Abstract
This chapter will examine a range of factors explaining changes in Sino-British trade in 1950–54. The first section will assess and explain the PRC’s attitude towards trade with Britain. It will examine CCP thinking on economic development and explore the dynamics of Sino-Soviet bloc economic relations. The second section will assess how British businessmen and the state organised trade with China. As previous chapters have dealt with the imposition of the economic embargo on China, this one will concentrate on the responses of businessmen and the state to Chinese attempts to break the embargo in 1952 and 1953, an interesting development because new merchants and industrialists emerged who were willing to challenge the dominance of the ‘China Association’ group of traders. The chapter will begin with a look at statistical trends in Sino-British trade.
A trade not so much subject to the commercial principles of supply and demand but subordinate to political considerations and restrictions necessitated by national economic causes.
Mr E.H. Stewart, Manchester Chamber of Commerce1
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Notes
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Monthly Record, vol. LXIV, 1953, p. 1.
See Feng-hwa Mah, The Foreign Trade of Mainland China, Edinburgh 1972, p. 16.
For a breakdown of the pre-1978 Chinese trading system see Nicholas Lardy, Foreign Trade and Economic Reform in China, 1978–1990, Cambridge 1992, chapter 2.
Zhou Enlai, Selected Works, vol. II, Beijing 1989, p. 20.
Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945–49, Berkeley, Los Angeles 1978, pp. 372–3.
See J. Wilczynski, The Economics and Politics of East-West Trade: A Study Between Developed Market Economies and Centrally Planned Economies in a Changing World, London 1969, p. 61.
See Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation, New York 1994, pp. 33–64.
See Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War, Stanford, Calif. 1993, doc. 21, p. 240.
Yeh Chi-chuang, ‘Three Years of China’s Foreign Trade’, in New China’s Economic Achievements, 1949–52, compiled by China Committee for the Promotion of International Trade, Peking 1952, p. 242.
A conclusion also reached by James Tang, Britain’s Encounter with Revolutionary China, 1949–54, London 1992, p. 158 and
Wenguang Shao, China, Britain and Businessmen: Political and Commercial Relations, 1949–57, London 1991, p. 128.
Alexander Eckstein, Communist China’s Economic Growth and Foreign Trade: Implications for U.S. Policy, New York 1966, pp. 139–41.
See Carl Riskin, China’s Political Economy: The Quest for Development since 1949, Oxford 1987, pp. 73–4 and
Frank King, A Concise Economic History of Modern China, 1840–61, Hong Kong 1969, p. 179
For CPG policy towards the national minorities see T. Heberer, China and its National Minorities, New York 1989 and
J.T. Dreyer, China’s Forty Millions: Minority Nationalities and National Integration in the Peoples’ Republic of China, Cambridge, Mass. 1976.
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Monthly Record, vol. LXIV, 1953, p. 1.
See P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Crisis and Deconstruction, 1914–1990, London 1993.
See F.D. Holzman, International Trade under Communism — Politics and Economics, London 1976, pp. 137–8 and Wilczynski, 1969, pp. 52, 285.
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© 1997 David Clayton
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Clayton, D. (1997). A Most Unfavoured Trading Nation: China, 1950–54. In: Imperialism Revisited. Studies in Military and Strategic History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-13829-6_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-13829-6_8
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