A S a trade region the Yangtze River Valley is the most important in China. Shanghai, as a port, reflects this by steadily handling some 50 per cent of the annual recorded foreign trade of the entire country.' The growth of Yangtze Valley trade and the recent development of the many treaty-port trade centers along the river contain features of interest, which it is the purpose of this paper to outline. Much of this story is intimately connected with the growth of economic nationalism and of China's foreign trade as well as with the displacement of native sailing-junk traffic by that of steam vessels. Traditionally the Middle Kingdom has been the center of a cultural world, from beyond which useful new devices occasionally came with other tribute to the emperor. Gifts of greater value were sent in return as a matter of policy, and often they proved a drain on the imperial treasury. That a whole culture beyond their realm could be superior or that in general dealings with the rest of the world they could be permanently at a disadvantage the Chinese found it impossible to believe. During the nineteenth century proofs were offered that in many ways the Occidentals possessed a dominating if not superior culture and that the Chinese were themselves at a considerable disadvantage in all kinds of dealings. Since about i8oo China, in common with much of the world, has grown enormously in population, and by I900 it had become a food-importing nation whose general balance of trade was unfavorable. Free commercial exploitation of a great market under unfair treaty rights has increasingly rankled in the Chinese mind. The movement against exploitation has grown with increasing rapidity as China consciously has turned to Occidental practices to combat Occidental exploitation-tariffs, subsidies, propaganda for native products, boycotts of foreign goods, and the like. In the shipping industry foreign companies transport most of China's foreign and domestic water-borne goods, with an enormous drain of freight charges out of the country. Recently there has been agitation for the nationalizing of coastal and inland waters, thereby to reserve coastal trading to domestic registry, as is done in the United States. Such a move at present, however, would undoubtedly cause an unfavorable reaction in all branches of trade, for the tonnage under Chinese ownership is quite inadequate. Nevertheless, working agree-
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Sep 1, 1974
M E Cravens 
Open Access