Regional Analysis & Port Trade

By focusing on the case of Tianjin, this essay traces the inherent coherence in the development of the trade before and after the opening of its commercial port, and thereby identifies the role of religional society in molding a port, in which I hope to seek the underlying practical logics rather than to be misleaded by conceptualized paradigms, and I attempt to reflect on"Impact-Response","Imperialism"and"Tradition-Modernity"models and doubt on the"Interior Orientation"in dealing with the exotic influence on Chinese economy. Generally, it principally comprises five parts, excluding the introduction and conclusion.The first part (chapter two) outlines the regional commercial development before the port opening. In one way or another, some native products became large scale commodities through the regional commercial circulation, based on the drive of local environment resources. However, the same ambient pressure made it substaintial to make a living above all. This distinctive development model provided native products for Tianjin's exporting trade of one side and opportunities of the other side for importing commodities. As a result, the large scale of importation dispersed to different regions and finally supplied domestic demand.The second part (chapter three), by breaking the time fence, mainly traces the commodities, areas, scales and payments of the trade before Tianjin's opening. It concludes that the trade of Tianjin was going throngh a considerable prosperity before its opening, with its abundant commodities and immense trade areas. So it is misleading to cut off the continuity of the trade progress by neglecting the development of the trade before the opening.The third part (chapter four) attempts to look into the commercial tendency and structure of this regional characteristic and inspect the important role of regional structure in molding such a pattern of port trade, through statistical analysis. It makes clear that the import/export trade of Tianjin gradually involved into the world trading system, however, it functioned quite differently from that of Shanghai. The trade pattern of Tianjian was highly restrained to regional structures, with its exportations basically made up of native products of hinterland and its importations primarily sold to the hinterland in the form of consumpiton goods. Therefore, to some extent, the foreign trade of Tianjin is merely equivalent to that of its huge hinterland, without which it would be never flourishing.The forth part (chapter five) firstly works on the inner relationship between the trade evolution and regional structure alteration during disasters and famines, which directly effected the structure and tendency of the port trade as a crucial stimulative. The part takes pains to transcend a conventional method, by which scholars have long-termly overemphasize the influence exerted to regional society by port trade. Anyhow, the relationship between port trade and regional society proves to be reciprocal rather than unilateral.Focusing on the commercial associations, the fifth part (chapter six) analyzes the practical response strategies taken by the regional organizations to deal with the foreign influence, what's more, it gingerly documents the initiative of the regional society in molding the vicissitudes of Tianjin port trade. As it shows, confronting a trading circumstance of imbalance, regional associations, represented by commercial associations, launched a series of self-salvation campaigns to promote commerce and trade, during which the competitive ability of native products was obviously improved, especailly in the link of produciton and criculation. Although these efforts failed to narrow and diminish the trade imbalance fundamentally, it still carried out beneficial explore on a well-balanced international trade.