Eng, Robert Y., “Chinese Entrepreneurs, the Government, and the Foreign Sector: The Canton and Shanghai Silk-Reeling Enterprises, 1861-1932”. (1984)

Title : “Chinese Entrepreneurs, the Government, and the Foreign Sector: The Canton and Shanghai Silk-Reeling Enterprises, 1861-1932”.

Author(s) : Eng, Robert Y.

Year : 1984

Type : Journal article

Subject : History

Keywords : economy;industry;

Journal : Modern Asian Studies

Volume : 18

Number : 3

Start page : 353

End page : 370

Language:Name : English

Support : Print

Abstract : Neo-Marxist historians view the Chinese ports opened in the aftermath of the Opium War of 1839-42 as beachheads of imperialism. Revisionist scholars contend that the ports acted as the centers of Western entrepreneurship, successfully imitated by the Chinese. Analysis of the emergence of the silk-reeling industry in Shanghai and Guangdong from 1861 through 1932 reveals that the revisionists overestimate the positive contributions of the Westerners and the neo-Marxists oversimplify the foreign role as exploitative. Rather, both the Chinese and Westerners benefitted. The Chinese controlled collecting and processing and the Westerners controlled the foreign trade and finance sectors.