Rubber O Opening Of Qingdao City, Early Modern (1898-1914)

Cities are the outcome of the social productivity which has developed to a certain stage and the sign of social progression. As far as the modern China is concerned, cities are at the same time the origin of social and economic modernization. Between the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century, Tsingtao, a then colonial city, developed quickly as a response to the outside impact and experienced the early immature stage of modernization. During the period mentioned above, in order to found a commercial base in East Asia, Germany took advantage of Tsingtao's natural location, established China maritime Customs in JiaoZhou, put into effect the traiff-free zone and exploited actively the foreign trade on the public goods such as ports, railroad and so on. These measures transformed a small finishing village into an international commercial city having a deep influence on North china. To meet the needs of the economic development and military control, the colonial bureau of Germany formed a relatively independent municipal system headed by Jiao-ao governor-general. This administrator brought into Tsingtao the modern transportation, communications, city planing, public service improvement and the erection of western-styled buildings, which consequently enlarged the city's functions and capacity. The assemble effect of cities attracted masses of heterogeneous people to migrate to Tsingtao and thus helped motivate the modernizing transformation of the city's population structure and social cultural life. As a result, Tsingtao become the pioneer region China's early modernization, which not only laid economic and social foundation for Tsingtao's further development in the 1920's and 1930's, but also influenced deeply the modernization of Shantung and even North China.This thesis aims to describe the symptoms of Tsingtao's early modernization from 1898 to 1914(the period of leased by German ),criticize objectively the progressive effect of its open-door policy under the outside pressure and the positive factors during the period of modernizing evolution, and analyse its developing dynamics and historical lessons during the end of 19 century and the beginning of the 20th century to offer a historical reference for today's city modernization.