History of Shanghai
Originally a small agricultural village, Shanghai developed during the late Qing dynasty (1644–1912) as one of China's principal trading ports.
Since the economic reforms of the early 1990s the city has burgeoned to become one of Asia's major financial centers[1] and the world's busiest container port.
[2] Around 6000 BCE, only the western part of the Shanghai region encompassing today's Qingpu, Songjiang and Jinshan districts were dry land formed by lacustrine silting from ancient Lake Tai.
In the lower stratum of the Songze excavation site in the modern-day Qingpu District, archaeologists found the prone skeleton of one of the Shanghai's earliest inhabitants—a 25-30-year-old male with an almost complete skull dated to the Majiabang era.
[4] By the 4th and 5th centuries CE, during the Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420), a thriving fishing industry had developed along the Song River—now known as Suzhou Creek,[5]—a tributary of the Huangpu River.
[5] Five years later, Huating Zhèn (花亭镇; 華亭镇; 'Garrison of the Flower Temple')[note 1] followed, demonstrating the growth of the region and its increasing political and geographical importance.
[5] In 1074, Emperor Shenzong of Song, established a Marine Office and a Goods Control Bureau north-west of Huating Zhen at the approximate location of Shanghai's old city, adjacent to a ditch or pu (浦) that ran north into Suzhou Creek and allowed for the loading and unloading of freight.
[9] At this time, five of Huating Zhen's villages were amalgamated to form a new Shanghai County (上海县; 上海縣; Shànghǎi Xiàn) on the site of the modern city centre.
[11] In 1832, the East India Company explored Shanghai and the Yangzi River as a potential trading center for tea, silk, and opium, but were rebuffed by local officials.
Similar treaties were quickly signed with other Western nations, and French, American and German merchants joined their British counterparts in establishing a presence in Shanghai, residing in sovereign concessions where they were not subject to Chinese laws.
[citation needed] In 1854 a group of Western businessmen met and formed the Shanghai Municipal Council to organise road repairs, refuse clearance and tax collection across the concessions.
The Shanghai French Concession, to the west of the old town, remained independent and the Chinese retained control over the original walled city and the area surrounding the foreign enclaves.
The International Settlement was wholly foreign-controlled with the British holding the largest number of seats on the council and heading all the Municipal departments.
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.
These Shanghai Russians were sometimes poorly regarded by westerners, as their general poverty led them to take jobs considered unsuitable for Europeans, including prostitution.
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.
[23] Huang was the highest-ranked Chinese detective in the French Concession Police (FCP) and employed Green Gang (Qing Bang) leader Du Yuesheng as his gambling and opium enforcer.
[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 Shih who challenged Chinese traditionalism with new ideologies.
The Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and the Shanghailanders entered into an informal alliance with the Green Gang, which acted against the Communists and organized labor unions.
[citation needed] T. V. 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.
In 1922, this area had also been earmarked by Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Chinese Republic, as the center of China's development plans with a view to Shanghai becoming a global commercial centre.
However, under pressure from their ally Nazi 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.
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] and they were finally interned in concentration camps, notably Lunghua Civilian Assembly Center, in 1943.
The Republic of China Army had vowed to make the city "China's Stalingrad" the way it had previously contested Imperial Japanese control in 1937 but, having lost 153,000 men of its defending force of 210,000 in the city's outer districts, it was unable to sustain subsequent street-to-street fighting in the central districts, leading some scholars like Dikötter to consider their resistance "minimal".
[32] With the local population supportive of the Kuomintang,[citation needed] one of the first actions taken in the Chinese Communist Revolution was to kill people considered counter-revolutionaries.
[33][34] This included the mass arrest of thousands of vagrants, criminals, and rickshaw drivers beginning in December 1949, alongside a broader crackdown on gambling and prostitution.
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[38] – arguably at the expense of Hong Kong.
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.
