Transition Of The Modern Chinese City

Before the Opium War, China's cities were of typical feudal style. Although some handcraft cities and commercial cities emerged as a result of the non-political factors after the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the administrative metropolitan was still the basis of the city system, and the Chinese society were still characterized by a structure of metropolitan politics and rural economy.After the Opium War, the commercial and capital invasions of the foreign capitalists brought about a striking attack to the Chinese society by breaking through the feudal city administrative rolling system and imprint a mode of the capitalist city system, which opened a new leaf in the transformative trend of the modern Chinese cities.Based on the Chinese society from the Mid-19th century to the early 20th century with a focus on the transformation of the feudal cities to modern cities, the thesis gives a brief summary of the traditional Chinese cities before the Opium War. At the same time, it also researches the appearance and development of the modern Chinese port cities, modern Chinese commercial cities and the modern Chinese cities of industry by employing sociological theory and research method so as to work out the route and the characteristics of the transformation. Through extensive material reference, thorough thinking and systematic summary, the characteristics and the routes run as follows. First, the change of the functional city and the city society. Second, the change of the city administrative system and the organizational mode. Third, the modernization of the infrastructure of the cities. Fourth, the transformation of the citizen's ideology especially of the social customs and the consuming habits.The research shows that the transformation of the modern Chinese cities is not a simple copy of the western style, but with noticeable individual characteristics due to the combined function of the foreign capitalist invasions and the economic activities of the Chinese cities. This thesis offers some historical experience and theoretical reference of the urbanization process of the modern Chinese society.