Guangzhou/Canton

1. Guangzhou/Canton China’s commodity Markets, and perspectives on the transition from early modern to the modern Robert B. Marks Richard and Billie Deihl Professor of History Whittier College Whittier, CA 90601 rmarks@whittier.edu AP World History Development Committee Source: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/ralimage/map21chi..jpg

2. Or, How do we conceive of China’s place in the world, and in world history?

3. Overviewin 3-part harmony 1. Eurocentric narratives • Modernization • Western Impact, China’s Response • Wallerstein’s modern world-system 2. The “Silver Saga” ReOrientation 3. “What’s the price of rice in China” addition/revision

4. 1. Guangzhou/Canton in usual world history narrative • The “Canton System” of trade/tribute 1760-1840 • Extension of Ming “China-centered” tribute system • Reasserted in mid-18th c. to control European/British merchants • Lead up to Opium War 1839-42 and “China’s response to the West”

5. Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9706/hk97/past/opium.wars/link.canton.jpg http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/millwarj/website%20images/qing%20empire.JPG Source: Marks, Tigers, p. 68.

6. Foreign Trade at Guangzhou(and the Guangzhou system, 1760-1842)

7. China’s Foreign Trade Balances Exports of tea, silk, porcelain, etc. Imports of silver

8. Silver flows at Guangzhou turn negativein late 1820s (opium smuggling)

9. Opium and Opium War, 1839-42 • Mercantilist ideas (Colbert) • Bullion flows to China a big problem. • No other commodity sufficed Chinese needs. • British opium manufacture in its colony in India (centered around Patna). • Opium exports to China surge, esp. after 1833 and end of E.I.C. monopoly. • Leads to Opium War, China’s defeat, the imposition of the first “unequal treaties,” the 1842 Treat of Nanjing, and China’s forced “modernization.”

10. 2. The Silver Saga • A rejection of the “Western Impact, Chinese response” narrative • China’s domestic demand for silver a major force driving the early modern world economy • Flynn and Giraldez, Frank, Pomeranz

11. New World silver flowed to China; between 1500 and 1800, about 2/3 of all New World, and about 1/2 of total world production, of silver, flowed into China.

12. Major Circum-Global Trade Routes,1400-1800 Source: Frank, ReOrient p. 65

13. So What?Meta-narrative • From Eurocentric (modernization or world-system) • To “global” (e.g. Frank’s Reorient, Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence • But Guangzhou remains China’s interface with “the global,” not “the local” • Local action, global significance

14. 3. What’s the price of rice in China? • Lingnan Macroregion • Epistemology • Sources • Methods Source: Marks, Tigers, p. 259

15. China’s Market Efficiency • Commodity markets most efficient in the world 18th century • Other markets too, for land, labor, capital, factors of production • National market? • Food supply no longer dependent on local weather events, but population growth not Malthusian Source: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/

16. China’s Late Imperial Economy is“Early Modern” A highly developed and efficient market system with “Smithian dynamics”

17. Early Modern to Modern

18. Conclusion: Early Modern to Modern • Assumptions from the European “normal” • Bin Wong’s comparative question: What if China’s experience is “normal”? • The price of rice and the Guangzhou lesson