Shanghai Industries in the Civil War (1945-1947)

Résumé En

This article examines the fate of Shanghai industries during the Civil War period in China. It argues that in spite of extreme difficulties in the later part of the war, Shanghai industries bounced back very quickly and reached early wartime levels within a year. Thereafter, a series of economic and political restrictions led to a slowdown, then a paralysis. The article is based on a large and unique survey of Shanghai industries published in October 1947, probably the peak of the economic recovery after the war. The data were processed in geographic information systems that the author implemented to examine what industry represented in the urban space, what its impact was, and how it defined the city of Shanghai. The author contends that issues of security more than economic factors determined the particular industrial geography in the city. The present study of Shanghai industries focuses on the Civil War period, a phase of acute social and economic turmoil from the perspective of spatial history. 1 Yet the selected time frame, as well as the nature of the major source on which this article relies, hardly allows for a study that incorporates a strong temporal dimension. The first part presents and examines the political and economic context of the postwar period in relation with the rebirth of Shanghai industries up to 1947. Hyperinflation in the following years just stifled this development. In the second part, I discuss the nature of the source and the methodology I used to process the collected data. This opens on a short analysis of the industrial structure and landscape in Shanghai. The last section explores the spatial dimensions of industries in the city for themselves but also in relation with various human and ecological factors, albeit tentatively. I argue that the late industrial development in Shanghai and the specific industrial structure produced a spatial arrangement that imposed a heavy industrial footprint throughout the city, much like the European cities of the first Industrial Revolution. None of the factors that drove factories and workshops out of central districts can be seen at work in the case of Shanghai due to considerations of safety and protection from war.