| This dissertation examines two conflicting trends in one Chinese region between 1900 and 1937. While the growing "treaty port" economy gave even inland regions profitable opportunities in national and international markets, that same foreign presence helped to undermine the Chinese state. An enfeebled government provided fewer services, and concentrated them where revenues were high and further foreign intrusion most likely. Two functions that suffered greatly were inland flood control (particularly on the Yellow River) and inland water transport (the Grand Canal). Since the region discussed here--"Huang-Yun"--surrounds the intersection of these two waterways, the decay of the state pulled it towards isolation.; The Introduction introduces the region and the conceptual framework. Each chapter examines how these opposing tendencies worked out in some important case, and how the different socio-political structures of North and South Huang-Yun responded. Chapter One looks at money markets, and how local elites and governments responded to the appearance of treaty port banks, merchants, and mills offering cheaper credit. Chapter Two looks at the introduction of machine-spinnable cotton varieties which were very profitable, but socially disruptive, and explains why promotions by mills and local governments succeeded in North, but not South, Huang-Yun. Chapter Three discusses ecological decay, particularly fuel shortages and deforestation. This crisis was not simply Malthusian, but exacerbated by the decline of the Grand Canal-borne timber trade and Huang-Yun's inability to tap the growing timber imports that alleviated coastal shortages. It also analyzes the national government's ecological measures, and how its "mercantilist" outlook led it to ignore Huang-Yun, while desperated fuel-gatherers overwhelmed local efforts. It also argues that the same priorities explain why railroads bypassed Huang-Yun. Chapter Four analyzes the impact of central government withdrawal from water control. Chapter Five estimates the cost of hydraulic decay, and discusses why repair efforts failed. The Conclusion returns to broader questions about state-making and market-making, and suggests relationships between this material and both earlier and later events in the area, and to question about economic and political change in post-1949 China. |
