History of Shanghai

The Dàjìng Gé Pavillion wall, the only remaining part of the Old City of Shanghai wall.

The history of Shanghai, spanning over a thousand years, closely parallels the development of modern China. Originally a small agricultural village, Shanghai developed during the late Qing Dynasty as one of China's principal trading ports. Since economic reforms reached it during the early 1990s, it has burgeoned to become one of Asia's financial centers and the busiest container port in the world.

Early Era

Map of the Old City of Shanghai.

Founded in the 10th century, the city was located in a swampy area east of Suzhou. Until 1127, Shanghai was a small market town of 12,000 households. That year, however Kaifeng was conquered and many refugees came to Shanghai. As a result, the city soon grew to 250,000 inhabitants.^{[citation needed]}

The Shanghai region became one of China's most prosperous in the 13th century,^{[citation needed]} after becoming a cotton production and manufacturing center. The processing of cotton utilized a cotton gin similar to that created by American Eli Whitney.^{[citation needed]} Cotton production and textile milling were the backbone of Shanghai's economy until the early 19th century. The construction of canals, dikes, and real estate development financed by private capital^{[citation needed]} flourished during the Song dynasty.

Ming Dynasty

The Ming dynasty imposed tight trade restrictions in the 16th century to guard against the Wokou.^{[citation needed]} Because of those restrictions all foreign trade came to an end. After a hundred merchants died when Shanghai was pillaged by pirates, the Ming government evacuated the entire coastal population to the interior.^{[citation needed]} In 1554, a wall was built to protect the city from future invasions.^{[citation needed]}

Qing Dynasty

Guards of Shanghai Old City.

During the late Qing Dynasty, Shanghai's economy began to rival the traditionally larger market at Suzhou, with 18th- and early 19th-century exports of cotton, silk, and fertilizer reaching as far as Polynesia and Persia.^{[citation needed]}

Shanghai grew still more rapidly following its inclusion as a treaty port in the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing that ended the First Opium War. The British felt the city's close proximity to the mouth of the Yangtze River but distance from the Chinese fortifications at Jingjiang made it an ideal location for trade with the surrounding region and interior.

The Qing Dynasty, having little government control, deferred regional powers to native place associations. These associations used their provincial networks to control the city.^{[citation needed]} Bankers of different native place associations started cooperating with each other through the Shanghai Native Bankers Guild, which used a democratic decision-making process.

At the same time, several non-trade-related organizations emerged in an attempt to assert more neutral control over the city. Among those groups were the Tong Reng Tan and the Self-Strengthening Movement. The Tong Reng Tan succeeded in establishing a measure of control over the city but was abolished in 1905 and replaced by the Shanghai municipal government. Later a native place association came into being called the Tongrengtang Tongxianghui.

The Self-Strengthening Movement was an organized attempt to adopt Western practices, including the rule of law and business conventions, as a way to improve economic conditions throughout the country. However, incompetence, corruption, and inefficiency of some leading participants caused those efforts to fail.^{[citation needed]}

Wars and Rebellions

First Opium War

During the First Opium War, British forces temporarily held Shanghai. The war ended with the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing, which opened five treaty ports – including Shanghai – to international trade. Opium, despite its continued illegality, remained the biggest import during this period, carried by smugglers such as Jardine, Matheson, & Co. However, cheap imported cotton – grown in the American South and processed in British mills – essentially destroyed the cotton industry of Shanghai.^{[citation needed]} The 1843 Anglo-Chinese Treaty of the Bogue and the 1844 Sino-American Treaty of Wanghia saw foreign nationals achieve extraterritoriality on Chinese soil. These "Unequal Treaties" lasted until the Japanese occupation of China before being formally ended in 1943.

Taiping Rebellion

The Taiping Rebellion broke out in December 1850. In 1853, Shanghai was occupied by a triad offshoot of the rebels called the Small Swords Society. The fighting devastated the countryside but left foreign settlements untouched.^{[citation needed]} Forbidden to live in the foreign settlements, many Chinese fled into them regardless. Circumstances led to new regulations being drawn up in 1854, making land available to the Chinese within the extraterritorial areas. Land prices rose substantially, and real estate development became a source of considerable income for the Shanghailanders, further increasing the westerners' grip over the city's economy.^{[citation needed]} And had been raised the Battle of Shanghai (1861).

Shanghailanders

Shanghai, 1855

In 1846, Peter Richards founded Richards' Hotel, the first western hotel in China. It would later become the Astor House.

1854 marked the first annual meeting of the Shanghai Municipal Council, created in order to manage the foreign settlements excepting the French, who opted instead to maintain their own separate concession to the west of the old town.

In 1863, the British concession between the old town and Suzhou Creek and the unofficial American concession to the northeast joined to form the International Settlement. Its waterfront became the internationally-famous Bund.

Jardine's attempt to construct the Woosung "Road" railway in 1876 – China's first – proved initially successful until the death of a soldier on the tracks prompted the Chinese government to demand its nationalization. Upon the last payment in 1877, the local viceroy ordered the profitable railway dismantled and removed to Taiwan. The telegraph that had been strung along the line of the railway – also China's first – was, however, allowed to remain in operation.

First Sino-Japanese War

Gun transportation at Shanghai Jiangnan Arsenal (上海江南制造兵工厂), during the Self-Strengthening Movement.

The First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 was a conflict over control of the Korean Peninsula. The Treaty of Shimonoseki which ended it saw Japan emerge as an additional foreign power in Shanghai. Japan built the first factories in Shanghai,^{[citation needed]} which were soon followed by other foreign powers. The Chinese defeat also spurred reformers within the Qing government to modernize more quickly, leading to the reëstablishment of the Songhu Railway and its expansion into the Shanghai–Nanjing Railway.

Republic of China

1933 map of Shanghai.

The 1911 Xinhai Revolution, spurred in part by actions against the native-owned railways around Shanghai, led to the establishment of the Republic of China. During that time, Shanghai became the focal point of many activities that would eventually shape modern China.

In 1936, Shanghai was one of the largest cities in the world with 3,000,000 inhabitants.^{[citation needed]} Of those, only 35,000 were foreigners, but these controlled half the city.^{[citation needed]} Many White Russians fled to Shanghai after the 1917 Revolution – about 25,000 remained by the 1930s. These Shanghai Russians were poorly regarded, as their general poverty led them to take jobs considered unsuitable for Europeans, including prostitution.

The city was thus divided between its more European western half and the more traditionally Chinese eastern half.^{[citation needed]} New inventions like electricity and trams were quickly introduced,^{[citation needed]} and westerners helped transform Shanghai into a metropolis. British and American businessmen made a great deal of money in trade and finance, and Germans used Shanghai as a base for investing in China.^{[citation needed]} Shanghai accounted for half of the imports and exports of China.^{[citation needed]} The western part of Shanghai was four times larger than the Chinese part in the early 20th century.

Park regulations, 1917

European and American inhabitants of Shanghai called themselves the Shanghailanders. After problems during its initial few years, the Public Garden north of the Bund – China's first public park and today's Huangpu Park – was for decades reserved for the foreign nationals and forbidden to Chinese natives. The International Settlement was built in the British style with a large racetrack at the site of today's People's Square. A new class emerged, the compradors, which mixed with the local landlords to form a new class, a Chinese bourgeoisie.^{[citation needed]} The compradors were indispensable mediators for the western companies. Many compradors were on the leading edge of the movement to modernize China. Shanghai was then the biggest financial city in East Asia.^{[citation needed]}

Chinese society

Chinese society was divided into native place associations or provincial guilds. These guilds defended the interests of traders from shared hometowns. They had their own dress codes and sub-cultures.^{[citation needed]} Chinese government was hardly organized. Instead, society was controlled by the native place associations.^{[citation needed]} The Guangdong native place associations represented the skilled workers of Shanghai.^{[citation needed]} These native place associations belonged to the top of Shanghainese society.^{[citation needed]} The Ningbo and Jiangsu native place associations were the most numerous. They represented the common workers.^{[citation needed]} Many Shanghainese came from the north of China. They were on the bottom rung of the social ladder.^{[citation needed]} Many of them were forced to work as seasonal workers or mobsters.

Buck Clayton performing in the 1930s in the Canidrome, one of the many places that would later become execution facilities^{[citation needed]} under the Communists

Shanghai Grand

During this period, Shanghai was known as "The Paris of the East, the New York of the West". Shanghai was made a special city in 1927, and a municipality in May 1930. The city's industrial and financial power increased, because the merchants were in control of the city,^{[citation needed]} while the rest of China was divided among warlords.

Artistically, Shanghai became the hub for three new art forms: Chinese cinema,^{[citation needed]} Chinese animation,^{[citation needed]} and Chinese popular music.^{[citation needed]} Other forms of entertainment included Lianhuanhua comic books.^{[citation needed]}

The architectural style at the time was modeled after British and American design.^{[citation needed]} Many of the grandest-scale buildings on The Bund – such as Shanghai Club, the Asia Building and the HSBC building – were constructed or renovated at this time. The city created a distinct image that separated it from all other Chinese cities that had come before it.

Economic achievements include the city becoming the commercial center of East Asia, attracting banks from all over the world. When movies and literature depict the golden days of by-gone Shanghai, it is generally associated with this era.

Power struggle

Suzhou Creek around 1920

Jiujiang Road, Shanghai, late 1920s

The city was also the center of national and international opium smuggling during the 1920s. "The Great World" was a place where opium, prostitution and gambling came together.^{[citation needed]} The Green Gang (Qing Bang) became a major influence in the Shanghai International Settlement, with the Commissioner of the Shanghai Municipal Police reporting that corruption associated with the trade had affected a large proportion of his force. An extensive crackdown in 1925 simply displaced the focus of the trade to the neighboring French Concession.

Meanwhile, traditional division of society by native place associations was falling apart. The new working classes were not prepared to listen to the bosses of the same native place associations during the 1910s. Resentment against the foreign presence in Shanghai rose among both the entrepreneurs and the workers of Shanghai.^{[citation needed]} In 1919, protests by the May Fourth Movement against the Treaty of Versailles led to the rise of a new group of philosophers like Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi who challenged Chinese traditionalism with new ideologies. Books like New Youth disseminated the new school of thought, while crime and warlord banditry convinced many that the existing government was largely ineffective.^{[citation needed]} In this atmosphere, the Communist Party of China was founded in Shanghai in 1921.

In 1927, Communists tried to end foreign rule. The Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and the Shanghailanders entered into an informal alliance with the Green Gang,^{[citation needed]} which acted against the Communists and organized labor unions. The nationalists had cooperated with gang leaders since the revolution.^{[citation needed]} Although sporadic fighting between gangsters and communists had occurred previously, many communists were killed in a major surprise attack during the April 12 Incident in the Chinese-administered part of Shanghai. Suspected leftists were shot on sight,^{[citation needed]} so many – including Zhou Enlai – fled the city.

In the late 1920s and early '30s, large residential areas were built north of the foreign concessions. These residential areas were modern, with good roads and parking lots for automobiles. A new Chinese port was built, which could compete with the Shanghailanders' ports.^{[citation needed]} Chiang Kai-shek continuously demanded large amounts of money from the financial world in Shanghai.^{[citation needed]} Most bankers and merchants were willing to invest in the army, but this stopped in 1928. Chiang responded by nationalizing all enterprises.^{[citation needed]} Soong, Chiang's brother-in-law, chastised his erstwhile relative, writing that it is better to strengthen the party and the economy as well instead of focusing only on the army.^{[citation needed]}

Supported by the progressive native place associations, Chiang Kai-shek's rule turned increasingly autocratic.^{[citation needed]} The power of the gangsters rose in the early 1930s, especially the power of the Green Gang leader Du Yuesheng who started his own native place association. Chiang Kai-shek chose to cooperate with gangsters in order to maintain his grip on Chinese society.^{[citation needed]} This meant that the gangsters remained middlemen during the rule of the nationalists, controlling society by frequently organizing strikes.^{[citation needed]} Mobsters stormed the Shanghai Stock Exchange to gain control over it. No one interfered: the police because they had been dominated by the mobsters since 1919,^{[citation needed]} the Shanghailanders because it was an internal Chinese affair,^{[citation needed]} and the nationalists because they were trying to break the power of the entrepreneurs.^{[citation needed]} The entrepreneurs were forced to make a deal after a second raid.

End of Old Shanghai (1937–1945)

Battle of Shanghai

World War II and the Japanese Occupation

The Japanese Navy bombed Shanghai on January 28, 1932, nominally to crush Chinese student protests against the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. The Chinese fought back in what was known as the January 28 Incident. The two sides fought to a standstill and a ceasefire was brokered in May.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the city fell after the 1937 Battle of Shanghai (known in China as the Battle of Songhu) and remained occupied until surrender of Japan in 1945. Under Japanese rule, the foreign concessions remained intact until December 1941.^{[citation needed]} Tensions within the city led to a wave of assassinations against Chinese officials who worked with the Japanese authorities: during January and February, 1939, 16 pro-Japanese officials and businessmen were assassinated by Chinese resistance organizations.

During World War II, its extraterritoriality made Shanghai a haven for visa-less European refugees. It was, along with Franco's Spain, the only location in the world unconditionally open to Jews at the time. However, under pressure from their ally Germany, the Japanese removed the Jews in late 1941 to what became known as the Shanghai ghetto, where hunger and infectious diseases such as dysentery became rife. The foreign population rose from 35,000 in 1936 to 150,000 in 1942 mainly due to the Jews. The Japanese were still harsher on belligerent nationals: the British, Americans and Dutch. These slowly lost their privileges and had to wear letters – B, A, or N – when walking in public places. Their villas were turned into brothels and gambling houses.^{[citation needed]} They were finally force-marched into concentration camps in 1943.

End of the Foreign Concessions

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese ended all concessions in Shanghai save the French. This state of affairs was conceded by an Anglo-Chinese Friendship Treaty in 1943. The French themselves ceded their privileges in 1946 following the war.

In the years before the city was lost to the Communists, Du Yuesheng tried to become the mayor of Shanghai, but he was forced to leave the city.

Tightened Communist rule (1949–1980s)

Li Jinhui, one of the many prominent figures in the artistic circle of Shanghai who would die under political persecution.

Communist Transition

On May 27, 1949, Shanghai came under Communist control. Despite Communist claims that the city was taken over in a "peaceful" manner,^{[citation needed]} one of the first actions taken by the Communist party was to clean up the portion of the population that were considered counter-revolutionaries. Mass executions took place with thousands slaughtered.^{[citation needed]} Places such as the Canidrome were transformed from elegant ballrooms to mass execution facilities. This reality has been largely censored, despite numerous western texts describing the hostile takeover following the arrival of the People's Liberation Army.

Most foreign firms moved their offices from Shanghai to Hong Kong, specifically North Point, whose Eastern District became known as "Little Shanghai".

Home of leftism

Shanghai was, along with Beijing, the only former ROC municipality not merged into neighboring provinces over the next decade. Shanghai then underwent a series of changes in the boundaries of its subdivisions.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Shanghai became an industrial center and center for revolutionary leftism.^{[citation needed]} The city regressed during the Maoist era.^{[citation needed]} Shanghai remained the largest contributor of tax revenue to the central government, but this came at the cost of severely crippling Shanghai's infrastructure, capital, and artistic development.^{[citation needed]} This also initially denied economic freedoms to the city that were later available to southern provinces such as Guangdong. During the mid-1980s, Guangdong province paid nearly no taxes to the central government and thus was perceived as fiscally expendable.^{[citation needed]} Guangdong would benefit from economic reform under Deng Xiaoping, while Shanghai would have to wait another decade until 1991.

Economic and cultural rebound (1990s–Present)

Nanjing Road in Shanghai in 2003

Although political power in Shanghai has traditionally been seen as a stepping stone to higher positions within the PRC central government,^{[citation needed]} the city's modern transformation really did not begin until the third generation president Jiang Zemin came to power in 1992. Along with his premier Zhu Rongji, Jiang represented the politically right-of-center "Shanghai clique" and began reducing the tax burden on Shanghai. Encouraging both foreign and domestic investment, he sought to promote the city – particularly the Lujiazui area of Pudong – as the economic hub of East Asia and gateway to the Chinese interior. Since that time, Shanghai has led China's overall development and experienced continuous economic growth of between 9–15% annually^{[citation needed]} – arguably at the expense of Hong Kong.

Shanghai is China’s largest and greatest commercial and industrial city. With 0.1% of the land area of the country, it supplies over 12% of the municipal revenue and handles more than a quarter of total trade passing through China’s ports. Its year 2010 population, according to China's latest census, was 23.02 million and represented an increase of 6.61 million from the 2000 census.

The average size of a family in Shanghai declined to fewer than three people during the 1990s, and it is clear that most of Shanghai’s population growth is driven by migration rather than natural factors based on high birth and fertility rates. Shanghai has for many years had the lowest birth rate in China, a rate lower than large American cities such as New York.^{[citation needed]}

As with most cities in China, Shanghai is overbounded in its administrative territory. The city in the year 2010 was composed of 16 districts and one county, together occupying 6,340.5 square kilometers (2,448.1 sq mi) of land area. Chongming contains substantial rural land and a number of rural residents who continue to farm for their livelihood. The city has the highest population density of all the first-order administrative units in China, with 3630.5/km² (9402.9/sq mi) in 2010. Owing to its continued growth and industrial and commercial development, Shanghai also has the highest index of urbanization among all of China’s first order administrative units, with 89.3% of the official population (20.6 million) classified as urban.

The amount of building activity in Shanghai fueled by government investment expenditures continues to be astounding. Since the 1980s, Shanghai’s economy shifted from over 77% of gross domestic product in secondary sector manufacturing to a more balanced sectoral distribution of 48% in industry and 51% in services in 2000 and 2001. Employment in manufacturing reached almost 60% in 1990 and has declined steadily since to 41% in 2001, while employment in the tertiary sector has grown from 30% in 1990 to more than 47% in 2001.

Following official approval for Protestant denominations in 1996, a 1999 campaign closed about 1000 Christian congregations, with a high amount of violence.

The rapid growth in population, factories and motor vehicles has generated environmental issues. Experts say the chief problems involve air and water pollution and the accumulation of solid wastes.