Topic 5 - A Case Study of Industrialization, The Silk Sector: Obstacles, Take-Off or False-Starts

Question 1

Describe the reversal of technological flow between East and West.

Answer 1

The west had advantages in:

1) Sericulture: Applying science (use of microscopes and the germ theory of disease)
2) Silk-reeling: The West had machines that used steam to create silk that was more even and uniform so that it could be sold for a higher price

Question 2

How did steam change the silk industry?

Answer 2

Led to the rise of factories

Question 3

Why did China have a comparative advantage regardless of the West’s steam technology?

Answer 3

• Mechanized power only has limited advantage over hand or other sources of power (productivity differences between hand and machine - unlike in cotton spinning - are small)
• Factory production of raw silk still limited even in the most advanced silk-producing countries.
• In view of the cheap labor and labor-intensive nature of silk production, China or East Asia in general had comparative advantage.

Question 4

How did the contrasting performance between Japan and China change from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century?

Answer 4

China was the leader in the mid-19th century but by the 1930s Japan exported 3 times as much as China

Question 5

Why is it not true that Japan was naturally more receptive to technological transfers?

Answer 5

• There were anti-foreign feelings and resistance to innovation
• There were threats of assassination of foreign skilled workers

Question 6

What policies did China lag behind Japan in introducing?

Answer 6

• Patent law
• First modern universities
• modern banking legislation

Question 7

What was the Ewo filature?

Answer 7

• It was the first Western-style, powered, silk-reeling factory to be established
• It was one of the earliest efforts of any sort to transfer Western production technology to China

Question 8

In what year did China regain its status as the number one silk exporter?

Answer 8

1977