Product Levels And Technological Evolution

As one of the important Chinese traditional handicrafts, the paper industry was invented in Han dynasty. The technology of papermaking and the pattern of production did not change significantly in the long river of history. Until Modern times, with the introduction of western technology which made paper using machines, the production pattern of China’s paper industry underwent great changes and extensive factories using machine to make paper appeared, it was greatly different from traditional handmade paper industry, such as technology, raw materials, capital, production scale, product category and so on. At the same time, the machine paper industry had an impact on the traditional manual paper industry, whose production pattern also changed, including production technology, product category, market scope, management type and external environment, which all have made progress in different extent.In this context, the modern manual paper industry, which still predominated the market in a long period, also developed further, both quantity and quality of products were improved. Although machine paper industry also made great progress in modern times, such as, rapid growth of product quantity, gradual increase of products category and extension of the market scope, as a whole, it was still in a relatively immature phase and unable to replace the principal status of manual paper industry in Modern times. One of the reasons for this economic phenomenon was the particularity of paper industry itself. Paper industry had various products, which met different market needs. Thought handmade paper industry fell behind in production pattern, it could be able to meet the needs of market diversification. The development of technology leads to two kinds of production pattern, including machine paper and manual paper. Diverse products required their product levels and market geographical pattern to supplement each other further on the basis of competition.Technological evolution is the important factor of modern paper industry. Handmade paper industry was improved in raw materials, bleaching process and production tools, making it can meet the needs of the times and markets and enhance their own competitiveness further. Although machine paper industry was with large machinery equipment, technological levels and the aging of equipment restricted its development. Due to the overall low level of industry in modern China, there were some manual phenomena during the whole production. With its own long-term development and relatively fixed marketing network, handmade paper industry ensured the straightway transportation and sale of products, meanwhile in the process of production, there were putting-out system and labor contract system, which solved the shortage of capital problem and improved the production efficiency to a certain extent. The relevant policy and system of government is the key element in the development of modern paper industry, especially for the machine paper industry, which was eager to gain more direct support from the government. However, the unimplemented policy became the important restricted factors to the development of machine paper industry.