Rebirth: New Shanghai

From the invasion of the Japanese of the city proper in 1941 (the Japanese actually had invaded in 1937 and controlled much of the rest of China), Shanghai never really recovered to its previous role, that is until recently. Soon after the end of the war with the Japanese, the Chinese communists won the civil war and took over in 1949. Since then, through all the upheavals, nothing was done to grow the city.


By the way, even though the rest of China had been invaded, Shanghai, or at least the International and French Concessions, which were under their own foreign-backed governance were therefore "protected" as diplomatically off limits to the Japanese invaders. Shanghai was not taken over by the Japanese until Pearl Harbour when all bets were off and all hell broke loose. There's a great scene at the beginning of the Spielberg movie Empire of the Sun, when the little boy runs across a field past the end of the garden of an expat mansion, where a posh costume party is on, up over a ridge to charge smack into a Japanese military encampment, where the soldiers were sitting around waiting. Waiting. Waiting for Pearl Harbour and the signal to "go". The sense of tension between the invasion threat and the on-going privileged existence of the expats is compelling.

Anyway fast forward to the 1990's. Mao is out and China is opening up. Fast. With the whole Hong Kong thing, the Chinese government was keen to establish another modern Chinese city, which would be an international financial and business centre. They decided it would be Shanghai and embarked on a massive building and modernization transformation of the city. It doesn't hurt that the very top leaders of the Party are former mayors of Shanghai.

Amazing energy.


At one point, during the 1990's according to Lonely Planet over half of all the world's construction cranes were at work in Shanghai. (Would love to know how that was calculated.) Over 30 square km of shikumen neighbourhoods like the one we stayed in (see earlier post) have been razed to make way for huge apartment and office buildings. These folks are serious! Shanghai now has the fastest train in the world, the tallest office building (for the time being) and the longest arched bridge in the world. They plan to build the world's largest ferris wheel in time for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010.

This stuff is in the way. What do you wanna do?
Make way for progress!

Our landlord in Shanghai was talking about our neighbourhood. Our little hotel was in the villa that his grandparents built in the 1930's. He said that it was a great neighbourhood for the old people. They had lots of friends around, the market was across the street, they knew the neighbourhood and all the people, they played mah jong in the courtyard - it was a good life.

I asked him about all the neighbourhoods that had been made gone by the high rises. Including all those we could see on the next block from our terrace. How did people feel about that?

He said people were just fine with that. Modern buildings, modern plumbing, modern electricity, modern design, modern world. What's not to like?

Just so long as there remains space for old ladies and mah jong and bad habits.

That's all I'm going to want, ultimately.

Shanghai artist Liu Bao Jun

War on Drugs

The city of Shanghai originally developed because of a war on drugs.

Prior to 1832 foreign trade with China was very restricted. The Chinese only allowed foreign ships into one port, Canton, and entry was very regulated. After stopping in Macau to pick up a Chinese pilot and written permission to enter Chinese waters, all ships proceeded to anchor at Whampoa, an island 13 miles south of Canton. Hundreds of boats would be at anchor, loading and unloading cargo, which would then be taken on smaller boats to the warehouses in Canton. Sailors with rare exception were confined to the ships. Those officers who were allowed to Canton, were restricted to certain parts of town. No firearms were permitted to be carried by foreigners in the city and foreign women were forbidden from entry. Back in the Whampoa harbour, where the sailors were stuck on their ships, brightly decorated Chinese Flower Boats traveled the waters carrying Chinese ladies of pleasure, some with musicians playing Chinese music.

However, the foreigners were not happy with all the restrictions. While they were very keen to get the silks, spices, tea, cotton and ceramics in great demand back home, the Chinese were not particularly interested in what the foreigners had to offer. This frustrated the foreigners as silver flowed into China and balance of payments were, well, unbalanced.


The British came up with the bright idea of drug dealing. Something addictive, so the Chinese would come back for more. Both the British and the Americans started bringing in opium from India and Turkey, which was much better than the Chinese home grown. Opium was illegal in China and had been since the 1790's but by the 1830's, the foreigners were bringing in 1400 tons a year. When the Chinese government, concerned about the huge number of addicts among their people, tried to shut down the opium trade, seizing and burning 20,000 chests of opium owned by the East India Company, the British went to war over it for two years, to keep the right to bring the drugs into the country.

Eventually the Chinese were defeated by the British and The Treaty of Nanking was signed in 1842, opening key ports, including Shanghai to foreign trade. The United States and France were close behind, negotiating their own treaties and by 1849, Shanghai was divided into districts each with its own administration. Thus was formed the International Concession, settled and governed by the British and Americans and the French Concession governed by the French. These areas of Shanghai were occupied by foreigners for the next 90 years.

The second half of the 19th century saw the rapid growth of a new city, incorporating foreign influence and money. Shanghai flourished.