| The first modern machine cotton spinning factory was established in Shanghai in1890, which marked the beginning of the national cotton and kapok industry in China. The first Sino-Chinese War of1894had exerted great influence on our national cotton and kapok industry. Japan got plenty of war indemnity and the right of investing and building factories in China through "the Treaty of Shimonoseki", and from then on, the cotton and kapok textile industry became one of Japan’s key investments in China. Qingdao, with its superior cotton planting and marketing conditions, was an ideal place for cotton and kapok textile industry and attracted Japan greatly. However, Qingdao was in Germany’s sphere of influence then, so what Japan could do was to input the cotton and kapok product but could not directly build textile factories there. During Germany’s occupation of Qingdao, cotton competition between China and Japan was mainly about the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River.Germany had the overall situation consciousness and the strategic judgment to excavate Qingdao and its natural resources. Not only did they appropriate a large amount of money and make detailed plans to aid the construction of Qingdao and the Jiaoji railroad, but also they injected the Western cultural and mental traits into Qingdao, thus turning it into a "model colony". The completion of Jiaoji railroad (1904) greatly promoted the port-hinderland trade exchanges. In the economical domain, German authority tried to ally China to resist Japan by sharing extra profits with Chinese businessmen; In the political domain, German also achieved partial compromise and cooperation with the Shandong local authority, which had played a positive role in the port-center trade exchanges and the modernization of Shandong.After the outbreak of the First World War, Germany had no time and mind any longer in its far-east colonies. Japan together with its UK alliance declared war to Germany, and then occupied Qingdao by using its geographical superiority. The tripartite confrontation of "Germany-Japan-China" in East Asia disintegrated in light of this. At the end of the war, Japan built one batch of modernizing cotton and kapok textile enterprises in Jiaozhou Bay. The Germany-constructed infrastructure had greatly facilitated the Japanese-invested cotton and kapok textile industry in Qingdao. In order to construct the industrial chain link and to optimize the industry to gain great surplus value, besides speeding up cotton and kapok production, Japan also opened lots of cotton stores in the hinderland, dumped cotton yarn, and promoted the cotton seed improvement work. Facing the aggressive competition from Japan and the overnight business opportunity, the Chinese industry elites didn’t pass on responsibilities, for example, Zhou Xuexi and Pan Fu tried all their best to finance constructing national cotton textile factories in Qingdao, Jinan and many other places. The defensive polices of encouraging cotton planting and boosting local cloth were put in place by Beijing National government and Shandong local authorities. Qingdao and the center in light of this became a new battlefield for China and Japan in cotton and kapok competition. Thus, the cotton war expanded from the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River to Qingdao and the center. The competition stimulated and impelled cotton and kapok production in Shandong countryside, and improved the cotton-planting commercialization.In1923, the Chinese government took back Qingdao and the railroad sovereignty, but the massive economic rights and interests were still detained in Japanese hands. Because the Chinese-invested enterprise were in inferiority in funds and technology, the natural resources of cotton goods in Qingdao were still held by Japanese businessmen. In order to reclaim the economic rights and interests, Chinese government promoted the planting of American cotton and increased price of raw cotton, as a main method to curb Japanese profits in cotton and kapok industry. After1924, the Qingdao center chaos caused by war and the natural disasters were frequent, the Chinese government suffered the setback in American cotton and kapok promotion. In addition, cotton trade exchanges between Qingdao and the center also greatly decreased due to the intensification of Chinese and Japanese conflicts and Zhang Zongchang calamity.After the Kuomintang took power, China’s cotton industry got unprecedented attention. The central authorities issued a series of cotton revitalization policies and laws and established related agencies to set up their control of the cotton industry, along with launching a cooperative movement, so the cotton industry had a much improved surrounding. Sheng Honglie, the mayor of Qingdao, actively carried out industrial and commercial conservation work to rescue the cotton industry. With the governmental support, the national mill-factories withstood the competition of many Japanese companies, defended the cotton industry and succeeded in national cotton industry survival and development.At the same time, the cotton-planting in Shandong province also made the great strides with the support of Han Fuqu and Zhang Honglie. This progress should be attributed to the following reasons:first, the improvement of law and order of the urban and rural areas; second, the rapid development of rural construction and transportation; last, Han’s efforts to build an independent economy. With the promotion of Zouping mode, Shandong greatly improved cotton quality and reputation, which strongly supported the development of the national textile industry in Qingdao and Jinan and in turn stimulated and promoted progress in the rise of the related manufacturing sectors. In the last, the cotton chain came into being with railway as the carrier, which included Zouping (plant)-Jinan (marketing)-Qingdao (spinning)-Wei County (cloth)-Zhoucun (dyeing). Driven by this industrial chain, economy in Qingdao and the hinterland developed in a sound and smooth way.The rapid development of Qingdao cotton industry and the frequent cotton goods trading between port and center had manifold impact on Shandong rural society. First, the quick development of cotton industry made more farmers quit their old pastoral life, taking the initiative into the construction of large-scale production by the cotton plant industry. With the cotton chain rotation, Qingdao capitalist operational conception and ideology began to penetrate into the interior land, which greatly promoted the modernization of Shandong province. Second, in order to improve cotton quality and expand the planting areas, a large number of new elites from the cities went back to the countryside and launched a cooperative movement in the cotton industry, and this revival of the rural economy had a positive meaning. Third, governments at all levels took plenty efforts to ban watering, adulteration and regulate the cotton market, which helped call for the government’s attention and the construction of village.Competition can promote the development of an industry. An industry without external competition will soon lose vitality. With the Competition from Japanese cotton industry, the business continued to promote the progress of the cotton industry in Qingdao. Unprecedented national crisis, production and marketing difficulties forced the hinterland of Qingdao and the cotton industry to actively explore the characteristics of the business model in line with their own efforts to defend the cotton industry, thus achieving the hysteretic effect against penetration of the Japanese economy. But it had to say that the success was with the mistakes, for example, resistance to Japanese yarn and cloth was irrational in some extent. Boycott must be combined with the improvement of national business ideas and creativity in order to get the final victory. |
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