The Prosperity And Decline Of Guangzhou Tea Export Trade And Its Social Influences During The Qing Dynasty

Tea is one of the earliest and most important commodities in the history offoreign trades in china. All conditions of tea product and export trades are certainreflects on Chinese economy. Research on Chinese tea export trade not only help tostudy relationship between china and foreign countries, but also to provide referencesfor Chinese economy development. Guangzhou is the main port in GuangdongProvince and also one of the most important ports for tea export trades in the wholecounty. It is representative and typical to study tea export trades in Guangzhou.Few papers make systemic and overall researches on Guangzhou tea export trade.Some are about tea trades between Guangzhou and foreign countries, or about tradesduring a certain period, or about certain problems. It is difficult to understand thecomplete process and trend of Guangzhou tea export trade for those with narroweyeshot. So the paper focuses on tea export trades in Guangzhou and economy inGuangdong to discuss the prosperity and decline of tea trades and influences on thesociety during the Qing dynasty, expecting this can help to grasp the mutualrelationship between tea export trades and regional economy.Based on a lot of historical facts and data, this paper expounds systematicconditions on Guangzhou tea export trade during the Qing dynasty, analyzes reasonsfor its development and decline, discusses some influences on economy and society,and put forward some suggestive ideas as a conclusion. Guangzhou tea export can bedivided into four stages according to the evolution of export volumes and percentages.The first period opens up a beginning of prosperity, in which tea export volumesgrow rapidly and Guangzhou plays an absolute role in the whole country trade. Theprosperity has a great effect on china and foreign countries. The second stage is thetemporary flourish period. During 1840 and 1851, Although the proportion ofGuangzhou tea export gradually decreases, its absolute quantity is larger than beforethe Opium War and the percentage still remain more than 50%. In this stage,Guangzhou tea export continue to maintain the thriving, but temporary because of challenges of other ports. The third is the decline period for Guangzhou Tea exporttrade, whose monopoly status has been lost. After 1850s, advantages of Guangzhougradually disappeared, because tea trades developed well in other ports, such asShanghai, Fuzhou, Hankou. The fourth stage is the tortuous development and finaldownfall period. Guangzhou tea export decreased to the lowest level in 1870 anddeveloped in the unsmooth way during 1871 and 1875. However, it ultimately tendedtowards downfall. Each stage has shown different trends and features, indicating thewhole process of development and decline for Guangzhou tea export trade.In this paper many historical materials like chorography and Customs materialsare collected, and some ideas are presented by analyzing and mining them.Lots ofdata are cited and statistical approaches are adopt to analyze some problems, such ascorrelation analysis and regression analysis. SPSS tool is also employed to formtables and graphs, such as scatterplot, histogram, boxplot, which can makeconclusions clearer. Few research on tea export trade is concerted with the method, sothe methodology is novel.The interacting and mutual stimulation relationship between tea export trade andeconomy development is revealed by the research. Today, Guangdong Province is stillone of the most important tea areas and tea export trade in Guangzhou has beenbecoming thriving. In the background of retbrm and opening and internationalcommunication, it is so important to promote national regional economy andstrengthen international economy cooperation. The paper can give importanttheoretical meaning and practical value and offer certain values for reference about teaexport trade of Guangdong and the whole country.