CHINA - PRODUCTION, COMMERCE AND COMMUNICATIONS Even on the most generous estimate of industrial prospects, China will remain a preponderantly agricultural country. The fu ture relationship, however, of agriculture and manufacturing in dustry is a matter of great interest. Development of electric power and improvement of transport would render possible diffu sion of small-scale industries better suited to Chinese traditions and genius than the large-scale factory system, and, if accompanied by the growth of co-operative agencies, may greatly improve the conditions of the countryside.
(1). The Tsin-ling mountain complex delimits the agricultural "province" of north China. Here severe winters and the short and rather uncertain rainy season preclude winter crops. It lies beyond the limit of the cultivation of wet rice, which as a staple crop is replaced by millets and wheat. Rice, it is true, is a subor dinate crop in favoured districts of north China; it is known, however, as small rice and is really a glutinous millet. Most people live on wheat, kaoliang, and millet, while meat (other than pork) and potatoes play a part. Soya beans, too, are impor tant. Barley and maize are extensively grown.
(a) The soils of the loesslands are of unusual fertility owing to their fine texture, their porous and friable nature and the presence in them of soluble mineral matter for plant nourishment. On the other hand, the region is the driest in China, and, except in the basins, is incapable of manual irrigation. Arable cultivation is therefore often precarious and there is greater reliance on sheep and cattle. In the extreme north-west pastoral products and some associated manufactures of coarse woollens and cloths are im portant products. Here occurs the greatest concentration of sheep, raised primarily for wool. Cattle, elsewhere in China almost exclusively draught animals, are raised in the north-west for graz ing; there are distinct prospects for leather and woollen manu factures in parts of the loess belt. In the loess basins such as Taiyiian-fu and Tatung-fu, where well-irrigation and terrace cul tivation reduce the risk of crop failure, the hardier cereals are often accompanied by fruit culture (apples, pears, plums, walnuts, apricots, strawberries and the jujube) and also by cotton. Re cently a large proportion of the land in parts of the north and north-west has been under the opium poppy. (For agriculture in the north-west see INNER MONGOLIA, SHANSI and KANSU.) (b) The plain of north China east of the Tai-hang-shan, which forms the edge of the loess plateau, has a slightly higher rainfall but risk of flood is much higher and the &reat problem is the con trol of the Hwang-ho, Hwai and northern rivers. Main reliance is on wheat, barley, millet, buckwheat and maize, together with vegetable crops, especially rape, beans, and peas. Rice is grown in southern Shantung and northern Kiangsu, i.e., on the borders of the Yangtze "province," and cotton and hemp in Shantung and Hop-eh, but there is little room for any but subsistence crops. In Shantung there are three crops in two years, the usual rotation being wheat in spring, beans in autumn and finally millet, which is gathered in the following September. As an alternative, wheat or barley in winter and spring may be followed by large or small millet, sweet potatoes, soya beans or peanuts in summer. Animals are less important than in the north-west, but in the parts of Hop-eh adjacent to Mongolia there is the largest concen tration of horses, mules and draught animals to be found in China proper.
(2) . The Yangtze "province" with rich alluvial basins, relatively high, well-distributed rainfall, seasonal rhythm of moist sub tropical summers and mild winters and magnificent natural water ways, is one of the most favoured agricultural regions in the world and the premier granary of China, supporting nearly half of her total population. The combination of summer "wet" crops and winter "dry" (temperate) crops give it a marvellous range of pro duction, and most of the staple products of China, whether subsis tence or •commercial crops, find here their optimum conditions.
It is easily first in the production of rice, the chief food of all cen tral and south China, the order of the leading provinces being Kiang-su, Hunan, Hupeh, Anhwei, Kiang-si, Szechwan, Chekiang. Kwangtung. If Chekiang be included, it produces over 68% of the total output of silk, the oldest and most famous of Chinese commercial products, and about 6o% of that of cotton, one of the chief factors in the new industrial development. It is also the largest centre of tea production. In some districts, as in parts of the Yangtze delta and the central basin, the rotation is determined by the needs of a special crop. In the normal agricultural year barley, wheat, beans and peas are sown early in winter and harvested in May (wheat in June), followed by sesamum, sown after the wheat harvest and ripe early in September, while rice may be either an early crop, planted early in April and ready for harvesting 90 days later, or a late crop planted in early June and harvested after i 1 o days. If rice is grown for commercial purposes it receives special attention and the fields are ploughed and prepared in early winter. Cotton lands also require special preparation. While this is the regime of the lowland basins, the uplands of central China, especially between the Tung-ting and Po-yang lakes, are associated with the cultivation of the tea plant and the tallow tree.
(3) The south-east China highlands are not unlike those of central China and the ranges of Fukien form the second great tea district, but the valleys and basins, with more abundant rainfall and warm winters, can grow sub-tropical crops all the year round. In the most favoured regions such as the Canton delta there are two or even three rice crops in the year and the sugar-cane finds its optimum conditions. Almost confined to this section of China are the pine-apple, spice-yielding plants as cinnamon and cassia, ginger and aniseed. The southern coast of Kwangtung and the island of Hainan, with an exceptionally high rainfall and uni formly hot conditions, are particularly associated with these tropi cal cultures. On the other hand the climate of south-east China is too moist for cotton and for the "dry" cereals which form the winter crops of the Yangtze valley.
(4) The south-west is the least developed of all the major regions of China. The high plateaux are scenes of pastoralism and sporadic cereal and poppy cultivation, but the deeply-cut and generally narrow valleys, with a damp, unhealthy climate, and often still choked with luxuriant jungle vegetation, have not been intensively developed as have the more open and accessible basins of the south-east.
Rice, the staple food in central and south China, takes up no less than 28% and has first choice of the land. More than half the land under cultivation in Kiangsu, the richest province, is devoted to it. Yet only four provinces, Hunan, Anhwei, Kwangsi and Kiangsi have a surplus over local needs, and although the average annual production in China reaches the enormous total of 400,000,000 piculs (of 133-11b.), large imports have to be made each year from French Indo-China, Siam and Korea.
Wheat comes second to rice in importance, and replaces it as a food crop in north China owing to climatic conditions. In some northern districts it occupies 40% of the cultivated land. The normal annual crop is estimated at 600,000,000 bushels (of 6olb.) but there must be considerable imports of wheat and flour. The number of wheat-eaters is steadily increasing in northern China, especially in the towns. The annual output, however, can be much increased through both extension of the wheat area by "dry" farming in the marginal lands of Inner Mongolia and Manchuria and an increase of the rate of yield, at present low. Flour-milling has made notable advances, especially in Manchuria, and in 1925 there were about 15o modern mills.
Millets and kaoliang (sorghum), whose distribution is rather wider than that of wheat, occupy 2o% of the cultivated land area of China. They are dominant in Hop-eh, Shantung and Honan where they take up one-third of the agricultural surface. Apart from the grain, their by-products are of great value, and in north China the stalks and fibre of the kaoliang replace, for many purposes, bamboo which reaches its northerly limit in the Wei-ho valley.
Tea has long been the chief beverage in China, and since at least the 8th century A.D. the cultivation of the tea plant has been a great agricultural industry, localized mainly on the uplands of central China and on the ranges of the maritime provinces, but important also in Szechwan. Black, green and "brick" teas result from different processes of manufacture. The tea plant in. China is mainly grown in patches round the homestead, and the methods both of cultivation and preliminary preparation after the picking of the leaves (usually in April, mid-May and August) are tra ditional and not based on scientific knowledge. Mainly for this reason the chief European markets for black tea were largely lost by China in the later i9th century, when the plantation system, with its associated scientific processes of manufacture, was de veloped in India and Ceylon. Of the 400,000 piculs of black tea exported from China in 1924 Great Britain took 164,000. Brick tea, made by pressing damp leaves into a brick-like mould, finds its chief market in Tibet, Russia, and interior Asia. The chief ports for tea-export are Hankow (black and brick tea), Kiukiang and Foochow (black tea), Hangchow, Ningpo and Kiukiang (green tea). Experimental stations and investigation bureaux for more scientific cultivation and preparation of tea have been opened in the Yangtze valley and at Foochow, and a small beginning has been made with the plantation system.
For sericulture, the most far-famed and ancient of her indus tries, China has many natural advantages, including the two or more leafings of the mulberry, as compared with one in the Mediterranean countries, and abundant cheap and traditionally skilled labour in the manipulation of the cocoon and in weaving. In the production of raw silk there are many regional specializa tions in accordance with the variation of soil and climatic con ditions. The silk of the north (Shantung and Manchuria) is chiefly "wild," the product of silk-worms fed on oak leaves and manufactured into coarse-textured tussahs and pongees; the Canton delta, where there are as many as six or seven leafings of the mulberry, produces soft Canton silk and Szechwan a special yellow variety. But the most renowned silk region is the lower Yangtze valley, the finest white silk in the world (tsatlee) coming from around the Tai-hu Lake. The aggregate output of raw silk in China is estimated at 25% of the world's supply, but the exports to European and particularly American markets, al though considerable, have in recent years been surpassed by those of Japan, which has added scientific technique to the natural advantages for silk production which she shares with China, where the industry is carried on by the peasants on traditional lines. Serious efforts have recently been made by special depart ments of several colleges and by the International Committee for the Improvement of Sericulture in China to improve the mulberry plantations and to eradicate silk-worm diseases, which greatly impair the prosperity of the industry. A more revolutionary change is indicated by the development of large steam filatures and weaving mills at Canton, Shanghai, Soochow, Hangchow, Hankow, Chefoo and Chinkiang and other towns. There are indications that, with improved methods, China may be able to challenge the dominant position of Japan in the American silk market. Even under existing conditions, raw silk and cocoons recently formed over 18% of the total value of Chinese exports and came second only to beans and bean products. In contrast, tea, which in 1820 constituted 75% and in 1867 6o% of all Chinese exports, accounted for little more than 3% in 1926.
The most remarkable agricultural development in China during recent times has been the rapid growth of the bean industry. Beans have long been grown as an article of food, but the de velopment of the culture on a commercial basis is quite modern and is due to the realization of the many valuable qualities of the soya variety, which is admirably adapted to north China, and particularly Manchuria. On the one hand, it has a higher food value than any other seed which, in conjunction with its cheap ness, makes it an effective substitute for milk, meat or the staple grain foods of north China; on the other its by-products—bean oil as a cooking sauce, as a base in soap-manufacture and as a lubricant for various purposes, and bean-cake as a fertilizer and cattle food—are of great commercial value. In the 1920'5 beans and bean products amounted to one-fifth of the total exports of China. They have been one of the principal factors in the rapid economic development of Manchuria. (See MANCHURIA.) Of the purely industrial crops of China, cotton is the most important, and its future development will be followed with great interest. China is now the fourth largest producer of raw cotton in the world and the soil and climatic conditions of many districts of the Yangtze valley and the adjacent parts of the plain of north China approximate to those of the cotton belt of the United States. But the industry at present suffers from many disadvantages: the short staple of the native varieties, primitive methods of seed selection and cultivation, lack of transport and of banking and credit facilities to deal with the movement of crops, and the existence of provincial and inter-provincial likin taxes, which greatly raise its price. Much important work has recently been done both by provincial associations and college de partments (notably the University of Nanking) to improve native varieties and to acclimatize and then distribute seeds of American cottons. It would now seem to be established by experiments that late-maturing American cottons will not succeed in the Yangtze delta, with its humid early autumn climate, but can be accli matized in the central basin and parts of north China where September and October are normally dry, sunny months. The endeavour has been made to produce longer-stapled Chinese cot tons for the deltaic area.
The great development of cotton mills in China in the last 3o years is the most important aspect of the new industrialism. They are, however, very strictly localized. Of 118 cotton mills in China in 1927, 58 were in Shanghai, the great textile centre, and half the remainder in the Yangtze delta and the central basin. Of the grand total 72 were Chinese-owned with 2,218,588 spindles and 12,409 looms, 42 Japanese-owned with 1,302,678 spindles and 9,625 looms and 4 British-owned with 205,320 spindles and 2,348 looms. Over three-fourths of the raw cotton consumed in these mills is of Chinese origin, and practically all the rest comes from India and the United States. The piece goods produced compete in the huge Chinese market with those of Japan, India and Great Britain. As yet, labour in the mills is very cheap and regulations as to hours of labour, employment of women and children and safeguarding of machinery are almost non-existent.
(It is estimated that the total number of workers engaged in large-scale industries of all kinds throughout China is about four millions.) The opium poppy is still (1939) one of the chief and most widely-distributed products of China's fields, and the area devoted to it, reduced to a minimum by the prohibition orders of 1906 and subsequent years, greatly increased during the period of civil war, with its military exactions of illicit revenues. In some Japanese-controlled areas a marked increase in opium production as well as of the consumption of opium and its derivatives has occurred.
Other important Chinese products, which cannot be separately described, include fibre crops, especially ramie in the Yangtze valley, tobacco (very widely distributed), ground-nuts, many kinds of vegetable-oil, cane sugar and a great variety of medicinal plants and spices.
So great is the need for subsistence crops in China that graz ing grounds for sheep and cattle are virtually confined to the dry north-west and to mountain pastures. In the rest of China there is no dairy industry and cattle are used primarily as draft animals. On the other hand, animals such as swine, goats and poul try, which can subsist on by-products of the farm, are kept in large numbers. Of scientific animal breeding there is at present very little. Reference has already been made to the meagre resources of modern China in timber.
China has an important source of wealth in her sea and river fisheries, which are rich and varied and supplemented by arti ficial breeding in tanks. The coastal fisheries of Shantung, Che kiang and Kwangtung are especially valuable, and they include some of the world's greatest fishing centres. fhe annual yield of Chinese fisheries is estimated at $200,000,000, and fish, both fresh and salted, is a staple article of diet in many districts.
While every coalfield has outcrop or adit workings to supply local consumption, about 75% of the total production of 25.7 M.T. is now furnished by large-scale concerns. These are all intimately related to the existing railway systems mainly concentrated in north China, and are therefore chiefly located on the small fields scattered around the edges of the north China and south Man churian plains. The only really important mine in south China is that of Pinghsiang among the hills of the Hunan-Kiangsi border, and this too is linked with the railway system. Much the largest concerns are the Japanese Fushun and the Sino-British Kailan, whose fields, though small, have each an important strategic position, being in close contact with the railway foci of south Manchuria and of north China respectively. The pro duction of Fushun, now exceeding 5 M.T., is the larger of the two. From these and from other mines in Shantung and along the eastern fringes of the Shansi coalfield, coal is exported along the railways and by coasting steamer to the commercial and industrial centres, of which the Yangtze delta is the chief. Chinwangtao, the property of the Kailan concern, has had larger coal-shipping trade than any other port east of Suez. There is also a con siderable trade, in which exports exceed imports, with Japan.
China's resources of iron are more meagre than those of coal. Tegengren, for the Chinese Geological Survey, estimates the reserve of ores suited to modern large-scale methods (and ex clusive therefore of coal-measure ores) at only 952 M.T, and holds out little hope of the discovery of new deposits. These are not sufficient to form the permanent basis of an iron industry of the magnitude of that of America, but, on the other hand, the Chinese industry has as yet a capacity of only one million tons of pig iron and an actual output of but one-third of that amount. Thus there is room for very considerable expansion. Mining is, most active along the lower Yangtze valley whose mines (Tayeh in particular) account for two-thirds of a total ore production of r • 5 M.T. Next to it in production as an iron-field is south Manchuria, and these two regions are also the chief centres of iron smelting. To both coke has to be carried some distance, but China has no lack of coking coal. It is a noteworthy fact that by various means Japan has acquired virtual control of 90% of the utilizable iron resources of China, and has been importing fully half of both the latter's iron ore and pig iron production.
Of fuels other than coal, such as petroleum and oil shale, China possesses only limited amounts. This is also true, among the metals, of lead-zinc and of silver, but the resources of copper and tin are by no means insignificant. Small deposits of all these metals have long been worked in many parts of the country. The most important copper and tin mines all lie in Yunnan and adjacent south-west Szechwan. Of some rarer metals, particularly antimony and tungsten, China is the leading producer of the world. In conclusion it may be said that, while the impressions, so widely prevalent in the i9th century, of China as a country of almost unparalleled mineral resources are clearly without f oun dation, she yet has a margin for industrial growth, and with improved transport facilities and more favourable economic con ditions will develop great mining activities. (See SHANSI, CHIHLI and MANCHURIA.)