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The China tea trade was a paradox of global capitalism
- iunternik 6y agoFascinating. It seems like the British people thirst helped China rise.
- beaunative 6y agoand its demise
- Synaesthesia 6y agoI would say the British and the West in general suppressed China for over a century and it only started to rise after attaining independence in 1947
- seanmcdirmid 6y agoChina did not gain its independence in 1947. China has never been run by a foreign country (though the Japanese came the closest by occupying large parts of it during WW2).
- heavenlyblue 6y agoWould you say the same about East Germany (GDR)?
- rypskar 6y agoThing you are forgetting about the Mongols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_China
- seanmcdirmid 6y agoWell, in that case the Qing (Manchurians) themselves would be consider foreign conquerors, the ones in control of China during the 1800s. Ghengis Khan was also born in what is today Inner Mongolia of the PRC. After some time, it doesn’t make much sense to think about what it is to be under occupation by a foreign invader or not.
- Synaesthesia 6y agoChina was largely colonised and occupied by western powers for about a century leading up to 1947.
- seanmcdirmid 6y agoIt wasn’t. A few coastal cities were colonized (HK, Dalian, Qingdao, Xiamen, Tianjin, Shanghai), but China is huge and that went nowhere near the qualification for “largely”. Also, in all of these cases, only parts of the cities were considered concessions (eg an island of Xiamen), not the entire city.
- magicsmoke 6y agoI'd say the Qing dynasty played a bigger role in suppressing China. An interesting comparison in East Asia is how Japan and China responded to European colonialism. Japan quickly modernized its society after overthrowing the Tokugawa shogunate during the Meiji revolution and became an industrialized nation-state in a few decades. Qing China dragged its feet on industrialization and spent a lot of its energy on political intrigue between reformers and conservatives, wasting valuable decades until it was too late. Most people think of the first Opium war as the start of Qing China's decline, but I'd say the real crippling blow was the Taiping rebellion that came a few years afterwards. The Taiping rebellion revealed the biggest flaw that was crippling Qing China's political system, that it was had a monarchy made of an ethnic minority Manchus ruling a majority Han nation. The Manchu nobility only survived the Taiping rebellion by negotiating with conservative Han warlords and using them to recruit enough Han soldiers to put down the other Han rebels, but after the Taiping rebellion the Qing dynasty had no good options. If you modernize too quickly, you take away the privileges of those conservative warlords and risk having them support another rebellion with the majority of the population. If you modernize slowly or not at all, you get to keep playing the game for a few more decades until Japan overtakes you. Compare that to Japan's experience with the Meiji restoration. They quickly overthrew the conservative Tokugawa shogunate, then eliminated the remaining conservative factions by crushing the Satsuma Rebellion. Then Japan could continue with industrialization without worrying about the resulting political instability that could result from conservative power structures being uprooted by modernization.
- closeparen 6y agoIs Colombia suppressing the United States? Should we double down on the drug war to win our independence?
- jbay808 6y agoIf Colombia responded by carpet bombing American port cities into submission, then it would be a fair comparison. That said, it's possible that the opium wars get too much credit for China's weakened position, relative to the Taiping Rebellion (Chinese civil war) which claimed around 20 million lives, comparable to the first world war. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion
- joshuaissac 6y agoColombia is not invading the United States to force it to legalise recreational drug imports, so no, it is not suppressing the US. There is no parallel in this case with what happened between China and the UK.
- alextheparrot 6y agoA lot of the British global trade advantage came from transport and logistics advantages — growing opium in India, moving that to China, tea being transported back to Europe. Alongside this, a strong navy to ensure the safety of shipping routes. The quantity and value of resources they extracted during that time really are staggering. A similar logistic marvel was the transport of ice from North America and Europe — this wasn’t a business where industrial scale was the primary complexity, but a challenge of supply-chain construction in an age without local refrigeration and cooling. The article’s joining of “capitalism” and “industrialisation” is, in my opinion, a narrowing of reality that naively ignores all the other contexts in which capitalism has been quite successful. Large ships are capital intensive, mercantilism in general has been a long-term, capital intensive business far longer than industry has been.
- paleotrope 6y agoIf you don't tightly link an idea of capitalism to an idea of industrialism you can't write an article that says there is a paradox involved somewhere.
- Synaesthesia 6y agoThe biggest advantage was their military success IMO, capturing India, the Middle East, areas all over the world ... taking on China. The violence was completely necessary because as the article said, because without force "The British could offer little in return that Chinese merchants wanted to buy."
- alextheparrot 6y agoJust to riff off this a bit more, it got me thinking along the thought “What if machines of war are really the greatest investment of capital”. I think there is at least the seed of something to explore there, though the tools of war have traditionally been expensive irrespective of system (A uniform in the 1800s was orders of magnitude more expensive than today’s variety, for example).
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- pjc50 6y agoThe word this article is looking for and not mentioned is Taylorism - the Western codification of time-motion study as a means to improving efficiency. Not that Taylor invented it, obviously; the pressure to produce more in a time period is inherent in piece-work and contract agricultural labour. It does raise a good question as to what exactly was meant by "capitalism". All the freely-optimising workers mentioned in the story definitely existed within a more feudal system of land management. I'm pleased that it mentioned the Opium War, even in passing.
- rado 6y agoIronically, US' biggest export to China before 2018 was soybeans, which they "appropriated" from the Middle Kingdom in 18 AD. And yes, farming was subsidized by Washington.
- pradn 6y ago18 AD? 2000 years ago? Do you mean 1800 AD?
- empath75 6y agoThe US did what in 18AD?
- fnord123 6y agoIt's a common grammatical error for temporal typical people. Time travellers would have said "The US will have appropriateded in the 1800/18 fold". Not to be confused with 2036/2000 fold.
- clairity 6y agohow did the US, which didn't exist until 1776 AD, appropriate the soybean from china in 18 AD? but yes, it's unclear if soybeans are still the top export from the US to china, but china is apparently still the top export destination for american soybeans.
- netcan 6y agoIf we think of capitalism in the 18th century... it's worth remembering that this the canonical "Capitalism." That is, it is what Marx was describing (and deriding) as he popularised the concept of "capitalism." It's also the world of trade that Ricardo described, and his concepts are still at the core of trade economics today. The Dutch British Empires started as companies. Nationally backed, but shareholder owned and employee run. In any case, the lynchpin to all this trade had to be something that had value at home.. where the ships ultimately returned. The Spanish and other empires before the Dutch & British sought gold directly. Steal it, Buy it, Mine it... Doesn't matter. This was, broadly "mercantilism." Get Gold. Bring it Home. Adam Smith noted a century earlier that this wouldn't work. Gold has no inherent value. I think Smith was wrong on the margin, but right on the bigger point. The gold did have value. Kings could use it to raise armies, for example. The Spanish monarchy was always trying to fill its war chest. But, gold didn't fuel a trading cycle. Consumer goods & industrial materials did. Anyway... my point is that whatever happened in between leaving London ports and returning, they were returning with goods... not gold. They may have been trading gunpowder for slaves, to be sold in the colonies and exchanged for cotton. They may have traded for spices in India. When the ships returned, they returned with goods. Tea & spices were luxury goods, that beneficiaries of the empire could enjoy. This is important, because it balanced consumption with revenue and created a cycle. Tea sippers had money because they owned shares. Revenue flowed to The Company from tea sipper. The Company used that revenue to keep bringing tea (also cotton & indigo for the mills and other luxury goods like spices). The market was secured (to an extent) by rising share values. When a spanish ship returned with gold, someone had gold, probably the king, probably for war. When a British ship returned, someone paid gold for tea, to The Company, to fund more trade.
- teruakohatu 6y agoThe gold they brought back was also inflationary as soon as the King started spending it (although pretty low inflation compared to what we tolerate today).
- burpsnard 6y agoIIRC the chinese were exporting tea, oranges and porcelain to Europe in exchange for silver. Early/mid 19C, with metal-backed currencies, as most of the circulating Silver had ended up there, it was deemed necessary to reverse that flow. The Opium wars began, to get all the silver back. I think westerners underappreciate the salience of these events in the chinese worldview. And which Colony was established by treaty with the chinese defeat ? Hong Kong. https://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/trading/story/trade/4tradingplaces.html https://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/trading/story/trade/4...
- gumby 6y agoWhat a great article. In particular I like that in the middle it provides an excellent example of how Marxist theory and vocabulary is deeply steeped* in the Victorian capitalist vocabulary of the industrial revolution and how that model of thinking still affects us today. Specifically, on HN and the press in general, despite the discussion of “tech” business, the vast majority of businesses are mostly or completely low tech in their operation. I have a quibble with the headline writer (which actually relates to the above): that capitalism didn’t arise without “factories”: as the article shows, the tea production process would have been perfectly clear to Adam Smith. It was simply low tech (and the article is quite clear about this). In addition, though “factory” today means manufacturing, in the early days of European empires, the “factory” was the warehouse where goods were stored and financed (factoring accounts receivable is still common today). The factories of the Bombay Presidency were the first effective toehold of British expansion into India. Over time value add (labor/processing) crept into those warehouses as the goods were already there, leading to today’s meaning. The author seems to understand this so it’s only whoever wrote the headline that I am criticizing. * apologies for the accidental tea metaphor
- detritus 6y agoThere was a good link to another Aeon article posted here on HN last year about the role a silver-rich Bolivian mountain played in the Chinese tea trade... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20582387 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20582387 - ed Might help if I posted the right URL! https://aeon.co/essays/potosi-the-mountain-of-silver-that-was-the-first-global-city https://aeon.co/essays/potosi-the-mountain-of-silver-that-wa...
- andarleen 6y ago"The Chinese tea trade actually represented China’s entry point into global capitalism." - what about the silk road?
- mytailorisrich 6y ago"Global capitalism" means the Western international order. The silk road was not Western, but represented (or real or mythical) a time a Asian (China to Middle East) golden age. There's a reason that "Belt and Road" is presented as building a new silk road.
- andarleen 6y agoWell yes, and that's the issue. Capitalism was there in a basic form way before the western international order. Worth reading on it.
- BurningFrog 6y agoThe Silk Road was a very important trade route, but I hesitate to call it capitalist. To me, free market capitalism was invented in the 1700s, and is what sparked the Industrial Revolution, which is still going on.
- jbay808 6y agoI came here to say the same thing. The article implies a definition that is not a "Western world order" but rather globalized trade: > The Chinese tea trade actually represented China’s entry point into global capitalism. Tea was traded, directly and indirectly, for Patna opium, Peruvian silver, Caribbean sugar, English textiles and Burmese rice. I think silk would qualify, over a thousand years prior, and being traded at least as far as the Roman Empire.
- alextheparrot 6y agoI previously read “Imperial Twilight” which examines the historical context that led up to the Opium Wars. Given it was recommended to me on HN, I’ll pass on the recommendation in kind for anyone wishing to learn more about some of the context surrounding this. Really a quite different world with respect to power balances and, as has been noted in this thread, a cornerstone of the Chinese worldview.
- clairity 6y agothe interesting tidbit from the article related to this: "The lopsided British victory in the first Opium War (1839-42) inaugurated what is known today in China as the ‘century of humiliation’.... Only with the rise and victory of the Communist Party in 1949, the nationalist lore goes, could the original shame of military defeat and colonialism be redeemed." so in effect, british imperialism, through a coerced opium trade, pushed china from capitalism to communism.
- keiferski 6y agoYou’re missing the Chinese Civil War, which started in the 20s and didn’t conclude until after WW2.
- clairity 6y agono, that's part of the cascade of events.
- keiferski 6y agoThis seems like an opportune time to quote Billions (from the episode two weeks ago): "...and he did, because you did, because his parents, and your parents, because America, because England, because ancient Rome, because primordial ooze."
- mrcorona 6y agoIs this quote about the foreign criminal activity in China?
- gridlockd 6y agoThere's no paradox. Capitalism predates industrialization by hundreds of years. You can have one without the other. I'd argue that if you really want industrialization and you want it quick, capitalism will only slow you down.
- keiferski 6y agoCapitalism is an economic system. Industrialization is a production method. In historical narratives, they are usually correlated, as they occurred near-simultaneously, but in fact they aren’t the same thing.
- joyj2nd 6y agoThey are basically the same thing since capitalism requires industrialization and the pre-financing (read debt based) of production methods on a giant scale. You seem to mistake a market economy with capitalism, which are not the same thing. In the middle ages we had a barter economy and more or less a market economy. Nevertheless we dd not have capitalism.
- alextheparrot 6y agoThe counter-example to this I’ve historically used is that great merchants and explorers were often taking on loans or loan—like contracts to finance their trade and exploration. This seems like a place where capital requirements and devices are useful in abstract of industrial systems. The Medici Bank is probably the easiest reference point to draw on, as a financing organisation as early as the 1400s. Which pieces of the system described above don’t match up with capitalism?
- joyj2nd 6y agoScale and per-financiation of industrial production that requires economic growth to pay back loans (that are actually paid back with future loans). Economic growth was also likely close to zero due to lack of energy resources. With no expected future growth you won't make any investments that bet on future growth. Capitalism also requires an external energy source like coal, gas, possibly nuclear since economic growth and wealth needs energy to be sustained. I have a paper about it, which calculates it in mW per dollar growth and mW per Dollar of wealth. Edit: With me "having a paper" I mean on my data collection. It was not published by me.
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- aristophenes 6y agoUnrelated to the point of the article, but in the picture at the top look at the third woman from the left's feet. Grotesquely bound, I can't imagine the pain and what they looked like with the bindings removed. Could she walk? And her and the woman next to her are displaying their hands in a strange way, I wonder if long slender fingers were appealing?
- 1_player 6y ago> Grotesquely bound, I can't imagine the pain and what they looked like with the bindings removed I wanted to link the Wikipedia page for Chinese foot binding, but last time I googled that my stomach turned by how disgusting bound feet look, to me at least. You will have to do the research yourself, sorry. It's incredible how physical attractiveness is mostly a product of its time and culture.
- hogFeast 6y agoThe article is not good. It is not terrible either but it seems a little like the author is shoehorning in their preconceptions about what they think historians believe about China. But, there is no lack of study into China pre-Industrial Revolution or the period mentioned by the author. This was maybe true when Landes was writing (the author picks the leading culprit of Eurocentric economic history...this is somewhat inaccurate, Landes just didn't know much about China but his books are valuable) but isn't true anymore. There is a huge volume of books comparing China and Europe: Pomeranz is probably the best, there are many others. Many of these also look at India...Tirthankar Roy has some great stuff on Indian business history but India is also in Pomeranz (Great Divergence is by far the most important book here...it is huge). So yeah: I would say that what the field is lacking a good bottom up history of Chinese business (say pre-1900) but documentation is tricky and there is a fairly complete top-down understanding of capitalism/how people worked/etc. anyway. And just generally, I would actually say that most economic historians that look at this period don't actually look at Europe at all anymore...they almost solely focus on the integration of hinterlands into the capitalist global economy (I studied economic history in the UK...I did precisely no courses on UK/European economic history...in this period: Australia, the US, China, Caribbean/early US colonial...and all looking at the interactions that the author alludes too...talking about Eurocentrism is largely an anthropology student's meme of history students at this point) which was the most interesting trend in the period.