| The cane sugar industry is the industry that undergoes a series of procedures such as squeezing,boiling,and honey separating to produce liquid or crystal brown sugar,white sugar,and orange sugar,using sugar canes as a raw material.China is a traditional sugar-producing country with a long history of sugar cane cultivation and handmade sugar production.China's handmade technology was even ranked the world top level during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.However,with the development of modern science and The Industrial Revolution,mechanical technology has made it possible to quickly produce a large amount of high-quality white sugar,and the world's sugar market has changed.At the same time,most of China's sugar mills still adhered to using the handmade technology which was derived from hundreds of years ago.Although a few thinking people tried to “transplant” the complete set of mechanical technology,but they repeatedly failed,making China,the old biggest sugar-making nation be in crisis of transformation.Meanwhile,Sichuan Province,as one of the three major sugar producing provinces in modern China,has formed a very distinctive "sucrose economy" in the early 20 th century.The sugar industry has occupied a very important position in the Sichuan's economy.Several thinking people were committed to improving the handmade sugar industry by introducing mechanical sugar tools to Sichuan Province,but they all failed.At the outbreak of the comprehensive anti-Japanese war,the National Government decided to move the capital to Chongqing.The demand for sugar industrial by-products,molasses,which was the raw material for making alcohol-based liquid fuels was increasing sharply,and traditional sugar-producing provinces such as Guangdong,Guangxi and Fujian provinces was occupied successively.So the development and improvement of sugar industry in Sichuan province received unprecedented attention and attention.With the cooperation and efforts of many scientific research institutions and sugar administrations,such as Sichuan provincial sugar experiment station,the Sugar Lab of the Central Industrial Test Laboratory,the Sugar Monopoly Bureau in Sichuan and Xikang,the improvement and promotion of sugar-making technology in SichuanProvince during the Anti-Japanese War made a major breakthrough.All technicians followed the scientific principles,sing professional theoretical knowledge and experimental instruments to carry out a series of standardized and precise scientific experiments.Facing the difficult environment of wartime,they adapted to local conditions and obtained materials locally,and was finally succeed in introducing improved sugar cane seeds and advanced sugar cane cultivation technology.They also successfully improved the traditional hand-made sugar technology and imitated the small-scale sugar making machine—the hand-cranked centrifuges.At the same time,various scientific research institutions and sugar administrations had jointly established a complete promotion system of improved sugar cane seeds and hand-cranked centrifuges in Sichuan Province and even across the country,asking for help from financial institutions.With this promotion system,the improving sugar-making technology could realize its actual impact.With the cooperation and efforts of all parties,the improvement and promotion of the sugar-making technology in Sichuan province during the Anti-Japanese war could almost represent the highest level in mainland China at the same time.With the establishment of fully mechanized refined sugar factories during the Anti-Japanese war,for example,The China United Sugar Refining Co.,Ltd.,and some manual sugar factories in Sichuan Province,which benefited from small-scale sugar making machines such as hand-cranked centrifuges being gradually introduced,the industry presented the multiple production methods and operating methods structure.Based on the theory and research of modern Chinese handicraft industry transformation,this article compares other handicraft industries in modern China horizontally,and considers that the “multi-structure" of the Sichuan sugar industry during the war was actually accompanied by the "maintenance of traditional handicraft production" and the"Breakthrough of mechanized production".The specific manifestation of the"maintaining" was that highly developed hand-made technology,fixed production relations and financing relations,which was coupled with the trend of poverty,made most sugar mills in Sichuan Province had to maintain manual production.The specific manifestation of the "breakthrough" was three fully mechanical refined sugar-making factories being built in Sichuan,which was thanks to the government's support in the special context of the war,and.Therefore,this article believes that the “multi-structure”of the Sichuan sugar industry during the war conformed to the internal mechanism of modern handicraft industry transformation,and also reflected the particularity of the sugar industry and the Anti-Japanese War background.Not only that,this phenomenon also symbolized the improvement path of Sichuan province 's sugar industry which wasa combination of “rapid advance” and “slow advance”.This path was different from the previous one,and was proved to be more suitable for the China's sugar industry transformation.Although in the Anti-Japanese War,Sichuan Province made unprecedented breakthroughs in the improvement and promotion of sugar-making technology,the development of the Sichuan province's sugar industry showed a "stagnation" situation,judging from the sugar cane production and sugar production data.About the reason for the "paradoxical" development of the Sichuan sugar industry during the wartime.This article compares the innovation of sugar-making technology and the development of the sugar industry in Guangdong during the 1930 s and Taiwan during the Japanese Occupation,and believes that under the difficult and changing political and economic environment of the wartime,the government was unable to support the improvement and promotion of sugar-making technology;and the sugar cane farmers' economy in Sichuan Province,which was already showing a trend of poverty,was quite dispersed and unstable during the war,which made it difficult to promote improved sugar-making technology.Under various restrictions,the improvement of sugar-making technology in Sichuan Province during the Anti-Japanese war was far below the level of "innovation",and the promotion of improved sugar cane seeds and small-scale sugar making machines was also difficult to achieve.Together with the special background of the war,the development of the sugar industry in Sichuan Province had stagnated. |
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