The Century of (Dis)connection: The Grand Canal and Spatial Transformation in Northern Jiangsu, 1850-1950
Historical developments can significantly influence current realities. In this lecture, Mingran Cao explores how the decline of China's Grand Canal and coastal transformations in northern Jiangsu Province shifted the region from salt production to cotton cultivation. This analysis uncovers the paradox of growing global integration alongside persistent local (dis)connections in 19th and 20th-century China.
The lecture will take place from 12:30 - 14:00 CET (Amsterdam time).
You can attend online or in person in the IIAS conference room. We will serve lunch for in-person attendees who register at least 2 days in advance. Registration is also required to obtain the Zoom link for online attendance.
The Lecture
Throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, the northern region of Jiangsu province acted as a critical gateway along the Grand Canal, China's epic integrated infrastructure system facilitating economic activity between the north and south.
By the mid-19th century, however, a series of political and environmental crises had severely disrupted the canal system, eventually leading to the Qing dynasty court abandoning the Grand Canal. This decision had devastating consequences for the northern Jiangsu regional economy and social fabric. For example, the cities of Yangzhou (once a national consumption hub) and Huai'an (formerly the canal system's 'command centre') experienced fatal declines.
At the same time, the coastal areas of northern Jiangsu - comprising modern-day Nantong, Yancheng, and Lianyungang - encountered new opportunities to break away from the declining trading network centred in Yangzhou and Huai'an. These areas became increasingly integrated into Shanghai's expanding global capitalist network. Historically, the northern coast of Jiangsu served as a salt production area for Yangzhou's salt traders. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the region shifted significantly from salt production to cotton farming, now supplying raw materials to the cotton mills in Shanghai and surrounding industrial cities.
Mingran Cao argues that infrastructural systems and industrial policies played pivotal roles in shaping spatial (dis)connections in modern China. He also highlights that while the late 19th and early 20th centuries marked an era of increasing global integration, they simultaneously witnessed persistent disconnections among spaces.
The Speaker
Mingran Cao is a PhD candidate at Leiden University's Institute for Area Studies. He obtained his MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History at Cambridge University and his BA in International Affairs and Political Science from George Washington University and the London School of Economics. His PhD project is titled 'An Experiment in Self-Governance: Cotton Plantations in Coastal Jiangsu, 1895-1950.' His project studies cotton plantations in coastal Jiangsu from the 1890s to the 1950s. It examines how the land reclamation companies, which founded and managed the cotton plantations, negotiated with state, society, and environment, and how they mobilized global currents of knowledge and technology. The project delves into the rise and fall of cotton plantations in coastal Jiangsu, an economic nationalist project to enhance the domestic supply of raw cotton, in order to understand capitalism in early-twentieth-century China from a global perspective.
Publications
Cao, Mingran and Hanzhi Dai. “Interview with Danielle Burton: Richard Arkwright and His Hidden World of Industrial Revolution [理查德·阿克莱特与他隐秘的工业革命世界],” The Paper (Pengpai News 澎湃新闻), 22 November 2024. https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_28998709
Cao, Mingran. Review of The Master in Bondage: Factory Workers in China, 1949–2019, by Huaiyin Li, European Journal of East Asian Studies 23, 1 (2024): 109-111, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/15700615-02301002