Shanghai
(2002 est. pop. 9 million). China's leading port city since the late nineteenth century, Shanghai is located in Jiangsu Province on the Huangpu tributary near the mouth of the Chang (Yangtze) River in central China. Along with the important role that it plays in the national transportation network, Shanghai is a major financial and industrial city, with hundreds of modern factories situated in its Pudong region—a special economic zone that has been developed since the opening of China in the 1980s.
Shanghai has long been a major commercial and transportation center in China since the Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1279–1368) dynasties and during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties emerged as an important location in China's cotton industry. During the seventeenth century, a hundred years before the arrival of the Europeans, Shanghai was already one of the Qing dynasty's largest cities and an important port for both domestic and coastal trade.
Shanghai as a Western Trade Port
Under the conditions of the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking) that concluded the First Opium War, Shanghai was opened, along with four other Chinese ports, to foreign trade and residence. The foreign presence in Shanghai grew throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century as British, American, French, Japanese, and other Western traders and adventurers moved to the city to engage in commerce. The foreign community in Shanghai resided in two settlements, the French Concession and the larger International Settlement, both of which were set apart from the Chinese city. Under the terms of the unequal treaties that were imposed on China in the nineteenth century, the foreign population was self-governed by a Municipal Council and a Mixed Court. The city's famous Bund along the Huangpu River was dominated by examples of European colonial architecture that housed foreign banks, trading houses, and consulates. The foreign community in Shanghai also constructed a horseracing track, cricket field, and other facilities for its recreation during this period. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Shanghai was the center of foreign culture and commerce in China.
Shanghai Under the Nationalists
As a bustling port and industrial city, Shanghai had a large working-class population during the early twentieth century, and this class played an important role in the development of both trade unions and political ideologies in modern China. The city's foreign concessions unwittingly provided sanctuary to many early socialist and communist leaders. During this period, resentment against foreign imperialism in China grew and boiled over on 30 May 1925, when tens of thousands of students and workers held a major protest in the city's International Settlement. Dissatisfaction with the state of the nation continued to grow among Shanghai's population, and in March 1927, the city's General Labor Union, under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party, launched a general strike that was brutally suppressed by the army of Chiang Kaishek (1887–1975) on its return from the Northern Expedition, a campaign against warlords in the north.
As the city emerged as China's leading port, a new class of Chinese entrepreneurs developed, a group often referred to as the comprador class. These merchants acted as both middle persons in the trade between China and foreigners and as an emerging native community of entrepreneurs and business people. The Chinese merchant community in Shanghai was extremely powerful and dominated local politics in the city's chambers of commerce and native place associations. Shanghai's Chinese bankers and industrialists were an important source of revenue for Chiang Kaishek's Guomindang (Nationalist) government during the 1920s and 1930s. During the Nanjing Decade (1927–1937), Shanghai's businesses were heavily taxed by the new national government. In the early twentieth century, another group also wielded influence in the city—the triads, or criminal gangs. The triads profited by controlling Shanghai's lucrative drug and prostitution trades and by blackmailing local Chinese business leaders.
Shanghai was captured by the Japanese army after a bloody battle in the fall of 1937 and was occupied until Japan's defeat in August 1945. After the Communist victory in 1949, many of the city's bourgeoisie, however, fled the port and relocated to Hong Kong and Taiwan, helping to spur the economic development of both locations. During the first few decades of Communist rule, Shanghai was viewed with distrust by the new regime because the city was seen as not only a former center of foreign imperialism, but also home to middle-class values. Despite being tainted by its capitalist past, Shanghai continued to serve as a major source of tax revenue for the new Communist government and as a key industrial city in central China.
Shanghai Since 1980
In the 1980s, with the opening of China, Shanghai was reborn and quickly resumed its role as the nation's premier port and point of contact with the outside world. Shanghai's industrial quarter attracted foreign investors who developed modern factories in the city. Chinese entrepreneurs helped to revitalize Shanghai's economy, making it one of the success stories of the post-Mao era and home to bustling financial and commercial enterprises. An important component of Shanghai's growth since the early 1990s has been the development of the Pudong New Area—a 100-square kilometer development zone that is home to a new international airport, deep-water harbor, and modern industrial and high-technology parks. In 1990, Pudong's local gross domestic product (GDP) was 6 billion renminbi (RMB), a figure that was dwarfed by the 2000 GDP figure of 92 billion RMB. Since the 1980s, Shanghai's industrial base has been diversified from the emphasis on heavy industries (steel and petrochemical) that dominated during the Communist era, to new, "cleaner" industries that emphasize light manufacturing, including textiles and electronic goods. Shanghai remains China's leading banking and financial center and an important site of foreign investment.
Further Reading
Cooke Johnson, Linda. (1995) Shanghai: From Market Town to Treaty Port, 1074–1858. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Fu, Poshek. (1993) Passivity, Resistance, and Collaboration: Intellectual Choices in Occupied Shanghai, 1937–1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Goodman, Bryna. (1995) Native Place, City, and Nation: Regional Networks and Identities in Shanghai, 1853–1937. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Henriot, Christian. (1993) Shanghai, 1927–1937: Municipal Power, Locality, and Modernization. Trans. by Noel Castelino. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Murphey, Rhoads. (1953) Shanghai: Key to Modern China. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Perry, Elizabeth J. (1993) Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Sergeant, Harriet. (1990) Shanghai, Collision Point of Cultures, 1918–1939. New York: Crown Publishers.
Wakeman, Federic, and Wen-hsin Yeh, eds. (1992) Shanghai Sojourners. Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Center for Chinese Studies.
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