The United States and Europe have been at the forefront of the Industrial Revolutions over the last two and a half centuries. Almost all Asian countries, except Japan, were latecomers to these revolutions. The First Industrial Revolution began in Britain with the invention of weaving machines, most famously the spinning jenny, in for the textile industry and expanded through other transformative inventions such as the steam engine, railroads, and machine tools.
The British also dominated trade with China through their control of ports in Singapore and Hong Kong. The Second Industrial Revolution took place in Europe and the United States between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. New inventions, including the use of interchangeable parts, the Bessemer steel production process, and the assembly line for mass production, helped significantly increase manufacturing output and production systems.
Japan was a latecomer to the First Industrial Revolution and much more of a player in the second. During the Meiji period — , the Japanese government eventually created stateled capitalism, assisting industrial and business growth in a variety of ways.
By the early twentieth century, Japan, in addition to becoming an imperial power that controlled what is now Taiwan, as well as Korea, was creating a substantial industrial sector. New manufacturing techniques, such as assembly lines, and other scientific management procedures were introduced in factories, and the nation experienced financial growth and prosperity. The development of digital computing, personal computing, and the internet catalyzed the Third Industrial Revolution.
Japan successfully rebuilt its economy so that its world GDP rank grew from fifth place in to second place in More multinational companies MNCs moved to Asian countries—basing manufacturing operations within Asia, where labor and material costs were significantly lower.
It created opportunities for China, India, and other Asian nations to collaborate and share knowledge with companies and governments from developed countries and improve their own industries.
Taiwan began the process of rebuilding its economy after World War II. In the s, Taiwan embraced advanced technologies such as microelectronics and personal computers. After its independence, the Indian government adopted a socialist and protectionist path, but in , after decades of poor economic performance, government policymakers initiated market competition and globalization. The policy shift incentivized private business and industry to substantially increase production of goods and services.
International institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund IMF , along with wealthier nations like Japan and the United States, provided much-needed financial investment and technological knowledge, too. The Fourth Industrial Revolution began roughly at the turn of the twenty- first century see Figure 3. According to Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, the Fourth Industrial Revolution grew out of the third; however, it is not a continuation—the speed and the pervasiveness of the technological breakthroughs make this revolution quite distinct.
Automation and connectivity are the two main characteristics of this revolution that are being advanced by many disruptive technological innovations, such as artificial intelligence AI , big data, internet of things IoT , robotics, and many more.
These are creating a tremendous impact worldwide on how we live and work. In , the US National Science Foundation was working closely with multiple federal government agencies to identify basic CPS research directions common to these sectors that have various applications, along with rich opportunities for accelerated practical use.
By the end of the Third Industrial Revolution, Japan, China, India, and other Asian countries had successfully transformed their industries and economies. Similarly, according to a report from the World Economic Forum, China had 4.
The culture of entrepreneurship has been one of the main reasons for the Western world to be in the forefront of the Industrial Revolutions. Silicon Valley is an excellent example of a startup hot spot in the USA. However, startup formation in the USA has fallen 36 percent since the beginning of the twenty-first century, whereas it has proliferated in Asia, particularly in China—more than 10, new businesses are starting every day; that is equivalent to almost seven Chinese startup companies born every minute!
China today leads the US in key technology sectors such as mobile payment and is increasingly competitive in advanced microchip, artificial intelligence, and other next-generation technologies. One of the essential technologies that has been contributing to the growth of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is the application and advancement of AI. Much of the progress is due to the fast growth in computer processing power, availability of more extensive data sets, and advancement of the fundamental algorithms for machine learning.
For example, IBM, Facebook, Google, and other companies are at the forefront of experimenting with machine learning techniques such as deep learning and predictive learning. Those interactions through market are related to the "small-scale economic organizations", "cell-like or reticular economic organization" Myers and Wang, p, Other important handicrafts were sugarcane and sugar processing, sericulture and silk processing - the "scale of this silk handicraft industry was enormous" p.
Salt was the subject of "hybrid economic organizations", as there was a Ching state monopoly of this good, the "third most important marketed commodity" p. The market economy, in , involved 20, market towns p. Marketing and social structure in rural China - Part I. The Journal of Asian Studies, v.
The "imperial state made revitalizing agriculture its highest priority" Myers and Wang, p. The interactions between the "imperial state" and the market economy were important, as "the imperial policies modulating the market economy enabled rice prices to continue their smooth, slow growth during the eighteenth century".
An economic articulation that answered to the new issues and demands between and "whether in agriculture, handicrafts, or services, Chinese accommodated for scarcities of any vital inputs by using more labor, the final feature of the Chinese economy's expansion during our period" p.
This flexibility included a capability to respond to foreign demand. Trade between Canton and Europe grew at a rate of 4 percent a year between and Such foreign trade helped connect China's interior markets to its costal city ports, providing additional demand for domestic producers" p.
What was the Chinese economy like at the beginning of the XIXth century? This triadic economic system favored labor-intensive and land-saving methods for implementing modest technological change". Therefore, in the first half of the XIXth century the Chinese economy and its position in the global context were part of a framework in which the British economy had deficits.
The British view of Chinese civilization and the emergence of class consciousness. Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, v. The Chinese were, at that period, pretty much in the same state in which they still are; and in which they are likely to continue. Economic trends in the late Ching Empire, The pattern of Chinese past. Stanford: Stanford University Press, The size, wealth and past achievements of Chinese society help us understand China's self-perception of her global position in early nineteenth century.
Chinese elite thought that this message was enough to keep away that distant and barbarian nation from the Chinese coast. Hao and Wang mention "sinocentrism" and "Chinese superiority" p. After Tamerlane: the rise and fall of Global Empires, Changing Chinese views of Western relations, Only after between the literati was there interest "in world geography" and "towards obtaining knowledge of the unknown Western world" Hao and Wang, , p.
The Empire project: the rise and fall of the British World-System, One "notable feature of this commercial expansion Among those sources of expansion, Darwin indicates "[a]bove all, by the s, with the arrival of power-weaving, the British could undercut competition across the whole range of cotton manufactures the most widely traded commodity , and break in new markets with products as much as two hundred times cheaper than the local supply" , p.
This transformation affected China also, as until "England purchased more nankeens Every region of the world was pressed to change its role in this new international division - even nations that were suppliers of mineral and agricultural products had new demands to fulfill and introduced new products, with a consequent new composition of their foreign trade. In this position of a leading nation of the "octopus power", British merchant houses were distributed globally 1, houses in late , 1, abroad p.
The bases of Chinese foreign policy were anachronistic, especially because they were suited to a pre-industrial age: "Once foreign merchants had come just for Chinese goods. Politically, the Chinese imperial state in crisis, without understanding a new global scenario, faced the British state, an ascending force, living in and leading a new global order built upon the outcome of European wars, a state with military strength and a clear focus.
This "first clash" had military implications. The creation of the treaty system. The Opium Wars demonstrated the lack of preparation of the Chinese imperial state to deal with the new situation. To face this problem, there was lack of lack of knowledge: the military defeat was a surprise, the technologies of British military caused a great impression in China.
This military power depends upon technology and this relationship began to be an issue in China. The outcome of those wars presented further evidence on the relationship between technology, military power and trade. The first Opium War opened the Chinese market for British merchants, triggering a process that begins the transformation of Chinese economy - unintended effects. Unintended consequences because the development of capitalism in China was not among the objectives of British merchants.
The defeat in itself was an expression of economic stagnation and political stalemate - political inertia. But the defeat in the first war triggered further political crisis. The Taiping Rebellion has many roots, one of them is the defeat and the new conjuncture with foreign merchants in the treaty-ports.
If the Chinese imperial state had difficulties to deal with the pre-defeat conjuncture, after that those difficulties only increased. And, Fairbank insists, "Peking's acquiescence in the Anglo-French demands of must be seen in this context of domestic priorities" p. The two defeats in two opium wars created and consolidated the treaty system.
Further combined changes in transport and communication "brought the China trade more fully into the world market and subject to its vicissitudes" p. Initially, even those military defeats did not trigger change, given the inertia in Ching Empire. Perceptions of the great change began after , when "a segment of the literati realized that China was facing a new situation the like of which she had not seen in a thousand years" Hao and Wang, HAO, Y.
In the end, those changes in perception led to movements intended as "self-strengthening" in the late XIXth century. It is important to stress how late those changes came.
Those difficulties to perceive what was happening in the West, to understand that an Industrial Revolution was taking place, might suggest that China "did not know that they do not know".
This is important because, in order to organize policies for development, a nation needs to understand its position in the global context and needs to define a benchmark to guide her policies. Important cities, hubs in networks of marketing areas in the hinterland, the treaty ports were "a special sector of the Chinese polity in which Chinese sovereignty was not extinguished, but was overlaid or supplanted by that of the treaty powers" Fairbank, FAIRBANK, J.
A very peculiar dynamics took place under that arrangement. As Fairbank sums up, "[t]he treaty system had been set up by gunfire and had to be maintained by gunboat diplomacy" , p.
Military superiority depends on technology. This was the result of the "first clash with the West". Economically, the consequence was the opening of the market in selected city-ports in China. China was not a colony, there was a vast hinterland outside direct control of foreign military or foreign economic forces. But this market opening triggered processes, some unintended and others intended. Unintended perhaps were the processes derived of foreign commercial presence in the treaty ports - processes initiated as soon as the treaty became operational.
Intended consequences could be those derived from the late response of the Ching state in relation to access to foreign technologies and industries, an organized - but belated and limited - effort to absorb more advanced technologies. Each of those processes changed Chinese economy, and their combined effects defined what would be the beginnings of Chinese capitalism - a trajectory of low growth that would persist until the fall of the Ching Empire in and the end of civil war in In treaty ports British merchants and later merchants from other European countries, from the USA, and after , from Japan, were able to organize commercial activities, especially imports of industrial goods.
Economic trends, This initial and localized opening to British Merchants, in selected ports, had a series of consequences: "The two decades of s and s constituted a first phase of a new order in China's foreign relations Later phases saw the treaty system grow into a more and more important element in Chinese state and society In the succeeding generation from the s to the s the treaty ports became urban centers of a Sino-foreign condominium and hybrid culture, all of which had an increasing effect on China as a whole" Fairbank, FAIRBANK, J.
Those city ports had strong connections with inland China. Although it had a "high level of traditional development", this "nineteenth century commercial system" was not a "'modern' market economy" p. The existing interconnections were enough to define that changes at one point - treaty ports - would reverberate to the rest of the economy. There were different channels for these effects.
One channel was through the changes in the nature of imported goods. This "inflow of foreign yarn" led to a "geographical dispersion of the handicraft weaving industry", and in a very peculiar combination, "the adoption of machine-made yarn, moreover, strengthened handicraft weaving industry as a whole" p.
This process exemplifies how a change in the coastal region affected important sectors of the hinterland Feuerwerker, The opening of treaty-ports to foreign products had an uneven effect in the manufacturing sector. On the one hand, handicraft industries like native iron and steel "nearly disappeared by the end of the nineteenth century" p. On the other hand, there were sectors unaffected: oil pressing, rice milling, and mining by native methods, silk weaving p.
Those changes affected the nature of Chinese exports, as from "raw silk replaced tea" Among the changes that took place in those treaty-ports, there was an initial segment of modern industry: located in those cities, prior to "approximately foreign-owned industrial enterprises, most of them small firms" p.
In those treaty-ports the rise of international trade gave room to an initial accumulation of wealth among sectors of Chinese intermediaries and new social groups. Intellectual change and the reform movement - Related to this economic development was a process of social change which led to the emergence of such new groups as the comprador-businessmen, salaried professional workers and an urban proletariat.
The Chinese bourgeosie. After two military defeats and a deep crisis within the country, part of those internal crises fed by the new foreign presence in a growing number of treaty ports, a belated development of a conscience within China of the problems related to her position in the new global context, led to a broad movement called "self-strengthening" Kuo and Lio, KUO, T-Y.
Self-strengthening: the pursuit of Western technology. China's response to the West - a documentary survey, , with a new preface. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, The first, between and , "recognition of China's need to know the West", the second, between and , "the desire for Western technology", and the third, between and , "the effort at self-strengthening".
As in other parts of the world, military considerations were important to change how Western technology should be viewed - "since European military power appeared to depend upon technology, the adoption of this technology was regarded as the primary task" Kuo and Lio, KUO, T-Y.
In the early phase of this process, Kuo and Lio describe long range plans, related to investments in "arsenals and shipyards" pp. Although the military issue was an important driving force of this self-strengthening movement, in the late s it became "more diverse and complicated than it seemed in the s". Although there were "half-way measures", there were "far-reaching results", according to Kuo and Liu: a "departure from traditional statecraft" p.
Those firms were distributed between 19 government-owned arsenals and shipyards; arsenals with "machine shops for the production and repair of tools and parts; "secondly, a number of official and semi-official mining, smelting and textile enterprises had been undertaken from as early as ".
There were also 75 manufacturing firms other than arsenals silk reeling, cotton ginning, cotton spinning, flour milling, matches, paper mills and 33 coal and mining metal mines established between and p. They also tested machines for digging irrigation canals and water wells and for ploughing agricultural fields. As in the West, the emerging industrial infrastructure relied on energy from coal. They cooperated and competed with foreign scientists and technicians to extract coal to fuel industrial ventures, as new research by Shellen Wu has demonstrated.
Some of these industrial ventures were difficult to sustain. Money, coal, and other material inputs were sometimes in short supply. Officials were not always prepared to fully embrace new technology.
They expressed apprehension that machines would quickly exhaust national supplies of minerals. Others worried that machines would put people out of work.
But for environmental historians, the most important questions may lie elsewhere. By shifting attention to the relationship between machines, energy, natural resources, and the environment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries we can resolve unanswered questions about Chinese environmental history. For example, we know little about the environmental toll of machines and coal in this era. Did urban elites and commoners embrace the environmental changes wrought by early industrialisation as signs of progress?
Or did they recoil at polluted air, water, and soil? Of course, China did not achieve widespread industrialisation and did not become heavily reliant upon fossil fuels until later in the twentieth century.
But coal-fired machines and visions of industrialised landscapes in the late nineteenth century were harbingers of things to come. China Dialogue uses cookies to provide you with the best user experience possible.
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