CHINESE URBAN SOCIETY'S RAPID CHANGE IN THE FACE OF RURAL STAGNATION

By George Lowe

Abstract

The author argues that in the first half of the 20th century, urban China changed rapidly whilst rural China stagnated in social and economic matters. The New Culture Movement had a profound effect on altering urban Chinese culture, characterized by its anti-traditional nature. In the cities, liberal feminist ideas and notions of individuality condemned the traditional conception of the family and popular religion came under attack. In the countryside, however, ideas such as these had a very limited impact, and where they did, were certainly much slower to penetrate. There was also stagnation in the rural areas at a social level, whereas urban society diversified, variegated social classes crystallized as a modern bourgeoisie, and an intelligentsia and a salaried proletariat emerged. Economically, the cities experienced rapid growth and increasing investment in industry and modern businesses, whereas rural areas saw stagnation, a lack of investment and even a decline in the 1930s. In addition, and connected with this dynamic urban growth, was a level of social dynamism in the cities not matched in the rural areas.

The first half of the 20th century saw many important changes which fundamentally altered the development of Chinese society and economy. However, it may be argued that virtually all these changes occurred in China’s rapidly growing urban areas, and that rural China stagnated somewhat in this period. By ‘urban’, the large, modernizing cities are meant, rather than every urban area in China which would include all the minor provincial cities and towns. In the cultural arena, the New Culture Movement had a profound effect on altering urban Chinese culture, characterized by its anti-traditional nature. Liberal feminist ideas and notions of individuality condemned the traditional conception of the family and popular religion came under attack; yet in the countryside, ideas such as these had a very limited impact, and where they did, were certainly much slower to penetrate. There was also stagnation in the rural areas at a social level, whereas urban society diversified, variegated social classes crystallized as a modern bourgeoisie, and an intelligentsia and a salaried proletariat emerged. The emergence of a bourgeoisie was partly linked with increased investment in the industrial and service sectors in the cities, which saw economic growth and re-structuring in the decade during and after the First World War, which has been termed the “golden age of Chinese capitalism” (Bergere). However, rural China saw no equivalent growth or development, with contemporary sociologists and economic historians pointing to the immiseration (the process by which the average income of the majority of peasantry is dropping to, or below, subsistence level) of the peasantry in the 1930s. Whilst one must be careful not to extrapolate these findings to the whole first half of the 20th century, there is no doubt that economic conditions in rural China were not improving in the way that they were in the cities. Whilst we must qualify this urban growth and development with an appreciation that many of the touted benefits of a modern culture and economy in the cities did not reach the majority of those living there. There is a striking dichotomy when one contrasts the developments in these areas with the stagnation of rural China.

Turning first to the economic facet of development, the cities experienced rapid growth and increasing investment in industry and modern businesses, whereas rural areas saw stagnation, a lack of investment and even a decline in the 1930s. The beginning of this urban economic expansion was a result of the First World War, which led to a withdrawal of Europeans as the War occupied their attention. This in turn allowed native business interests to assume greater control of, and increase investment in, China’s growing industrial base (Bergere). Another beneficial impact of the War, and reconstruction that followed, was a rise in world demand for primary goods that China was well placed to satisfy. Thus exports grew and diversified, whilst imports grew more slowly, in the years after the First World War. However, this growth was largely reflective of an “upsurge of modern businesses in the coastal cities” which constituted the “most striking aspect” of economic development in the post-war period (Bergere). The growth rate of the modern industries was 13.8% from 1912-1920, and of 120 modern cotton spinning mills listed in 1928, 47 were built between 1920-22 (Bergere), showing an intensification of growth and investment in this period. Food, tobacco and cigarette production also grew rapidly and though the growth in the heavy industries was slower, it was also evident, particularly in Shanghai and Tianjin.

In contrast, throughout the period, there was at best a stagnation, and at worst, a decline in economic conditions in rural China. This has been attributed to the growth in influence on the world market on Chinese farming, the exploitation by the landlords, overpopulation, and the primitive state of farming technology (Spence). What may be seen as the fundamental root of this problem of a lack of development, was a lack of investment in the agricultural sector which effectively constituted the rural Chinese economy. This can be seen as partly due to the political fragmentation and chronic violence experienced by China during the Warlord Era. This engendered a climate of insecurity and fear of future violence or pillaging from the various armies and bandit groups active at this time, which dissuaded farmers and capitalists from making investments in the rural interior areas (Eastman). For example planned railroads (a crucial aspect of commercializing and developing the agricultural sector) were cancelled, and wealthy landlords sent surplus capital to the more secure treaty ports, where investment in the new industries or simply deposits in the new banks offered a larger, quicker, more secure return (Eastman). Eastman states that this drain of national wealth out of the countryside was responsible for “depressing the rural areas and skewing the nation’s financial and industrial development in favour of the foreign- domination cities along the Eastern Seaboard.” Mao Zedong’s report from Xunwu provides first-hand support for this thesis, as he describes that warlords would exact extra levies on those landlords investing and lending capital (as it demonstrates their possession of surplus capital) and that “these levies encouraged landlords to hide their money in cellars” (Thompson). Mao also seems to point to a mentality of non- investment amongst especially the larger landlords when describing heir attitudes to production, claiming that their “purpose is not to improve production methods or increase productivity. You cannot get rich on this.” (Thompson). This would certainly have contributed to the problem of a lack of investment. In an analysis of a Japanese study of Michang Village in Hebei Province, 1937 (its findings reproduced in Spence), we can see that the productivity of farms did not increase with farm size, and farm income. In order of decreasing farm size, the output for the ‘Managerial Farmer’ was 16.5 Yuan per mou (a land measurement unit), that of a ‘Rich Peasant’ was 18.6 Yuan per mou and the figures for a ‘Middle Peasant’ and a ‘Poor Peasant’ respectively were 15.1 and 18 Yuan per mou. This clearly shows a lack of investment and innovation from those of a higher social stratum who could afford the readily available machinery and draft animals. This was due to overpopulation and underemployment in the rural areas, implying an abundance of cheap labour, which meant there was little incentive for investment and mechanization. This significantly contributed to the rural economical stagnation of the period, (though Eastman has warned that a decline or immiseration of the peasantry was a “myth” before the 1930s) which was in stark contrast to the dynamic development of China’s urban areas in the first half of the 20th century.

In addition, and connected with this dynamic urban growth, was a level of social dynamism in the cities not matched in the rural areas. Whereas Mao was able to talk of rigid social categories in 1920s Xunwu as if they were perpetually constant (Thompson), the same period in the cities saw the emergence of a “true modern bourgeoisie” which was “directly linked to industrial production and exploitation of a salaried work-force” (Bergere), a modern intelligentsia and a proletariat. Whilst there had been an urban elite for centuries in China’s early cities, the crystallization of a bourgeoisie and intelligentsia (those such as Hu Shih and Cai Yuanpei), with all three groups broadly aligned in “a lively coalition which borrowed from the former [old urban elite] their social stability and from the latter their spirit of innovation and initiative”, was an important development in urban China and showed its social dynamism in contrast to stagnation of rural areas, in which the landlords continued to dominate the peasants as they have done for centuries.

Furthermore, cultural change occurred much more rapidly and significantly in China’s urban areas than it did in the countryside. This is evident in the religious sphere (which saw attacks on popular religion through the period) where an “anti-religious tempest” (Eastman) had been blowing since late Qing administrations ordered the temples to be taken over to finance and house new local institutions such as police departments, public offices and schools. The New Culture Movement, with its anti-traditionalism, continued these trends and even the Nationalist Government attacked traditional forms of worship, including local temples and the burning of incense (Eastman). Eastman cites urban intellectuals as the first to be affected by these “secularising trends”, but by the 1930s urban craft guilds were ignoring their patron deities (which had been an important part of their formation) and the religious processions they had encouraged in cities was dying out. These may have been replaced in part by more political demonstrations and strikes, those organized by labour unions with zero religious affiliation and background. In contrast, in rural Xunwu county in 1930, Mao talks of “community shrines” and how “every village has one”, which is “to ensure that their crops are not devoured by insects and that their livestock do no get sick, and to ensure the health of the people” (Thompson). We can infer from this the continued importance of popular religion, and its resilience in the face of the aforementioned assault, in the rural areas of China, which supports the idea that such trends did not penetrate rapidly or deeply into rural China, and is evidence of rural stagnation in the face of rapid change in the cities.

Furthermore, the issue of women’s emancipation and the breakdown of the system of arranged marriages and, more generally, of absolute filial piety within the family, developed much more rapidly in the cities. Zhu Su’e’s story provides a useful anecdote for explicating this contrast. Her father sent her to school in the small provincial city of Changzhou (which was in a rural area and displayed certain rural social and economic characteristics), which did have a tradition of female education (Wang). Her story shows how ideas of equal education were being disseminated gradually from the treaty port urban areas. However, the social climate of Changzhou was fairly conservative and had been little affected by the rapid developments on the issue of women’s emancipation seen in Shanghai and other major cities. Thus, when her mother fell ill, Zhu was expected to drop out of school and perform her duty as a daughter and look after her mother. Rather than accept this and be “aware of the limitations of a small city and of the opportunities in a big city” (Wang), Zhu left home and travelled to Shanghai to attend a boarding school. Her older sister remained in Changzhou and was soon forced into an arranged marriage she opposed, whereas Zhu was , in her own words, able to “pick and choose” a man and married at the age of 29 (much later than what was common in traditional Chinese society), having qualified as an attorney and thus able to live an independent life within both the domestic and public spheres (Wang). Zhu’s father had had to force her older sister into an arranged marriage which would have made her an outcast in society had she broken it off, whereas in Shanghai it was acceptable, even seen as a badge of modernity (Wang), for young men and women to break off their oppressive, arranged marriages. This displays the extent to which a particular urban society (particularly treaty port cities) had been influence by modern ideas and had diverged culturally not just from the stagnant rural areas but also the minor urban areas dotted around the countryside.

Nevertheless, we must qualify this picture of unrelenting, rapid urban development in economic and social matters. Even in Shanghai, arguably China’s most modern and rapidly developing city with new electric, gas and telephone networks, the majority of people lived and spent most of their lives in the distinctive “alleyway-house neighborhoods” (Hanchao) which shared certain characteristics with rural areas. One such characteristic was the widespread lack of sanitary fixtures in these areas and thus the necessitated use of the “simple wooden night- stool” which was the same as that of “any remote hinterland village” (Hanchao). These ‘nightstools’ were collected by ‘the night-soil man’ every morning in a cart, who was employed by the Shanghai Municipal Council, showing at least a level of infrastructure extending to these poorer sections of the city’s population. Another fact emphasizing the gap between rural and urban developments to come out of the study of this practice is the markedly higher quality of diet even these poor urban people had in comparison to the poor peasants in rural China. The ‘night soil’ was sold off to farmers for fertilizer, a common practice in China, and that coming from Shanghai was labelled so and considered superior fertiliser due to the rich diets of its suppliers. This can be corroborated by evidence from rural areas, such as in Hebei where a farm labourer recalls, “boiled millet” in nearly every meal, and another in Shandong citing the same fact but with sweet potatoes (Spence). Furthermore, even in these ‘alleyway-house neighbourhoods’ there was a diverse range of food available from peddlers, as Lu Xun recounted (he lived his final years in one) “probably 20 to 30 hawkers of edibles who came to these alleyways” and that “residents were really good at spending their pocket money and having between-meal snacks, for they often gave the peddlers some business” (Hanchao). Puluo (proletariat) restaurants and sesame cake stores opened in these quarters, showing that certain luxuries and the commercialization of society spread to even these poor areas of Shanghai. This was in stark contrast to the monotony of diet experienced by the mass of poor peasants in rural China, some of whom would have considered food sufficiency a luxury.

In conclusion, it is fair to argue that urban China changed rapidly whilst rural China stagnated in social and economic matters. China’s cities were culturally, socially and economically more advanced and dynamic than its rural areas relative to the characteristics of each measure in the late Qing period. The simple fact that that there was huge migration to the cities and accelerated urbanization even in the early period, during the First World War, points to opportunity in the city and a lack of it in the countryside. The provincial capital of Shandong, Jinan, experienced an annual growth rate from 1914- 1919 of 3% whereas in the rest of the province it was 1%, and this was a pattern repeated all across China. The fact that this was not during a period of great famine or hardship or civil unrest in the rural areas demonstrates that it was the attraction of the city that drew this migration (Bergere). There was opportunity for both rich and poor alike in China’s dynamic cities of the early 20th century, whereas there was little opportunity to be had in the vast, stagnant rural areas.

References

Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China. 2nd ed. New York: 1999. Print.

Thompson, Roger, trans. Report from Xunwu. Stanford, 1990. Print. Wang, Zheng. Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories. Berkeley, 1999. Print. Eastman, Lloyd. Family, Fields and Ancestors: Continuity and Change in Chinese

Economic History, 1550–1949 . Oxford, 1988. Print. Lu, Hanchao . Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century. Berkeley, 1999. Print.

Bergere, Marie-Claire. “The Chinese Bourgeoisie.”Cambridge History of China. Ed. John K. Fairbank Cambridge, 1976. Print.