印度棉花:鸦片战争之前外域原料的规模化入华

Indian Cotton:Large-Scale Import of Foreign Raw Materials in China before the Opium War

时至清代,棉纺织业成为中国产值最大的手工业,原棉需求愈旺。在输华白银短缺的情况下,印度棉花一度成为外国输华货品的第一大宗。印度棉花的批量入华印证,在鸦片战争前的很长一段时间内,是"东方产品"而不是"西方产品"在中国行销走俏。这是中国历史上第一次规模化的外来原料输入,涉及中国最重要的两个经济领域-—农业和手工业。耕织结合系中国传统社会自然经济结构的核心,此时中国的棉花经济,已不单纯是一个局限于中国境内的国内经贸体系,而是开始受到异域的影响。英国等赖此重建对华贸易结构,海外棉也首次与中国千家万户耕织结合的小农、小手工业经济相结合。

Until the Qing dynasty,the cotton textile industry had become China's most productive handicraft industry,and demands for raw cotton continued lo increase.However,when a shortage of silver imports into China developed,for a time Indian cotton became the first foreign commodity imported to China in bulk.This bulk importation of Indian cotton confirms that,during the long period before the Opium War,the popular commodities in China were ' Eastern products,' not 'Western products.' This was the first large-scale importation of foreign raw materials in Chinese history,and it touched upon agriculture and handicrafts-China's two most important economic domains.The combination of farming and weaving is at the core of the natural economic structure of traditional Chinese society,but at this time the cotton economy of China was not confined to its domestic economic and trade system.Instead,foreign influences had begun to affect it and,later,England and other countries relied on this situation to rebuild trade structures with China.For the first lime,foreign cotton was integrated into the small farms and handicraft industries of the thousands of farming and weaving households in China.