Research On China’s Domestic Grain Trade In The 1920s And 1930s

After the Opium War,the grain trade circumstance in China changed ultimately: First,trading ports opened and initiated the process of urbanization and industrialization.The demand on food increased,so the contradiction between supply and demand became fierce;second,railway and river transportation appeared,which extended domestic grain trade routes and enlarged grain trade scale;third,China became an important part of global grain market.The rapid expansion of grain import/export trade substituted some of the domestic grain trade.In 1920 to 1930 s,domestic grain problems emerged and finally turned into a serious agricultural panic.Under this situation,both domestic grain trade and policy in crisis are subjects worth in-depth discussion.The work is as follows:First of all,the domestic data of grain trade are supplemented and revised combined with the statistics of customs port trade and reports of relevant grain investigation.Then the management tool of Arc GIS data is used to evaluate and analyze the connection strength,which clearly depicts the spatial pattern of grain trade in the national large-scale space.The domestic rice trade shows the characteristics of spatial structure of point-axis.The market of production,transit and consumption at all levels are "points" in the trade network.The transportation lines connecting different levels of "points" are "axes".The nodes and axes of different scales are connected to each other to form the spatial structure of point-axis of trade.As far as the strength of spatial linkages is concerned,trade linkages decline with the extension of distance,and trade scale decreases with the increase of distance.That is,transportation cost is an important factor affecting circulation of rice.In the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River,the transportation cost of rice by civilian ships is low and the trade scale is the largest.Anhui--Jiangsu--Shanghai is the busiest route for rice circulation;Guangdong Province is the largest gap of rice and grain,but the market connection with the production areas in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River is weak.Meanwhile,the domestic wheat trade presents the characteristics of spatial structure of point-axis.As the cost of railway transportation is higher than that of civil ships and small ships with inland river,Shanghai flour mill usually uses civil ships and small ships with inland river to purchase wheat from all parts in Jiangsu Province,and the northernmost wheat procurement along Jinpu road is no more than Xuzhou;the railway in North China is often blocked because of war,the wheat transportation and sales are not smooth,so the flour mill is facing a business crisis due to the shortage of raw materials.Flour trade shows the characteristics of spatial structure of polar-core.Shanghai is at the top of the trade network and its flour is sold all over the country.The production and transportation cost of other flour industry clusters are higher than that of Shanghai,and they are at a disadvantage in the competition.In the case of the widespread existence of local and stone mills,the consumption of machine-made flour is limited in coastal and riverside port cities,but not in the vast rural market.Secondly,the formation and evolution of network in domestic grain trade are investigated.The domestic and the international market have jointly shaped the network of grain trade under the open economic environment.Urbanization and industrialization are slow variables,which are the primary factors for the formation of network pattern of grain trade.Natural disasters and international economic environment are fast variables,which often has a sharp impact on the network of food trade in a short period of time.The dominant factors in the formation and evolution of rice,wheat and flour trade networks can’t be generalized.Specifically,the scale fluctuation of rice circulation in the Yangtze River Basin is more affected by the natural environment of the producing-area market;producing areas of rice in Guangdong Province and Southeast Asia form a stable trade circle,and grain trade is more affected by the economic environment of Southeast Asia;wheat and flour are more affected by the international economic environment,which are passive receivers of market prices in the world,and the rise and fall of international market prices directly affect wheat and flour scale of powder import and domestic trade.Thirdly,the profit distribution mechanism of domestic grain trade should be should investigated.Rice trade is centered on the wholesale market and distributed by multi-level middlemen with loose market connection among the main bodies from the perspective of the relationship between various interest subjects.Meanwhile,the channel relationship isn’t stable and doesn’t form a community of risk sharing and benefit sharing.Wheat and flour trade is centered on flour processing industry,and flour manufacturers integrate and complete the vertical trading link into the internal organization,which reduces the circulation ring Section and shortens the length of circulation channels,so as to make the upstream and downstream of the main interests form a relatively close relationship.The interest distribution of each main body in domestic grain trade is unbalanced from the pattern of interest distribution.The income gained by the producers doesn’t match the production costs and risks they bear;the rice dealers at all levels make use of the seasonal characteristics of rice prices to buy at a low price and sell at a high price,and obtain considerable profits;the flour manufacturers also obtain rich profits through the integration of purchasing,processing and sales links.From the perspective of interest transmission,empirical test results of ATP-ECM show that the rice and flour prices are asymmetric transmission characteristics,which also reflects the unequal distribution of profits among different entities in essence.Finally,the paper makes an overall investigation of grain-trade protection policy on the practice,practical basis and theoretical logic in 1930 s,and systematically combs the process of "market crisis of grain--formation of economic thought--policy construction of grain trade--market feedback of grain--reflection of economic thought--policy adjustment of trade".During this period,the thought of grain trade gradually became radical,and always gave hope to promote the development of rural economy through the administrative force,and ideally to take into account the interests of grain producers,consumers and processing industry.In fact,protection policies of trade are effective in the short term.However,in the case of blocked circulation of domestic food and imbalanced food supply and demand between the domains,which can’t only consider the interests of all parties,but also increase the risk of distorting the distribution of interests and result in intensified conflicts.The shortage of rice in Shanghai and Guangdong Province,and the shortage of raw materials in flour industry are just the result of the distortion of interest distribution by tariff policy.