Study On The Development Of China’s National Industry From1895to1927

Throughout the Chinese modern economic history, the development of China’snational industry experienced a long and tortuous process. Under the pressure offoreign powers and feudal rulers, the development was very slow since the1870s.While after the Sino-Japanese War of1894-1895, the government of the QingDynasty was forced to deregulate private factories, which resulted in the rapiddevelopment of China’s national industry that embraced a short golden age duringthe First World War. However, this development slowed down to a recession after1922with the increasing economic aggression from foreign powers. This thesisintroduces the historical development process of China’s national industry from1895to1927, and hence discusses the problems and causes of its rise and fall in a bid todraw lessons from the history and get enlightenment for our country’s current privateeconomy. The thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter I is the introduction, which mainly explains the background andsignificance of the dissertation, summarizes the opinions and research achievementsof domestic and foreign scholars about China’s national industry in the modernhistory. It also makes clear the research idea, initiative and deficiency of this paper.Chapter II expounds the historical development process and characteristics ofChina’s national industry from1895to1927. In this chapter, the historicaldevelopment process is divided into three phases: the initial development after theSino-Japanese War, the golden age during the First World War, and the recessionafter1922. Moreover, it summarizes the characteristics of the development ofChina’s national industry while taking into consideration of the special historicalbackground of modern China in order to have a better understanding. Chapter III analyses major problems that existed in the development of China’smodern national industry and subsequent negative impacts. The problems includesevere external dependence, irrational industrial arrangement, lagging heavy industry,poor financing channels, and limited technology and management, which exertedbad influences on the sustained development of China’s national industry.Chapter IV explores the causes of the tortuous development of China’s nationalindustry. The rapid development of China’s national industry from1895to1921canbe attributed to two aspects. Government policy support, opportunities brought bythe First World War and the anti-imperialism patriotic movements come first.Subjective factors such as the growing power of national bourgeoisie and theentrepreneur spirit also played their due role. However, the boom of China’s nationalindustry lasted only a short period of time before it started declining after1922as aresult of the economic aggression from foreign powers, continuous civil wars,insufficient fund of national enterprises and the restriction of the Likin system.Chapter V reveals lessons we can learn from the experiences during thedevelopment of China’s national industry from1895to1921. Based on the analysismentioned above, we can reach the conclusion that national independence, policysupport, technological innovation and international environment were the four mostimportant factors that influenced the development of China’s national industry. Whatwe can learn from the history is that the current government should strengthenfinancing support for private enterprises and improve market access for privatecapital. Meanwhile, private enterprises should seize the opportunity of economicglobalization, actively explore the international market and enhance the ability ofindependent research. Thus, the development of China’s private economy will bemore and more sound and sustainable.