China's Modern Carpet Industry

As I deeply mined and systematically researched through historical archives, social surveys, economic reports and newspapers and periodicals, and referenced by related results, this paper analyzed the development and the situation of carpet industry, and its structure and industry characteristics, and summarized the reasons which the industry declined of in the modern period of China, explained the situation of the development of national capitalism in modern China. The paper filled the vacancy of the study of China's economic history, especially the crafts of modern handicraft, and also provided the references in today's export-oriented and labor-intensive industries.This paper included five chapters. The first chapter introduced the overview of China's carpet industry. As the palace crafts, this handicraft has long history, and origined from northern ethnic minority areas, or from border regions of ethnic minority areas, but the production was few. China's modern carpet industry origined from palace. By late Qing period, this handicraft was found in folk market of Beijing and there were some workshops was setted up. Because of its excellent work, the carpet was very popular with foreigners, and large amount of carpets were exported. So this industry was increasingly prosperous. The carpet industry was developing increasingly in Tianjin. As the stimulation from the demand of overseas, the carpet production of Beijing and Tianjin had accounted for 90 percent of all country. Therefore, the carpet industry of Beijing and Tianjin, to some extent, represented China's modern carpet industry.The second chapter analyzed the situation of the export of carpet industry. The carpet industry was an industry that its development was due to stimulation by the demand from overseas, so the develpoment severely depened on the environment of the trade, and the industry eventually declined cause of the reducing of the demand. Therefore, for carpet industry research, the situation of the export is of serious significance. By the situation of the export, the characteristic of the merchandise exports not only can be observed, but the change of the scale of development of this industry can be found as well.The third chapter and forth chapter analyzed the business model and employment system of China'modern carpet industry. Business model and employment system were the structure and characteristic of carpet industry. And as one part of the China's modern handicraft industry, the carpet industry certainly could not get rid of impact of China's modern time, and its structure and characteristic inevitably revealed the very clear characteristic of that time. By three business models(traditional workshop system, modern enterprise system and foreign business operation system),employment system(apprentice system and employment system)and the conditions of workers, it is can be shown that the traditional artisan crafts industry had been gradually replaced by factories which had characteristic of modern enterprise in China'modern, a time for change, and China's carpet industry entered to a new stage.The fifth chapter analyzed the factors which influenced the development of China's carpet industry. While the domestic market was so narrow that the development of China's carpet industry mainly depened on trade export. Conpared with other industries, the industry strongly depened on trade export, so its development was definitely influenced by international environment. Therefore, it is inevitable that the international politics and the change of economic environment could be analyzed if the China's carpet industry to be studied. The subject largely revealed the situation of the development of Chinese national capitalism in that era.