From Suzhou to Shanghai: A Tale of Two Systems

Scholars have long assumed that the opening of Shanghai as a treaty port in 1843, followed by the disruption caused by the Taiping Rebellion, led to an abrupt restructuring of China's internal organization and a fundamental change in its relation to the outside world. Looking at developments at Suzhou and Shanghai over the long nineteenth century in parallel, this study argues that this was in fact a far later and much more gradual process than we have heretofore appreciated, the decisive breaks occurring at least a half-century later than usually assumed.