Development And Embarrassment: Modern Industrialization Process In Jiangxi (1858-1949)

Since the mid-18th century industrial revolution in Britain, the issue ofindustrialization has become a worldwide project. After Opium War, China was driven byexternal forces to begin the slow process of industrialization. In 1858, together with the"Tianjin Treaty" signed with Britain and France, Jiujiang was provided to open to foreigntrade, meanwhile the mode of capitalist production wedged into Jiangxi. Jiangxi has beeninvolved in the industrialization trend. This paper chooses the modem industrialization inJiangxi as a starting point to explore the various factors affecting the process of modemindustrialization in Jiangxi; from the perspective of the economic restructuring, it tries tosolve the historical causes which led to modem socio-economic development lags behindin Jiangxi. The paper is intended to provide a historical point of care to Jiangxi Provincewhere the "Rise of Central China" strategy is currently being implemented.The research topic is guided by Marxist historical materialism, uses the theories andmethods of history, sociology and economics. It attempts to describe the reversesdevelopment course of modem industrialization in Jiangxi through intensively mining,sorting out the relevant materials, following empirical concepts and ideas, using themeans of quantitative analysis and comparative study to advance the research step by step.It tries to recover a true and complete picture of the history of modem industrialization inJiangxi. Through the inspection of the process of industrialization in modem Jiangxi, it isaverred that modem Jiangxi suffered serious setbacks in the process of restructuring fromthe traditional agricultural economy to a modern industrial economy. That economicrestructuring is not complete makes it a major breakthrough for modem Jiangxi's socialtransformation. So when the world community is led and dominated by the industrialized,modem Jiangxi remains in a traditional agricultural society. This is the fundamentalreason for lagging modern socio-economic development in Jiangxi. If we want to avoidstaying backward for contemporary Jiangxi, the only way is to realize industrializationand informationization as soon as possible, to develop by leaps and bonds, and transformgradually into modem knowledge economy.