading to intense questioning and political struggles over the program's future. The first few years of the reform program were designated the "period of readjustment," during which key imbalances in the economy were to be corrected and a foundation was to be laid for a well-planned modernization drive. The schedule of Hua Guofeng's ten-year plan was discarded, although many of its elements were retained. The major goals of the readjustment process were to expand exports rapidly; overcome key deficiencies in transportation, communications, coal, iron, steel, building materials, and electric power; and redress the imbalance between light and heavy industry by increasing the growth rate of light industry and reducing investment in heavy industry. In 1984, the fourteen largest coastal cities were designated as economic development zones, including
Dalian Dalian ( ) is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China (after Shenyang ...
,
Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...
,
Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
, and
Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...
, all of which were major commercial and industrial centers. These zones were to create productive exchanges between foreign firms with advanced technology and major Chinese economic networks. China has continued its rise as an industrial power to the present day. It is now the leading industrial power in the world in terms of output, in 2016 producing $4.566 trillion worth of industrial yield. This rapid increase, is in large part attributed to a number of factors. Opening sectors of the industrial economy to foreign investment and privatization, the introduction of the stock market in Shanghai, increasing export markets, outsourcing of manufacturing into China, and the entry of China into the World Trade Organization. While Chinese industrial output is still dominant in the world, it has experienced stagnation. Declining in the late 1990s, it reached its low point of 7% in 1998 (industrial output index) and reached 23% in 2004. Since then, it has largely declined and stagnated in the 2010s, hovering between 5-10%. Much of this downturn can be attributed to lower demand as a response to the Chinese stock market crash. In response, in 2016 China announced its plans to downsize its steel and coal industries and lay off 15% of the respective workforce. Part of this larger trend can be attributed to China's movement away from heavy industry, and into light industry such as the production of consumer goods for the world market. China has also seen growth in other sectors such as construction, technology, finance, and energy which can be attributed to a decreased reliance on industry.


Environmental implications

Like previous industrialization campaigns, Chinese industrialization brought modern economic development and a general increase in quality of life for many of its citizens, while also introducing a variety of environmental implications that can be felt locally, and on a global scale. Severe pollution, dehydration of waterways, widespread deforestation, and some of the highest levels of air pollution in the world are just a few of China's cost of its rapid industrialization and modernization. From 1985 to 2008, the quantities of energy production grew by 203.9%, while the energy consumption increased by 271.7%. Along with those increases, the emissions of industrial wastewater, gas and solid waste have undergone massive growth. Environmental accidents all over the country have also increased in recent years. “It is reported that the number of environmental disasters in 2010 was as double as that of 2009, and there were 102 accidents in the first half of 2010.”


Air pollutants


CO2

China faces a problem with air quality as a consequence of industrialization. China ranks as the second largest consumer of oil in the world, and "China is the world's top coal producer, consumer, and importer, and accounts for almost half of global coal consumption.”, as such their CO2 emissions reflect the usage and production of fossil fuels. As of 2015, China has been ranked the number one CO2 contributor holding 29% of the global CO2 emission emissions. In 2012, the
World Resources Institute The World Resources Institute (WRI) is a global research non-profit organization established in 1982 with funding from the MacArthur Foundation under the leadership of James Gustave Speth. Subsequent presidents include Jonathan Lash (1993– ...
figured the total global carbon emission to be 33.84 billion tons where China contributed to 9.31 billion. In particular, biomass forest burning and shrubland, grassland, and crop residue fire burning are some of the most important contributors to China's CO2 emission. Agriculture is also another top contributor to carbon emission in China representing 17% of the total emissions. And, China's steel industry has accounted for 44% of the total CO2 emissions. China's industries are not the only determinate of air pollution; China's growing population has increased heavy traffic and power generation. Altogether, China's growing infrastructure has created 3.28 billion tons of industrial waste from 2013 to 2016. On a local level, China has implemented a pollution warning system that notifies citizens of the day to day air quality and potential health effects. The highest warning: red, indicates an unsuitability for all outdoor activity because of health risks. Certain measures have been adopted to curb the production of smog and haze within China such as temporary vehicle bans. Additionally as smog and haze threats grow, the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection has called upon the steel producing cities of
Linyi Linyi ( zh, s=临沂 , t=臨沂 , p=Línyí) is a prefecture-level city in the south of Shandong province, China. As of 2011, Linyi is the largest prefecture-level city in Shandong, both by area and population, Linyi borders Rizhao to the eas ...
and
Chengde Chengde, formerly known as Jehol and Rehe, is a prefecture-level city in Hebei province, situated about northeast of Beijing. It is best known as the site of the Mountain Resort, a vast imperial garden and palace formerly used by the Qing e ...
to curb pollution from a result of the steel industry, by enforcing environmental laws or by closing down some thirteen offender's factories.


Water pollutants


Huai River Basin Within the Shandong Province Case Study

The Huai River Basin is located between the
Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...
and the
Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...
and contains 42 counties. The Huai River Basin within
Shandong Shandong is a coastal Provinces of China, province in East China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It has served as a pivotal cultural ...
covers an area of 47100 km2 including the Nansi Lake Basin and Yishi River Basin. With the growing infrastructure from industrialization, urbanization, and the growth of megacities in China, there are numerous pollutants that are decreasing the water quality and have contaminated many groundwater aquifers. A study on the causes of pollutants on the Huai River Basin within the Shandong province analyzed which of these industries caused the most wastewater to determine the direct effects of industrialization in the HRBSP. Different industries that emit these pollutants in the region were classified into different levels for their environmental impact. Coal, papermaking, and construction material were classified as high-energy-consumption/low-output value/high-pollution industries. Textiles, petrochemicals, and electric power were classified as high-energy-consumption/ high-output value/high pollution industries. Lastly, medical manufacturing and mechanical scores were classified as low-energy-consumption/high-output value/low-pollutant industries. The study concluded that the top contributors to water pollutants were the food processing industry, 23.55% COD and 26.05% NH3-N, the papermaking industry, 28.47% COD and 18.72% NH3-N, and the petrochemical industry, 15.34% COD and 25.52% NH3-N. Since 2010, China's Prevention and Control of Water Pollution and the Eleventh Five-Year Plan of the Huai River Basin have set water quality requirements to level III meaning the water quality is clean enough for human consumption and recreation. Because the Huai River Basin includes four-prefecture-level cities,
Zaozhuang Zaozhuang ( zh, s=枣庄 , t=棗莊 , p=Zǎozhuāng) is a prefecture-level city in the south of Shandong province, People's Republic of China. Since January 2019 (after the Laiwu prefecture got incorporated into Jinan prefecture), the smallest pre ...
,
Jinan Jinan is the capital of the province of Shandong in East China. With a population of 9.2 million, it is one of the largest cities in Shandong in terms of population. The area of present-day Jinan has played an important role in the history of ...
,
Linyi Linyi ( zh, s=临沂 , t=臨沂 , p=Línyí) is a prefecture-level city in the south of Shandong province, China. As of 2011, Linyi is the largest prefecture-level city in Shandong, both by area and population, Linyi borders Rizhao to the eas ...
, and
Heze Heze (), formerly known as Caozhou, is the westernmost prefecture-level city in Shandong province, China, bordering Jining to the east and the provinces of Henan and Anhui to the west and south respectively.The total area is 12238.62 square kilo ...
, there is high pressure for meeting the required water quality standards. Of the 27 monitoring sites in this case study, the Huai River Basin's water quality was graded IV, where water quality is not suitable for human consumption or recreation, at 10 monitoring sites and graded V, where water quality it extremely polluted and unsuitable for any use, in the Xiangzimio region. Even though the water quality at these sites have slightly improved, the Eastern Route of the South-to-North Water Division Project, who manages the water quality of the Huai River Basin, are still in their developing stages and have struggled to maintain a balance between industrialization and water quality due to the rate of China's growing industrial activities.


Desertification

Desertification Desertification is a type of gradual land degradation of Soil fertility, fertile land into arid desert due to a combination of natural processes and human activities. The immediate cause of desertification is the loss of most vegetation. This i ...
remains a serious problem, consuming an area greater than the area used as farmland. Over 2.95 million hectares, or 57% of its territory, had been affected by
desertification Desertification is a type of gradual land degradation of Soil fertility, fertile land into arid desert due to a combination of natural processes and human activities. The immediate cause of desertification is the loss of most vegetation. This i ...
. Although desertification has been curbed in some areas, it is still expanding at a rate of more than 67 km2 every year. 90% of China's desertification occurs in the west of the country. Approximately 30% of China's current surface area is considered desert. China's rapid industrialization could cause this area to drastically increase. The
Gobi Desert The Gobi Desert (, , ; ) is a large, cold desert and grassland region in North China and southern Mongolia. It is the sixth-largest desert in the world. The name of the desert comes from the Mongolian word ''gobi'', used to refer to all of th ...
to the north currently expands by about 950 square miles (2,500 km2) per year. The vast plains in northern China used to be regularly flooded by the
Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...
. However,
overgrazing Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves, or nature ...
and the expansion of agricultural land could cause this area to increase.


Health risks

Pollutants emitted into the air and water by China's rapid industrialization has brought major health concerns. The anthropogenic activities in China have decreased food safety and antibiotic resistance and have increased resurging infectious diseases. Air pollution, alone, is directly linked to increased risk of lung cancer, breast cancer, and bladder cancer and has already led to more than 1.3 million premature deaths in China and linked to 1.6 million deaths a year - 17% of all annual Chinese deaths. 92% of Chinese have had at least 120 annual hours of unhealthy air determined by EPA standards. As the World Health Organization states hazardous air is more deadly than AIDS, malaria, breast cancer, or tuberculosis, than Chinese air quality is especially problematic because of the scale at which it occurs. While farmable land in China is slim to begin with, the Ministry of Land and Resources reported that China has contaminated 33.3 million hectares of farmland that cannot be used for any constructive purpose. Consequently, China is faced with increased exposure to new pathogens that threaten public health as a result migrating wildlife from these dead zones.


See also

*
Agriculture in China Agriculture has been a cornerstone of the People's Republic of China (PRC)'s economy and culture for millennia, supporting one of the world's largest populations and driving economic development. The country produces a diverse range of crops, ...
*
Dependency theory Dependency theory is the idea that resources flow from a " periphery" of poor and exploited states to a " core" of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the former. A central contention of dependency theory is that poor states ...
*
Economy of China The People's Republic of China is a Developing country, developing Mixed economy, mixed socialist market economy, incorporating Industrial policy, industrial policies and strategic Five-year plans of China, five-year plans. —Xu, Chenggang. "T ...
*
Economic history of China (Pre-1911) An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with ...
*
Economic history of China (1912–1949) An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with ...
*
Great Divergence The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic shift in which the Western world (i.e. Western Europe along with its settler offshoots in Northern America and Australasia) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during ...
*
Industry of China The industrial sector comprised 36.5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the People's Republic of China in 2024. China is the world's leading manufacturer of chemical fertilizers, cement and steel. Prior to 1978, most output was produced by ...
* Industrial history of China *
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...
*
Industrialization Industrialisation (British English, UK) American and British English spelling differences, or industrialization (American English, US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an i ...
*
International inequality International inequality refers to inequality between countries, as compared to global inequality, which is inequality between people across countries. International inequality research has primarily been concentrated on the rise of internati ...
*
Modernization Modernization theory or modernisation theory holds that as societies become more economically modernized, wealthier and more educated, their political institutions become increasingly liberal democratic and rationalist. The "classical" theories ...
*
Science and technology in China Science and technology in the People's Republic of China have developed rapidly since the 1980s to the 2020s, with major scientific and technological progress over the last four decades. From the 1980s to the 1990s, the government of the P ...
*
Self-Strengthening Movement The Self-Strengthening Movement, also known as the Westernization or Western Affairs Movement (–1895), was a period of reforms initiated during the late Qing dynasty following the military disasters of the Opium Wars and Taiping Rebellion. The ...
(1861–1895) * Sino-German cooperation (1911–1941)


Further reading

*https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0240851 *Adshead, S.A.M. (2004). ''T'ang China: The Rise of the East in World History''. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. (hardback). * Anderson, James A. (2008). "'Treacherous Factions': Shifting Frontier Alliances in the Breakdown of Sino-Vietnamese Relations on the Eve of the 1075 Border War," in ''Battlefronts Real and Imagined: War, Border, and Identity in the Chinese Middle Period'', 191–226. Edited by Don J. Wyatt. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. . *Bol, Peter K. "The Rise of Local History: History, Geography, and Culture in Southern Song and Yuan Wuzhou," ''Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies'' (Volume 61, Number 1, 2001): 37–76. * Brook, Timothy (1998). '' The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China''. Berkeley: University of England Press. *Brose, Michael C. (2008). "People in the Middle: Uyghurs in the Northwest Frontier Zone," in ''Battlefronts Real and Imagined: War, Border, and Identity in the Chinese Middle Period'', 253–289. Edited by Don J. Wyatt. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. . *Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, Anne Walthall,
James Palais James B. Palais (; 1934–2006) was an American historian, Koreanist, and writer. He served as Professor of Korean History at the University of Washington; and he was a key figure in establishing Korean studies in the United States. Early years B ...
. (2006). ''East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History''. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...
Company. . * * *__________. (1999). ''The Cambridge Illustrated History of China''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (paperback). * Embree, Ainslie Thomas (1997). ''Asia in Western and World History: A Guide for Teaching''. Armonk: ME Sharpe, Inc. *Chan, Alan Kam-leung and Gregory K. Clancey, Hui-Chieh Loy (2002). ''Historical Perspectives on East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine''. Singapore: Singapore University Press. * Fairbank, John King and Merle Goldman (1992). ''China: A New History; Second Enlarged Edition'' (2006). Cambridge; London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. *Fraser, Julius Thomas and Francis C. Haber. (1986). ''Time, Science, and Society in China and the West''. Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The press was founded in 1963, publishing scholarly books and non-fiction. The press imprint is overseen by an interdisciplinar ...
. . *Gernet, Jacques (1962). ''Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276''. Translated by H.M. Wright. Stanford: Stanford University Press. *Graff, David Andrew and Robin Higham (2002). ''A Military History of China''. Boulder: Westview Press. *Guo, Qinghua. "Yingzao Fashi: Twelfth-Century Chinese Building Manual," ''
Architectural History The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates. The beginnings of all these traditions is thought to be humans satisfying the very basic need of shelt ...
: Journal of the
Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB) is a United Kingdom learned society for people interested in the history of architecture. Purpose The Society exists to encourage interest in the history of architecture, to enab ...
'' (Volume 41 1998): 1–13. * *Hansen, Valerie. (2000). ''The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600''. New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company. . *Hargett, James M. "Some Preliminary Remarks on the Travel Records of the Song Dynasty (960–1279)," Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (July 1985): 67–93. *Hargett, James M. "Song Dynasty Local Gazetteers and Their Place in The History of Difangzhi Writing," ''Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies'' (Volume 56, Number 2, 1996): 405–442. *Hartwell, Robert M. "Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750-1550," ''Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies'' (Volume 42, Number 2, 1982): 365–442. *Hymes, Robert P. (1986). ''Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-Chou, Chiang-Hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . *Hsu, Mei-ling. "The Qin Maps: A Clue to Later Chinese Cartographic Development," ''Imago Mundi'' (Volume 45, 1993): 90–100. * *Lorge, Peter (2005). ''War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China, 900–1795: 1st Edition''. New York: Routledge. *McKnight, Brian E. (1992). ''Law and Order in Sung China''. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...
. *Mielants, Eric. 2002. “Europe and China Compared”. Review (fernand Braudel Center) 25 (4). Research Foundation of SUNY: 401–49. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40241745. *Mohn, Peter (2003).'' Magnetism in the Solid State: An Introduction''. New York: Springer-Verlag Inc. *Mote, F.W. (1999). ''Imperial China: 900–1800''. Harvard: Harvard University Press. *Needham, Joseph and Wang Ling. "Horner's Method in Chinese Mathematics: Its Origins in the Root-Extraction Procedures of the Han Dynasty," ''T'oung Pao'', Second Series, Vol. 43, No. 5 (1955): 345–401. *_________. (1986). ''Science and Civilization in China: Volume 1, Introductory Orientations''. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. *Needham, Joseph (1986). ''Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth''. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. *__________. (1986). ''Science and Civilization in China'': Volume 4, Part 1. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. *__________. (1986). ''Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 2: Mechanical Engineering''. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. *__________. (1986). ''Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 3: Civil Engineering and Nautics''. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. *__________. (1986). ''Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 7: Military Technology; The Gunpowder Epic''. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. * *Peers, C.J. (2006). ''Soldiers of the Dragon: Chinese Armies 1500 BC-AD 1840''. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. *Pleiner, R. (2000) ''Iron in Archaeology. The European Bloomery Smelters'', Praha, Archeologický Ústav Av Cr. *Rossabi, Morris (1988). ''Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times''. Berkeley: University of England Press. . *Rudolph, R.C. "Preliminary Notes on Sung Archaeology," ''The Journal of Asian Studies'' (Volume 22, Number 2, 1963): 169–177. *Sastri, Nilakanta, K.A. ''The CōĻas'', University of Madras, Madras, 1935 (Reprinted 1984). *Schafer, Edward H. "War Elephants in Ancient and Medieval China," ''Oriens'' (Volume 10, Number 2, 1957): 289–291. *Sen, Tansen. (2003).'' Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400''. Manoa: Asian Interactions and Comparisons, a joint publication of the University of Hawaii Press and the Association for Asian Studies. . *Shen, Fuwei (1996). ''Cultural flow between China and the outside world''. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. . * Sivin, Nathan. (1995). ''Science in Ancient China''. Brookfield, Vermont: VARIORUM, Ashgate Publishing. *Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman. "The Tangut Royal Tombs near Yinchuan", ''Muqarnas: An Annual on Islamic Art and Architecture'' (Volume X, 1993): 369–381. *Sung, Tz’u, translated by Brian E. McKnight (1981). The Washing Away of Wrongs: Forensic Medicine in Thirteenth-Century China. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press The University of Michigan Press is a university press that is a part of Michigan Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. It publishes 170 new titles each year in the humanities and social sciences. Titles from the press have earn ...
. *Wagner, Donald B. "The Administration of the Iron Industry in Eleventh-Century China," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient (Volume 44 2001): 175–197. *Wang, Lianmao (2000). ''Return to the City of Light: Quanzhou, an eastern city shining with the splendour of medieval culture''. Fujian People's Publishing House. *West, Stephen H. "Playing With Food: Performance, Food, and The Aesthetics of Artificiality in The Sung and Yuan," ''Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies'' (Volume 57, Number 1, 1997): 67–106. *Woods, Michael and Mary B. Woods (2000). ''Ancient Machines: From Wedges to Waterwheels. Minneapolis'': Twenty-First Century Books. * Wright, Arthur F. (1959). ''Buddhism in Chinese History''. Stanford: Stanford University Press. *Yuan, Zheng. "Local Government Schools in Sung China: A Reassessment," ''History of Education Quarterly'' (Volume 34, Number 2; Summer 1994): 193–213.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Industrial Revolution In China Industrial history of China Economic history of the People's Republic of China Industry in China Manufacturing in China
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...