Thesis ID: CBB944331615

Revolutionary Current: Electricity and the Formation of the Party-State in China and Taiwan, 1937-1957 (2015)

unapi

Between 1937 and 1957, China experienced a severe energy crisis that transformed the nation's political and social order, as the Japanese, Guomindang, and the Communist vied for supremacy in China. From the second Sino-Japanese War, Civil War between Nationalists and Communists, until the completion of the People's Republic First Five Year Plan, the military played an increasingly important role in China's electrical industries. I begin by looking at how the Japanese military worked together with Japanese power companies to take over the electrical infrastructure in the cities around North China and the lower Yangtze Delta. The Guomindang regime, which retreated to Southwest China, built its electrical industries to cater to military demands. The Chinese started making electrical components such as wires and vacuum tubes, which were vital to military communications. During the Civil War, the People's Liberation Army devised strategies that minimized damage to electrical power infrastructure during urban warfare. After Communist victory in 1949, revolutionaries in military uniforms made use of their expertise in logistical planning and mass mobilization to coordinate the usage of electrical power. By the end of two turbulent decades, China's electrical power sector transformed from an industry dominated by foreign capitalists into an integral part of the permanent war economy. This dissertation compares the effectiveness of the fuel-provisioning regimes developed by the Japanese, Nationalists, and the Communists. The Japanese military worked closely with the power companies to take over the electrical industries in North China and Lower Yangtze and controlled the coal supply to these occupied regions. The high cost of transporting coal and maintaining the electrical power infrastructure bogged down the Japanese, which contributed to the collapse of the Japanese empire. Meanwhile, a group of engineer-bureaucrats, who followed the Guomindang regime during the retreat to Southwest China, coordinated the nationalization of China's electrical industries and established national standards for the nation's public utilities. The Guomindang government however failed to build on these wartime achievements after 1945. The Communists secured the defection of the Guomindang's engineering elite, which allowed them to inherit the electrical power industries built by foreign capitalists, Japanese invaders, and Guomindang regime largely intact. The Communists retained a firm grip on political power, because they devised the most efficient and effective way to make use of limited energy resources.

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Authors & Contributors
Hélène Gaget
Nicholas Anthony Autiello
Kuo-Hui Chang
Balzhiser, Richard
Jeremiah D. Lambert
Stéphanie Homola
Concepts
Engineering
East Asia, civilization and culture
Electricity; magnetism
Technology
Telegraphs; telephones
Energy resources and technologies
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
Premodern
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
Medieval
21st century
Places
China
Taiwan
Japan
East Asia
United States
Korea
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