History of Shanghai - Qing Dynasty

Qing Dynasty

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.

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. 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.