Seminar on Chinese Urban Centers in an Agrarian Context

- j (•Chan , F. Cilherr {?·4J4:1mf Univc·ndty): Rt.-1101ut1ona.ry ltadcrsh1p in transition; Suri Yat-s~n and his comrades, }QQ~-142~ Chan, Ming K. (El Colegio de Uexico): Labor and revolution; the pre-1949 CCP experiences in the labor movement Friedman, Edward (University of Wisconsin): lmperialism and the failure of parliamentary democracy Gewurtz, Margo (University of York): Education and livelihood; the work of the Chinese Vocational Education Association, 1917-1927 Hsueh, Chun-tu (University of Maryland): The Revolution of 1911; man and ideas Metallo, Hlcharl (Prov!den~e College): The United States and Sun Yat-sen In th~ 1920'~ Price, Jan~ L. (Hunter College): Kevolutlon and nation-building; th~ education of Chines~ communist leaders, 1937-1945 Wang, Teh-chao (Chinese University of Hongkong): The ri~~ and decline of native hanks, ch 1 ien chuang 1 in Shanghai Wilbur, Hartin C. (Columbia Universlrv): Sun Yat-sen and Soviet Russia Abstract~ of all papers have been made available by the Congress in the form of a set of pamphlets, of which Volume 5 contains abstracts of all papers on China. !.cnst Wolff university of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • ~ ON £fil!ifil URBAN CENTERS lli AN AGRARIAN CONTEXT Held at the University of Chicago, August 23-27, 1976. Sponsored by the Joint Committee on Contemporary China of the ACLS and SSRC. This meeting was originally conceived as an interdisciplinary gathering to focus on problems in economic and social organization at the local level in China after 1850, with particular attention to urban centers, urban-rural relations, and relationshlps between cities at various levels of the central place hierarchy. It was hoped that this orientation would draw attention away from conventional historical dividing lines, in particular the Revolution of 1911; and would turn attention to problems as yet largely unresearched: the extent and pace of urbanization during the post-Taiping period; the much-discussed development of an urban culture that drew an increasing proportion of China's elite away from the rural sector of society; and the disparity between observations of economic growth and prosperity in urban areas and market systems, and observatiOns of agrarian crisis. The seminar concluded with an outline of prospects for future research building upon material presented in the papers (see appended list of titles and authors). We were interested in trying to quantify as much of our data as possible, usin~ whatever measures the data afford us. Of particular importance as indicators of flows of trade and mobilization of resources are guild organizations and groups of migrant laborers, -1 lboth frt!quc:ntly organizl·d along ~~-=!_1?~~-1.!f. linC:'S and/or furthtr subdivided or amalgamated to form spc·cialized oc{·uprH as a crJcical indicator of economic and social change. Many viewed the apparent decline of power at the center as a void into which local elite groups moved to articulate their interests and to preserve local order--hardly a new phenomenon in Chinese history, but one which at thie time drew in a broader spectrum of local participants (e.g., from commercial classes through Chambers of Conunerce), and which gave riee to increasing competition between local interest groups. We considered in particular the problem of distribution of resources and population along the rural-urban continuum. ,.C.il Rozman's suggestive findings about the relativelv high ratio of lower-level to upper-lf'vel ceny-'rs in the central place hierarchy, and thtrPlativvly constant proportion of tl1P pupul9tion llvin~ Jn cities in th~ century aftvr 1850. led to spt'culation ahout the nature 01" urban-rural differE;-ncee: was tlw elilt· mostly c]uslt-red in citit>s? If f.:;o, at what Jevt·le? And even if so, did this elitl· cuntrl1l a large enough percentaRe of the national income to make a difference? Are urban population data skf"wP: David D. Buck. ''Some differences in charity and aocia1 aid in urban and rural an...as in tht.• Ch' in~ period'4 Susan Mann Jone~. "Differentia} economic devt.:')opment in Ningpo prefecture.. Robert A. Kapp. llntitlt:d paper on Chungking in wartirnt.Lillian l-1. Li. "The impact of foreign trade on urban-rural relations in tht Lower Yangtze Valley: rhe case of silk...