SHANGHAI

also spelled Shang-hai, city, and province-level shih (municipality), east-central China. It is one of the world's largest seaports and a major industrial and commercial centre of China. The city is located on the coast of the East China Sea between the mouth of the Yangtze River to the north and the bays of Hangchow and Y-p'an to the south. The municipality covers a total area of 2,383 square miles (6,185 square kilometres), which includes the city itself, surrounding suburbs, and an agricultural hinterland; it is also China's most populous urban area. Shanghai was the first Chinese port to be opened to Western trade, and it long dominated the nation's commerce. Since the Communist victory in 1949, however, it has become an industrial giant whose products supply China's growing domestic demands. The city has also undergone extensive physical changes with the establishment of industrial suburbs and housing complexes, the improvement of public works, and the provision of parks and other recreational facilities. Shanghai has attempted to eradicate the economic and psychological legacies of its exploited past through physical and social transformation to support its major role in the modernization of China. also spelled Shang-hai, city, major seaport, and province-level shih (municipality), east-central China. Shanghai is a major industrial and commercial metropolis of China situated on the East China Sea coast between the mouth of the Yangtze River (north) and Hangchow and Y-p'an bays (south). The Huang-p'u River winds through the city before entering the estuary of the Yangtze River. Shanghai was the first Chinese port to be opened to trade with the West and long dominated the nation's commerce. After defeat by Britain in the Opium War (1842), China was forced to open Shanghai to European trade and concessions. Foreign powers expropriated territory in the city and forced a European imprint on the city's growth. Since the communist victory in 1949, it has become the chief industrial centre in the nation. The government has made many physical changes in the city in an attempt to rid it of the legacies of its past and create a purely Chinese urban area. The city is the seat of Shanghai shih, an administrative entity that is equivalent to a sheng (province) and is directly subordinate to the Chinese central government. Shanghai shih is bordered by Kiangsu province on the north and west and by Chekiang province on the south. In addition to the city of Shanghai, the shih includes several adjacent counties (hsien) and approximately 30 islands in the mouth of the Yangtze and offshore to the southeast in the East China Sea. The mainland portion of Shanghai city lies on an almost level deltaic plain with an average elevation of 10 to 16 feet (3 to 5 m) above sea level. The climate of Shanghai is moderated somewhat by its proximity to the sea. The average July temperature is 80 F (27 C), and the January average is 37 F (3 C). The average annual precipitation is 45 inches (1,143 mm), with June the wettest month and December the driest. Air pollution has become a problem in Shanghai, but the location of industry and new construction away from the central city has alleviated this situation somewhat. Though it too is polluted, the Huang-p'u River is still Shanghai's main freshwater source. Because of the government policy to develop integrated residential and industrial complexes in the suburban areas, little development has occurred in the downtown area, and pre-World War II buildings that once housed diplomatic missions and foreign commercial concerns still stand. The area south and west of the confluence of the Su-chou and Huang-p'u rivers has a gridlike street pattern reflecting the influence of the British concessionaires who originally developed the area. Many hotels and the central administrative offices of Shanghai shih are located near the eastern border of this section. Other districts have their own distinct patterns and features. The Hung-K'ou district lies to the north and east of the Su-chou River. Previously developed by American and Japanese concessionaires, it is now an important industrial area known for its shipyards and factories. The old Chinese city, which features a random and serpentine street layout, was once surrounded by a 3-mile- (5-kilometre-) long wall that has since been replaced by two streets. Western Shanghai is principally a residential area. The southwestern district of Hsu-hui, formerly Ziccawei, was a centre of Christian missionary activity in the 17th century. Shanghai's large and highly skilled work force, broadly based scientific establishment, tradition of producer cooperation, and excellent transportation and communications facilities have all contributed to the city's stature as the leading industrial centre in China. This industrial establishment produces a great variety of capital and consumer goods, including specialized dies, lathes, electronic assembly equipment, watches, cameras, radios, fountain pens, glassware, leather goods, stationery products, and hardware. The city's well-established chemical and petrochemical industries serve as a basis for the production of plastics, synthetic fibres, and other products. Textile manufacturing is also significant. Shanghai is also one of China's leading centres of higher education and scientific research. The area has numerous universities and several technical and higher education institutes. Many factories sponsor their workers in work-study colleges that prepare them for more highly skilled jobs. Research and development are conducted at the Shanghai branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Museums, historical sites, and scenic gardens are some of the many cultural attractions in Shanghai. Extensive collections of sculpture and pictorial art are featured at the Shanghai Museum, and the Shanghai Revolutionary History Memorial Hall displays photographs and objects relating to Shanghai's history. Folk operas, dances, plays, story readings, and other performances are put on at the Ta Shih-chieh (Great World). Cultural features of the old Chinese city include the 16th-century Yu-Yan garden and the Former Temple of Confucius. Benefiting from its dual role as a sea and river port, Shanghai has developed into China's foremost transportation centre. The Huang-p'u River serves as an excellent harbour; at high tide oceangoing vessels can sail up the river to the city. The harbour has been divided into numerous districts, each equipped to handle specific types of commodities and vessels. An extensive inland waterway network connects the area with major cities in the bordering provinces. In 1984 Shanghai was designated one of China's open cities in the new open-door policy inviting foreign investment. Two major railway lines, the Hu-ning line from Nanking and the Hu-han-jung line from the port of Ning-po, terminate in Shanghai. The Hung-ch'iao International Airport is the major air terminal serving Shanghai, with the older Lung-hua airport used primarily for domestic flights. Area municipality, 2,383 square miles (6,185 square km). Pop. (1990) city, 7,496,509; municipality, 13,341,896. Additional reading Rhoads Murphey, Shanghai: Key to Modern China (1953), is an authoritative study of Shanghai's pre-World War II political and economic organization. For the post-1949 period, Neale Hunter, Shanghai Journal (1969), recounts the author's experiences as an English teacher in the Shanghai Foreign Language Institute during the Cultural Revolution. Scholarly accounts of the organization and management of Shanghai's industry, trade, and financial institutions through the 1960s may be found in Audrey G. Donnithorne, China's Economic System (1967); and Barry M. Richman, Industrial Society in Communist China (1969). Economic and political developments are treated in Christopher Howe, The Level and Structure of Employment and the Sources of Labor Supply in Shanghai, 19491957, and Lynn T. White III, Shanghai's Polity in Cultural Revolution, in J.W. Lewis (ed.), The City in Communist China (1971). A carefully documented collection of papers on Shanghai's political life, economic development, cultural and ideological milieu, and spatial development is brought together by Christopher Howe (ed.), Shanghai: Revolution and Development in an Asian Metropolis (1981). Lynn T. White III, Careers in Shanghai: The Social Guidance of Personal Energies in a Developing Chinese City, 19491966 (1978), examines political and social influences on career choices in relation to national goals. Baruch Boxer History Evolution of the city As late as the 5th to 7th century AD the Shanghai area, then known as Shen or Hu Tu, was sparsely populated and undeveloped. Despite the steady southward progression of Chinese settlement, the exposed deltaic position of the area retarded its economic growth. During the Sung dynasty (9601126) Shanghai emerged from its somnolent state as a small, isolated fishing village. The area to the west around T'ai Hu (T'ai Lake) had developed a self-sustaining agricultural economy on protected reclaimed land and was stimulated by an increase in population resulting from the southward migration of Chinese fleeing the invading Mongols in the north. The natural advantages of Shanghai as a deepwater port and shipping centre were recognized as coastal and inland shipping expanded rapidly. By the beginning of the 11th century, a customs office was established; and by the end of the 13th century, Shanghai was designated as a county seat and placed under the jurisdiction of Kiangsu Province. During the Ming dynasty (13681644), roughly 70 percent of the cultivated acreage around Shanghai was given to the production of cotton to feed the city's cotton- and silk-spinning industry. By the middle of the 18th century there were more than 20,000 persons employed as cotton spinners. After the 1850s, the predominantly agricultural focus of the economy was quickly transformed. At this time the city became the major Chinese base for commercial imperialism by nations of the West. Following their humiliating defeat by Great Britain in 1842, the Chinese surrendered Shanghai and signed the Treaty of Nanking, which opened the city to unrestricted foreign trade. The British, French, and Americans took possession of designated areas in the city within which they were granted special rights and privileges, and the Japanese received a concession in 1895 under the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The opening of Shanghai to foreign business immediately led to the establishment of major European banks and multipurpose commercial houses. The city's prospects as a leading centre of foreign trade were further enhanced when Canton, a rival port in the southeastern coastal province of Kwangtung, was cut off from its hinterland by the Taiping Rebellion (185064). Impelled by this potential threat to the uninterrupted expansion of their commercial operations in China, the British obtained rights of navigation on the Yangtze in 1857. As the natural outlet for the vast hinterland of the Lower Yangtze, Shanghai rapidly grew to become China's leading port and by 1860 accounted for about 25 percent of the total shipping tonnage entering and departing the country. Shanghai did not, however, show promise of becoming a major industrial centre until the 1890s. Except for the Chiang-nan Arsenal organized by the Ch'ing dynasty (16441911) in the early 1860s, most industrial enterprises were small-scale offshoots of the larger foreign trading houses. As the flow of foreign capital steadily increased after the Sino-Japanese War of 189495, light industries were established within the foreign concessions, which took advantage of Shanghai's ample and cheap labour supply, local raw materials, and inexpensive power. The 20th century By contrast, local Chinese investment in Shanghai's industry was minimal until World War I diverted foreign capital from China. From 1914 through the early 1920s, Chinese investors were able to gain a tenuous foothold in the scramble to develop the industrial economy. This initial involvement was short-lived, however, as the post-World War I resurgence of Western and Japanese economic imperialismfollowed closely by the Depression of the 1930soverwhelmed many of the newly established Chinese industries. Competition became difficult, as cheaper foreign goods were dumped on the Shanghai market, and labour was attracted to relatively higher paying jobs in foreign-owned factories. Prior to the Sino-Japanese War of 193745 the Japanese had gained control over about half of the city's yarn-spinning and textile-weaving capacity. The 1920s was also a period of growing political awareness in Shanghai. Members of the working class, students, and intellectuals became increasingly politicized as foreign domination of the city's economic and political life became ever more oppressive. When the agreements signed by the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan at the Washington Conference of 1922 failed to satisfy Chinese demands, boycotts of foreign goods were instituted. The Chinese Communist Party was founded in Shanghai in 1921, and four years later the Communist Party led the May 30 uprising of students and workers. This massive political demonstration was directed against feudalism, capitalism, and official connivance in foreign imperialistic ventures. The studentworker coalition actively supported the Nationalist armies under Chiang Kai-shek, but the coalition and the Communist Party were violently suppressed by the Nationalists in 1927. Shanghai was occupied by the Japanese during the Sino-Japanese War of 193745, and the city's industrial plants suffered extensive war damage. In the brief interim before the fall of Shanghai to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 1949, the city's economy suffered even greater dislocation through the haphazard proliferation of small, inefficient shop industries, rampant inflation, and the absence of any overall plan for industrial reconstruction. After 1949 Shanghai's development was temporarily slowed because of the emphasis on internal regional development, especially during the period up to 1960 when close cooperation was maintained with the Soviet Union. With the cooling of relations after 1960, Shanghai has resumed its key position as China's leading scientific and technological research centre, with the nation's most highly skilled labour force.