paper revising

The Indigenous Urban Tradition of China

Introduction

Suzhou was a populous city renowned for its trade, manufacturing, and a center of learning. It was a client city of the Song dynasty that routinely remitted taxes to the emperor and the middle kingdom’s economic and cultural center in the 16th century despite the adversity it experienced (Johnson 23). Suzhou was the kingdom’s richest, most urbanized and advanced region. On the other hand, Shanghai was one of the Treaty cities established by imperial powers in the 19th century. It was the epitome of western influence in China in the early part of the 20th century (Lu 174). This paper asserts that even though both Suzhou and Shanghai urbanized at different times, they both followed the model of the “other China” characterized by a largely autonomous merchant class in highly industrialized settlements that were well connected with transport and communication networks.

Suzhou City

Suzhou was the urban corner of a vast agrarian empire. It is part of what scholars call the “other China” that was urban, commercial, capitalist and secular (Johnson 24). It bore characteristics that were indigenous and existed before the treaty ports were established and western style cities emerged in the 19th century. Like other indigenous cities, it was sharply distinguished from the surrounding countryside and was run by a merchant community driven by capitalist values and interests (Marmé 217). It was an autonomous, commercial and capitalist urban center at odds with the agrarian, orthodox and bureaucratic states of the time.

Suzhou was located in the low-lying part of Jiangnan and developed later than other parts of the region. It was essentially a backwater because it lacked investments in water control to manage the floods (Blue, Engelfriet, and Jami 3). It required heavy investment in manpower and to drain the paddy fields for farming and settlement. The landlords were willing to invest in the polders with the knowledge that a cultivatable Delta would attract high tenancy rates that would lead to the expansion of the area under cultivation. However, the landlords’ motivation was not just to attract subsistent farmers. The market-oriented landlords preferred to specialize in lower yield but more commercially valuable strains of rice (Blue, Engelfriet, and Jami 4). The landlords had their eyes trained on the inexhaustible market in Xingzai rather than the needs of peasants.

Moreover, water control served the purpose of facilitating navigation. The raised fields and carefully dredged rivers and intricate canals offered an excellent waterway for transporting bulky commodities cheaply and efficiently (Blue, Engelfriet, and Jami 5). The elaborate network facilitated the export of high-value grains and the import of coarse grain for local consumption. The imports enabled local peasants to substitute quality for quantity. The city was already well secured as it was ringed by a section of the Grand Canal linking Jiangnan with North China’s Central Plain (Marmé 218). The area on the moat was crisscrossed by canals and surrounded by a wall. The walls protected the city and its inhabitants from hostile forces. The effect was that Suzhou enjoyed improved transport and communication within the city and protection from floods.

The city within a city

The city had the characteristic of a city within a city as the prefecture compound to the east of the city was a walled Zicheng occupying 6% of Suzhou’s total area (Johnson 25). It was the walled city that accommodated the regional magistrate, as well as schools, official temples military barracks and other significant state and public institutions. The state used large parts of the urban space and its activities shaped what the residents made of the remaining space. For starters, a large proportion of the urban officials were employed either directly or indirectly by the public sector (Johnson 26). Official power also shaped the residential patterns of the local elite. For instance, even though Wu was the most successful county in Suzhou, most elite families established residence in the eastern side of the city close to the prefectural yamen.

During the Mongols conquest, Suzhou experienced exponential growth as with its population rising from 329,603 households to 466,158 households between 1275 and 1290. The growth was attributed to the shift of the center of political power to the Central Plain (Blue, Engelfriet, and Jami 10). The growth was also attributable to the government’s decision to send grain by sea with Taicang port in the north becoming the transit point for the grain. The prefectural capital also prospered as evidenced in the expansion of temple building (Johnson 27). Trade and industry concentrated in the north of the city such that when the city wall was rebuilt, a moon wall was erected to protect merchants.

Under the Ming dynasty, the tax in Suzhou was tripled and tens of thousands of wealthy and skilled families deported to the outskirts of the empire. Despite the punitive taxes, Suzhou continued to thrive and even grew in size (Marmé 219). The resilience is attributed to the fact that the most punitive taxes around 11%s the normal rate targeted the wealthiest 0.1% of the households while most ordinary households paid taxes similar to other regions. Further, the dynasty reduced taxes once military control was complete. Thus, the strain of the taxes on local resources was sustainable in the long-term (Johnson 23). It is also instructive that trade in non-agricultural commodities thrived in the city implying that Suzhou’s ability to prosper while paying punitive taxes was due its highly commercialized economy.

The reconstruction of the Grand Canal in the 12th century ensured that Suzhou played a major role in the integration of the Middle Kingdom that now had separate political and economic centers (Blue, Engelfriet, and Jami 15). The merchants also exploited the opportunity to transport grain to the capital for personal benefit. The introduction of silver taxes in place of grain taxes encouraged merchants to orient themselves towards the market economy with the result that a large proportion of the population increasingly engaged in commercial transactions (Marmé 221). Thus, the measures to reduce the tax burden and replace grain tax with silver in the early 15th century were a catalyst for further commercialization.

The intensified commercialization and monetization was further enhanced by the spread of textile production in the city (Johnson 23). The population explosion in the 12th and 13th centuries were attributed to the silk economy as raising silkworms was labor intensive. Suzhou was also producing cotton cloth in the 16th century. Most of the raw cotton was imported from areas bordering the Yangze as they had favorable soils (Blue, Engelfriet, and Jami 21). Most of the silk cloth was manufactured in the capital where specialized training restricted expansion.

The expansion of the silk industry to the populous hinterland was aided by the canals that connected peasant households to high-level markets. A survey done in the 12th century indicated that there were 27.8 miles of navigable rivers and canals in one square mile of the city’s hinterland (Marmé 221). Most of the expansion and prosperity happened outside the city and its main suburbs. Thus, Suzhou continued to thrive despite suppression by the Ming Dynasty due to its commerce and industry fostered by sound transport infrastructure (Johnson 32). It was a major source of the dynasty’s revenue as it contributed about 12% of the total revenue.

Shanghai city

Shanghai was model of Western-inspired development in China. The city survived the world wars and continued to develop and increase its population, economic power as well as cultural and political influence as the most successful of the treaty cities (Ristaino 123). It also benefitted from geography, industry, and advances in technology and industry.

Most scholars attribute the development of the port city on the Yangtze to maritime commerce with the West (Ristaino 126). It benefited from a flow of western capital and technicians who stimulated the growth of its modern sector and aroused the entrepreneurial spirit of the national nobility and accelerated the formation of a working class. It was part of the tradition of marginal China where communities of merchants were ignored or ill-treated for long periods by the existing authorities including the Imperial power (Bergère 5). In such cities, merchants, intellectuals, pirates and industrialists thrived.

In the case of Shanghai, its otherness is manifested in the transplanted foreigners thriving in a non-orthodox tradition of a small but fertile piece of land (Ristaino 128). This combined with imported food from western countries stimulated the growth and development of export trade as the fall in gold value lowered the cost of imports. The stimulants of modern international trade exerted themselves in China through Shanghai (Lu 175). At the time, international trade through Shanghai represented 41.7% of the value of all Chinese external trade. It had a flourishing private enterprise at a time when the rate of Chinese industrial growth reached 13.9%.

In Shanghai, cotton mills increased while new industries such as clothing and milling emerged. Meanwhile, several machinery workshops emerged heralding the city’s progress towards heavy industry (Ristaino 128). The industrial and commercial growth was accompanied by the development of credit and modern Chinese banking. The Shanghai banks differed from mainstream Chinese banks in that they focused on financing private enterprise rather than subsidizing public administration. Most the banks in Shanghai were foreign and continued to monopolize the financing of external commerce and control the flow of foreign currency and precious metals (Wasserstrom 142). Shanghai enjoyed a decade of prosperity between 1910 and 1920. Historians estimate that the city’s population grew from one million inhabitants in 1910 to almost 2.5 million in 1920.

Settler city within a city

The decade of prosperity had the effect of transforming the commercial port into an industrial city with a new Chinese nationalist urban class (Wasserstrom 148). The city had a small group of foreigners who lived in foreign a Settlement that enjoyed an international status. They enjoyed extraterritorial rights and were only answerable to their respective consulates. Apart from paying a customs surtax determined by foreign authorities, their merchandise was exempt from control by Chinese authorities (Bergère 10). Thus, the settlements were akin to autonomous oligarchies independent of Chinese authorities.

The foreigners in the Settlement designed western-style amenities and institutions. They also had their own factories and warehouses as well as postal services and news publications (Lu 174). They also enjoyed domestic and industrial electricity supply at very low prices. The main reason for this design was to facilitate trade and enterprise. The result was that Shanghai hosted 20 foreign banks and 15 of the 16 cotton mills in China by 1919 (Wasserstrom 149). It was also the headquarters of large trading firms.

After the First World War, the old imperialist forces began to decline at a time when Chinese nationalism was on the rise (Lu 174). The foreigners anticipated an uncertain future and the abolition of extra-territoriality. The International Settlement brokered an agreement with the Shanghai Municipal Council that allowed indirect extension to cater for increasing industrial and demographic requirements. The agreement allowed it to build External Roads extending 48 miles into the Chinese territory (Lu 179). Thus, the External Road Areas were independent of Chinese authorities.

At the same time, Shanghai experienced a rise in a new Chinese urban class comprising of the working class, business class and intelligentsia (Wasserstrom 150). This class rose due to the disintegration of traditional social structures and the decline of Confucian ideology that had the effect of loosening bureaucratic hold on the middle class. The Chinese middle class also experienced economic prosperity from their enterprises (Ristaino 129). Chinese capitalists enjoyed unprecedented profitability with margins that often exceeded 32%.

They also tried to control long-established organizations such as the guilds and the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce (Wasserstrom 151). However, they did not seek the expulsion of the foreigners as they needed their expertise and capital. Instead, they sought collaboration and cooperation that would be mutually beneficial to both parties. They sought the establishment of a federation of autonomous provinces that resemble a central government while avoiding reactionary and despotic regimes that often interfered with free enterprise (Bergère 19).

The wave of industrialization in Shanghai created a working class with city accounting for a quarter of the 1.5 million Chinese workers employed in modern factories and associated services. These workers immigrated from the squalor of the countryside in search of a livelihood (Wasserstrom 156). They lacked necessary skills and the influx of workers meant that employers could keep wages at the lowest level (Lu 178). There was no employment regulation, and there were several children working in the textile industry.

Meanwhile, the chaotic and brutal regime in Peking caused an exodus of elites who had formed the intellectual renaissance of 1915-1919 (Wasserstrom 155). Most of the intellectuals headed for Shanghai that offered the newcomers safety in the Settlements. They also benefitted from the fact that most printing presses in the country were based in Shanghai. Shanghai also hosted several foreign presses in the form magazines and newspapers (Bergère 19). The modernized publishing industry used the latest technical processes making it the best in China. Their productions were popular with schools, workers, and tradesmen.

Shanghai also hosted theaters and cinemas making it a center of unorthodox cultural movement. It was here that Chinese residents got a taste of western culture as theaters could feature the latest western productions (Bergère 21). Thus, Shanghai contrasted with Peking in that, unlike the latter that had aristocratic Chinese culture, it had a westernized culture based on foreign fashion and commercial gain. It also had art aficionados like the Creation Society that appreciated art. The group later embraced revolutionary literature (Lu 180). The effect of the fusion of Chinese traditions with Western culture was that all the great names in Chinese literature were found in Shanghai.

Unlike other parts of China where anarchy replaced orthodoxy, Shanghai was exceptional in that it was born out of coincidence between the retreat of Peking bureaucracy and the existence of an island of relative security and order (Bergère 23). Thus, Shanghai was an outpost just like Suzhou where unorthodoxy resulted in modernization. The presence of foreigners broke down some of the old barriers while creating formidable contradictions (Ristaino 132). The Chinese elite in the city progressively eroded the privileges enjoyed by the foreign minority until they acquired full right to supervise the affairs of the Settlement but were keen to maintain its entrepreneurial approach.

Just like Suzhou, Shanghai experienced suppression and unfriendly trade conditions by the Nanking government that replaced free enterprise with bureaucratic capitalism (Bergère 16). Even though the Nanking government took control of the city suppressing the middle-class and the intelligentsia from 1925, life in the city continued to be largely influenced by the evolution of the international economy. For instance, the city was more profoundly affected by the worldwide depression than the economic policies of the national government (Wasserstrom 159). It first benefited from the depreciation of silver between 1928 and 1931 that resulted in the devaluation of the Chinese currency and the stimulation of exports that compensated for the loss of certain western markets. This period experienced heightened industrial activity as firms sought to benefit from the export of manufactured goods.

Further, like Suzhou, Shanghai suffered under the invasion of Japan which ravaged its industrial suburbs. The Japanese imposed punitive taxes on residents and businesses in the city while their activities eventually led to the decline of the settlements (Bergère 29). This caused a steep decline in foreign trade with the volume of trade at the port of Shanghai falling by 51%. However, the city was resilient enough to recover largely due to its strategic location. A new industrial center arose on the Soochow Creek where Chinese and foreign immigrants settled injecting in capital and expertise into the economy (Wasserstrom 161). The new industrial center was diversified and continued the production of manufactured goods both for local consumption and export.

Conclusion

Suzhou and had Shanghai were very similar though established at different times in that they were urban centers enjoying substantial autonomy and dominated by a merchant class with an entrepreneurial outlook. Both cities were devastated by hostile regimes that suppressed trade although punitive taxes but retained their glamor largely due to their strategic locations. Finally, both cities had an aspect of a city within a city where most of the commerce and industry was concentrated before extending to the hinterland. In the case of Shanghai, the city within a city was the Settlement where foreign merchants exercised autonomy in a territory that was primed for enterprise.

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