Railroads and the Transformation of China (Harvard Studies in Business History)

As a vehicle to convey both the history of modern China and the complex forces still driving the nation's economic success, rail has no equal. Railroads and the Transformation of China is the first comprehensive history, in any language, of railroad operation from the last decades of the Qing Empire to the present. China's first fractured lines were built under semicolonial conditions by competing foreign investors. The national system that began taking shape in the 1910s suffered all the ills of the country at large: warlordism and Japanese invasion, Chinese partisan sabotage, the Great Leap Forward when lines suffered in the "battle for steel," and the Cultural Revolution, during which Red Guards were granted free passage to "make revolution" across the country, nearly collapsing the system. Elisabeth Köll's expansive study shows how railroads survived the rupture of the 1949 Communist revolution and became an enduring model of Chinese infrastructure expansion. The railroads persisted because they were exemplary bureaucratic institutions. Through detailed archival research and interviews, Köll builds case studies illuminating the strength of rail administration. Pragmatic management, combining central authority and local autonomy, sustained rail organizations amid shifting political and economic priorities. As Köll shows, rail provided a blueprint for the past forty years of ambitious, semipublic business development and remains an essential component of the PRC's politically charged, technocratic economic model for China's future.-- Provided by publisher As a vehicle to convey both the history of modern China and the complex forces still driving the nation's economic success, rail has no equal. Railroads and the Transformation of China is the first comprehensive history, in any language, of railroad operation from the last decades of the Qing Empire to the present. China's first fractured lines were built under semicolonial conditions by competing foreign investors. The national system that began taking shape in the 1910s suffered all the ills of the country at large: warlordism and Japanese invasion, Chinese partisan sabotage, the Great Leap Forward when lines suffered in the "battle for steel," and the Cultural Revolution, during which Red Guards were granted free passage to "make revolution" across the country, nearly collapsing the system. Elisabeth Köll's expansive study shows how railroads survived the rupture of the 1949 Communist revolution and became an enduring model of Chinese infrastructure expansion. The railroads persisted because they were exemplary bureaucratic institutions. Through detailed archival research and interviews, Köll builds case studies illuminating the strength of rail administration. Pragmatic management, combining central authority and local autonomy, sustained rail organizations amid shifting political and economic priorities. As Köll shows, rail provided a blueprint for the past forty years of ambitious, semipublic business development and remains an essential component of the PRC's politically charged, technocratic economic model for China's future.-- Provided by publisher As a vehicle to convey both the history of modern China and the complex forces still driving the nation's economic success, rail has no equal.__Railroads and the Transformation of China__is the first comprehensive history, in any language, of railroad operation from the last decades of the Qing Empire to the present.China's first fractured lines were built under semicolonial conditions by competing foreign investors. The national system that began taking shape in the 1910s suffered all the ills of the country at large: warlordism and Japanese invasion, Chinese partisan sabotage, the Great Leap Forward when lines suffered in the "battle for steel," and the Cultural Revolution, during which Red Guards were granted free passage to "make revolution" across the country, nearly collapsing the system. Elisabeth Koll's expansive study shows how railroads survived the rupture of the 1949 Communist revolution and became an enduring model of Chinese infrastructure expansion.The railroads persisted because they were exemplary bureaucratic institutions. Through detailed archival research and interviews, Koll builds case studies illuminating the strength of rail administration. Pragmatic management, combining central authority and local autonomy, sustained rail organizations amid shifting political and economic priorities. As Koll shows, rail provided a blueprint for the past forty years of ambitious, semipublic business development and remains an essential component of the PRC's politically charged, technocratic economic model for China's future. Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents List of Figures and Maps A Note on Measures, Romanization, and Translations Introduction I. ​Competing Interests and Railroad Construction 1. Technology and Semicolonial Ventures 2. ​Managing Transitions in the Early Republic II. ​Railroads in the Market and Social Space 3. Moving Goods in the Marketplace 4. ​Moving People, Transmitting Ideas III. ​The Making and the Unmaking of the State 5. Professionalizing and Politicizing the Railroads 6. ​Crisis Management IV. ​On Track to Socialism 7. Postwar Reorganization and Expansion 8. ​Permanent Revolution and Continuous Reform Conclusion: The Legacies of China’s Railroad System Appendix A: ​Jin-Pu Railroad organization chart, ca. 1929 Appendix B: ​Revenue of major Chinese government railroad lines (thousand yuan per mile of line), 1915–1935 Appendix C: ​Freight transported by major Chinese government railroad lines (yuan per ton), 1915–1935 Appendix D: ​Number of passengers by ticket class, major Chinese government railroad lines, 1918–1935 Appendix E: ​Average miles per passenger journey by ticket class, major Chinese government railroad lines, 1918–1935 Appendix F: ​Freight designated for export (tons), shipped from Hankou to Guangzhou and onward to Hong Kong by train, October 18–December 31, 1937 Abbreviations Glossary Notes Acknowledgments Index

To convey modern China's history and the forces driving its economic success, rail has no equal. From warlordism to Cultural Revolution, railroads suffered the country's ills but persisted because they were exemplary institutions. Elisabeth Köll shows why they remain essential to the PRC's technocratic economic model for China's future.