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Electric Power Production in Pre–1937 China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Tim Wright
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Extract

Many important issues in modern Chinese history are crucially affected by the magnitude and pattern of economic growth up to 1937. Despite the work of John Key Chang and more recently Thomas Rawski, however, we still know all too little about the quantitative aspects of that growth. All scholars of the period are greatly indebtedto Chang's pioneering and indispensame work on industrial production but, as he himself points out, his index remains tentative and exploratory. Although the compilation of a definitive new index will eventually depend on work by scholars in China, to my knowledge this has not yet got under way. Wherever compiled, any index of industrial output as a whole, or even of national income, will have to be based on better series for individual industries. In such a context, this research note builds on Chang's work by offering a revision of the output series for one very important and rapidly growing industry in pre-1937 China, the electric power industry.

Type
Research Notes
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 126 , June 1991 , pp. 356 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1991

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References

1. Chang, John Key, Industrial Development in Pre-Communist China (Chicago: Aldine, 1969)Google Scholar; Rawski, Thomas G., Economic Growth in Prewar China (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

2. Chang, , Industrial Development, p. 11Google Scholar. The Institute of Economics at Nankai is, however, interested in embarking on the extremely important task of updating the statistical basis for our understanding of modern China's economy.

3. Thus a recent history of the pre–1949 electric power industry published in China in 1983 does not attempt to provide any output series for the period, and does not even quote Chang's work. Daigeng, Li, Zhongguo dianli gongye fazhan shiliao (Materials on the History of the Chinese Electric Power Industry) (Beijing: Shuili dianli chubanshe, 1983)Google Scholar.

4. Chang, , Industrial Development, pp. 76–79Google Scholar; Ta-chung, Liu and Kung-chia, Yeh, The Economy of the Chinese Mainland: National Income and Economic Development, 1933–1959 (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 142–43, 157, 578Google Scholar.

5. For Chang's, sources and methodology, see Industrial Development, pp. 121, 127Google Scholar.

6. The Asia Statistics Company, China Annual, 1945 (Shanghai: The Asia Statistics Company, 1945), p. 945Google Scholar. An earlier source is Guomindang zhongyang dangbu and Guomindang jingji jihua weiyuanhui, Shinian lai zhi Zhongguo jingji jianshe (Ten Years of Economic Construction in China) (Nanjing: Fulun ribao, 1937, facs., Taibei, 1971), s. 1.6, p. 4Google Scholar, which makes it clear that these figures are estimates by the National Construction Commission.

7. China, , National Construction Commission, Electric Utility Regulation Board, “Electric power development in China”, in Transactions of the Third World Power Conference (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1936), Vol. 2, pp. 105,112Google Scholar.

8. China, , chu, zhuji, ju, tongji, Zhonghua minguo tongji tiyao, 1940 (Statistical Abstract of the Republic of China, 1940) (Chongqing: Tongji ju, 1940), pp. 84–85Google Scholar.

9. Manshikai, , Manshū kaihatsu yonjūnen shi (Forty years of Manchurian Development) (Tokyo: Manshu kaihatsu yonjunen shi kankōkai, 1964–1965), Vol. 2, p. 537Google Scholar; Tsukuda, T., “Electric power projects for future supply in Manchukuo”, in Transactions of the Third World Power Conference, Vol. 5, p. 215Google Scholar.

10. World Power Conference, Statistical Yearbook of the World Power Conference, No. 4 (London: Central Office, World Power Conference, 1948), pp. 172–73, 206Google Scholar and Shinian lai zhi Zhongguo jingji jianshe, s. 1.6, p. 4. These figures are calculated from an alternative series for gross output; see “Electric power development,” p. 112.

11. Ryōzō, Hori, “Yōtobetsu juyō yori kantaru Manshū sekitan no kako, genzai oyobi shōrai” (“The past, present and future of the demand for coal in Manchuria”), Mantetsu chōsa geppō, 15. 11 (11 1935), p. 53Google Scholar.

12. He uses the geological survey figures through the medium of Zhongping, Yan, Zhongguo jindai jingji shi tongji ziliao xuanji (A Collection of Statistical Materials on the Modern Economic History of China) (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1955), p. 102Google Scholar. These figures refer to total output, of which about 6–8% was consumed at the collieries.

13. nianjian, Shenbao she, Shenbao nianjian, 1936 (The Shenbao Yearbook, 1936) (Shanghai: Shenbao guan, 1936), s.1.90Google Scholar.

14. Zhongxi, Chen, “Sanshi nian lai Zhongguo zhi dianqi gongye” (”Thirty years of the Chinese electricity industry”), in hui, Zhongguo gongcheng shixue (ed.), Sanshi nian lai zhi Zhongguo gongcheng (Thirty Years of Chinese Engineering) (Nanjing: Jinghua tushuguan, 1948), p. 12Google Scholar.

15. Gross, figures in “Electric power development,” p. 112Google Scholar; net figures in Zhonghua minguo tongji tiyao, 1940, p. 84.

16. Tsukuda, , “Electric power projects”, p. 215Google Scholar.

17. The series used here is that in Zhiru, Luo (ed.), Tongji biao zhong zhi Shanghai (Shanghai in Statistics) (Nanjing: Academia Sinica, 1932), p. 66Google Scholar. The series in kenkyūjo, Toa, Shogaikoku no tai-Shi tōshi (Foreign Investment in China), 3 vols. (Tokyo: Tōa kenkyūjo, 1943), Vol. 2, pp. 304–305Google Scholaris in fact more complete, and differs from Luo's series for the years 1915–23, but I use Luo's because the Toa kenkyūjo series suggests a jump in output in 1924 which is inconsistent with sales or income figures. For 1912–14, the output of the Shanghai Power Company is assumed to stand in the same ratio to sales as it did on average between 1915 and 1917 (i.e. 1.24:1).

18. xiehui, Shanghai shi difang, Shanghai shi tongji (Statistics of Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai shi difang xiehui, 1933), public utilities, p. 9Google Scholar labels the 1927–30 figures as “supply of electricity,” which should exclude that used within the plant. Moreover, the 1930s aggregate figures for net output seem to have been compiled on the basis of the Shanghai Power Company output as given in Table 1. However, these figures remain substantially higher than those for sales of electricity.

19. kenkyūjo, Tōa, Shogaikoku no tai-Shi tōshi, Vol. 2, p. 305Google Scholar; Chen, C. H. and Sun, Y. S., “The electrical power industry in China: past, present and future”, in Transactions of the Fuel Economy Conference, The Hague 1947, 3 vols. (London: Lund Humphries & Co. Ltd., 1948), Vol. 2, p. 732Google Scholar; see also Zhongxi, Chen, “Zhongguo zhi dianqi gongye,” p. 17Google Scholar, and China, , chu, Zhuji, ju, tongji, Zhonghua minguo tongji tiyao, 1935 (Statistical Abstract of the Republic of China, 1935) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshu guan, 1936), p. 1150Google Scholar.

20. Shenbao nianjian, 1936, s. 1.90. Chang calculated the trend in the relationship of output (in million kilowatt–hours) to capacity (in thousand kilowatts) from the figures in that source for 1923–34; this trend was, however, very uneven, encompassing a very rapid rise between 1923 and 1930 and then stagnation, and there is no clear trend in similar figures for the Shanghai Power Company and for Manchuria. This trend (+0.06 million KWH/1000 KW/year) was extrapolated backwards from the 1923 figure to get a figure for the output of Chinese plants.

21. Zhongzi, Chen, “Zhongguo zhi dianqi gongye”, p. 12Google Scholar.

22. “Electric power development”, p. 112.

23. Zhonghua minguo tongji tiyao, 1940, p. 85.