Between Cottage and Factory: The Evolution of Chinese and Japanese Silk-Reeling Industries in the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the differential patterns of evolution in Chinese and Japanese silk-reeling industries during the latter half of the nineteenth century. It shows that, while Japanese exports of raw silk overall grew the fastest, the Guangdong region in China also expanded rapidly whereas the Lower Yangzi region lagged behind in machine-reeling production. This article applies a simple partial equilibrium framework to link the differential rates of growth with patterns of technological borrowing and economy-wide transaction costs. Through a historical narrative, the article argues that the contrasting performance in the two countries' silk exports is directly linked to the differential rates of decline in barriers to learning and transaction costs, which in turn were intimately associated with divergent political and economic changes taking place in Japan and China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Keywords:

• China
• Japan
• silk
• industrialization

JEL CLASSIFICATIONS:

• N15
• N65

Acknowledgements

This article benefited greatly from comments by and discussion with Claudio Zanier, Masayuki Tanimoto, Yukihiko Kiyokwa, Futoshi Yamauchi, Tetsushi Sonobe, Thomas Lindblad and Keijiro Otsuka. Funding from the Leadership Research grants of the Hitotsubashi University is gratefully acknowledged. The author alone is responsible for all errors.

Notes

1. Under the treaty system, steamships were allowed to ply the Yangzi river and the coast but not the inner rivers of canals. The government only compromised in 1889 by granting use of steamers in towing traditional boats (Suzuki, 1992, p. 347).

2. Sources for this narrative include two publications by the Historical Archives Committee of the Nanhai County, Political Consultative Committee of Guangdong Province, A Special Issue on Chen Qiyuan and Nanhai Textile Industry History (1987) and Cuanshanbu Zuanqi [Special Issue on Sericultural Manual by Chen Qiyuan] in 1994.

3. See Faure (1989) on the important role of lineage as a social and economic organization.