The Development of Chinese National Capital in the 1920s

Abstract

In studies of modern economic history, it was ‘generally said that the period of the First World War was the so-called “golden age” of Chinese national industries.’² ‘After the imperialist countries staged a comeback after the War, however, these industries immediately fell into a state of depression.’ ³ This viewpoint seems to be a final conclusion. But, judging from the historical materials I have read, Chinese national capital did achieve some development in the 1920s. Some important industries developed more rapidly than in the past, and it was only in the 1930s that national capital entered its crisis and development stagnated. These phenomena impel us to probe further into the factors promoting development in the 1920s.

Zhang Zhongli, Research Professor and President of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, is one of the most distinguished Chinese scholars. After working in the United States during the 1950s, when he published two extremely important books in English on the Chinese gentry, he returned to China and joined the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Much of his recent work has been on the business history of Shanghai capitalism, especially the Sassoons; he has also written widely on the implications of history for China’s current Open Door policies. Key points in this article, whose central aim is to reinterpret the experience of the 1920s, include the wide use of the abundant company archives held in Shanghai to provide a detailed picture of the growth of the modern sector of China’s economy. Whereas Chapters 2 and 4 are concerned primarily with national aggregate statistics, Zhang fills out the picture with specific information for individual enterprises and sectors.¹