During his college years, Wang Jingyu showed the temperament and accomplishment of a social science researcher. Starting from 1942, he began to study international financial issues with great interest while studying university courses seriously. In Chongqing's Financial Knowledge magazine, he published articles such as New York Financial Market Analysis and Credit Control Theory of the Federal Reserve System, and made an incisive analysis of the American financial system. In addition, he also wrote some articles about finance and economics.
While working in Academia Sinica, Wang Jingyu mainly studied the industrial production in China. In the book National Income of China (1933), edited by Wu, he served as a researcher in the industrial sector. This book was published in 1947. In the field of China's economics, this is a representative and influential book. At that time, there was little research on China's national income and industrial development level, and this book is the most complete and detailed. Until today, Wang Jingyu, a researcher of modern economic history in China, still needs to quote the research results of this book from time to time.
During the period of Academia Sinica, Wang Jingyu also published the monograph "Industrial Production in China, 193 1- 1946" (China's industrial production,1931946) and English.
(China's industrial production before the war) and "The proportion of foreign factory production in China's industrial production before the war" and a series of articles about industrial production in North China and other places during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period.
When studying the semi-colonial and semi-feudal economy of China, Wang Jingyu came to the conclusion that China must take the socialist road. At the beginning of 1949, he wrote in the newspaper that "China needs socialism" and "socialism and planned economy are inseparable". Some people advocated "socialism with free competition", which was not feasible in China at that time. 1953, Wang Jingyu published an article in People's Daily entitled "Why Old China Can't Realize National Industrialization". This paper analyzes the oppression and obstruction of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism on China's national industry. He pointed out: "Historical facts have proved Chairman Mao's scientific judgment and educated the people of China. Only by fundamentally transforming semi-feudal and semi-colonial China into an independent, free, democratic and unified China can we achieve real industrialization. " Before this article was published, Deng Tuo, who was in charge of People's Daily at that time, personally reviewed the manuscript and made comments. After publication, Zhongjian, People's China and some foreign newspapers and periodicals reprinted, which had a wide influence.
1957, materials of modern industrial history of China (the second series) edited by him was published. This masterpiece of nearly a million words is a relatively complete work, with high academic value and great influence. After publication, there were comments and introductions at home and abroad.
On the basis of mastering a lot of information, Wang Jingyu has done many special studies. 1953- 1965 has published many papers on historical research, economic research, new construction and academic research, among which China capitalism: China's national industry during the Second Revolutionary Civil War, the economic background of the May 4th Movement and China's first generation industry were mainly studied. The research on foreign capital in China mainly includes:/kloc-the expansion of foreign banks' influence in China in the 9th century and their control over the financial market of China trading ports; /kloc-historical materials of foreign shipbuilding industry in China in the 0/9th century; and/kloc-foreign industrial investment in China in the 0/9th century. These papers put forward new historical materials and new viewpoints, which are not only profound, but also often expound some new problems encountered in the research for discussion, which is refreshing.
In the years after 1979, his monographs19th Century Western Capitalism's Economic Aggression against China, Tang Studies and Hurd and Modern Sino-Western Relations were published one after another. He has also published papers in China Social Sciences, Historical Studies and Modern History Studies, such as On the Generation of China Bourgeois, Re-discussion on the Generation of China Capitalism and Bourgeois, On the Generation of China Capitalism and the Relationship between Westernization Movement and China Capitalism, On the Historical Conditions for the Generation of China Capitalism, and The Problems of Modern National Capital Enterprises. Among them, the19th century western capitalism's economic aggression against China and the study of the Tang Dynasty were well received by domestic academic circles. The article "Re-discussion on Capitalism and the Emergence of China Bourgeois" won the first Excellent Paper Award for Historical Research. After entering the 1990s, Wang Jingyu achieved a bumper harvest in academic achievements. In addition to publishing a large number of papers, the Modern Economic History of China 1895- 1927, edited by him, was published in three volumes and won many awards such as Sun Economics Award. His personal works include Financial Activities of Modern Foreign Capital in China, Collected Works of Wang Jingyu, etc. Wang Jingyu is a well-known scholar in the field of China's economic history, but he is open-minded and quiet. He works hard and is meticulous. He was anxious about what others asked of him and tried his best to help him. He can't find time to sort out one of his own manuscripts, but he spends a lot of time reading it to others. Even if it is a masterpiece of millions of words, he always puts forward very specific and pertinent opinions after careful reading. For his graduate students and doctoral students, he persuaded them, taught them his own research experience and research methods, considered them everywhere and actively created various conditions for them. He spent a lot of time and energy revising the manuscript for others (including his own students), but refused to sign his name when he published it. He always said that this is the tradition of the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Wang Jingyu studied him very carefully. Most of his research work is the so-called information work that ordinary people look down upon. He is willing to sort out some useful information for people engaged in research work. His research work began with assisting Wu in estimating China's national income. In order to get a more accurate figure of his share in China's industrial production, he didn't avoid difficulties and sorted out more complete statistical data from fragmentary data, instead of using a general estimation method to save trouble. For example, some foreign factories in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression were originally produced in China. It is estimated that the capital of foreign factories is three times that of China factories, and the output of foreign factories is about three times that of China factories. Wang Jingyu believes that although this estimate is convenient, it may not be realistic. Because, firstly, the estimation of foreign factory capital and China factory capital at that time was not complete, and in the existing estimation, the scope of the two is also inconsistent; Second, the increase of capital and the increase of production cannot be directly proportional. He would rather collect information from one enterprise to another, and constantly supplement and modify it over time, rather than make a rough estimate.
Of course, he does not rule out reasonable estimates. In view of the scarcity and low reliability of statistical data left over from China's history, he believes that besides vigorously collecting and sorting out statistical data, it should also allow a reasonable estimation of the objective economic situation, especially the macro-economy. The so-called rationality means that this estimate has both sufficient factual basis and strict logical reasoning. A Study of Foreign Capital Invasion in China. Wang Jingyu's research achievements in this field include three monographs and some papers, namely19th Century Western Capitalism's Economic Aggression against China, Hurd and Modern Sino-Western Relations, and Modern Foreign Capital's Financial Activities in China. /KLOC-Economic Aggression of Western Capitalism on China in the 9th Century is a monograph focusing on the analysis of historical process, involving all aspects of foreign aggression against China. This masterpiece is composed of seventeen relatively independent topics, and it is the most complete and detailed work to study the process of foreign invasion of China in the19th century.
Historical Process If "19th Century Western Capitalism's Economic Aggression against China" is a superficial grasp of the historical process at that time, then "Hurd and Modern Sino-Western Relations" is a radial study centered on a typical figure, thus profoundly showing the historical process of foreign aggression against China. There is a saying in western works about China's modern history called "Hurd Centrism". They beautify Hurd and distort history. This is a challenge to the history of China people. Hurd and modern Sino-Western relations were written to meet this challenge. With rich historical facts, it exposed Hurd's criminal activities in China Customs, and participated in western countries' trade plunder of China, investment plunder of China and illegal and violent plunder of China. Hurd's relationship with modern China and the West revealed the true colors of Hurd's activities.
The third book, Foreign Financial Activities in Modern China, is Foreign Financial Activities in Modern China published by People's Publishing House 1999. As Wang Jingyu said in the preface, this work began in the late 1950s, and 40 years have passed since the publication of this book. During this period, Wang Jingyu looked through the materials collected in various book purchasing centers in Beijing, and went to Xujiahui Library of Shanghai Library twice to collect the relevant materials in Chinese and Western newspapers and various surviving documents in the19th century, and on this basis, wrote the first draft of a 300,000-word monograph. Later, on this basis, he wrote a monograph of nearly 500 thousand words. However, due to various reasons, the monograph has not been finalized and printed, and some monographs have not been published in time. Later, I edited the second volume of China Modern Economic History (the first volume was edited by Mr. Yan), and I worked hard for ten years. It was really unusual until the second volume was released, and I finally picked up the manuscript that started decades ago.
The academic value of this book lies in its unusually rich historical materials. The reason why foreign financial activities in China are a weak link in the study of economic history lies in the fact that research materials are not easy to obtain. At least there are files of studying Chinese finance, but there are few files of domestic and foreign financial industries, especially those of foreign banks before 1927, which are hardly seen in China at present. At that time, several major financial industry publications, such as Bank Weekly and Money Monthly, mainly introduced the situation of Chinese financial industry, but the introduction of foreign finance was relatively simple. The representative work in this field is Tang studies. In addition, some articles also involve comprador issues. In the study of Tang Dynasty, he studied the life of Tang Dynasty. He disagreed with the theory of "praising Zheng and restraining Tang Dynasty" in previous studies. Some people think that Tang is an out-and-out Westernization figure and belongs to the comprador big bourgeoisie, while Zheng represents the emerging national bourgeoisie. I think Tang and Zheng have many similarities. The most important point is that they are all comprador westernization enterprises. As for the differences between them, as far as ideological theory is concerned, Zheng is of course more profound. In his works, there are also things that Tang is "invisible and unspeakable", but in terms of social practice and practical effects, Tang is better than. Based on the life of Tang dynasty, this paper brilliantly expounds several important theories in comprador research. Through the study of dual identity, Wang Jingyu reached an important conclusion: the comprador's wealth mainly comes from his own business. This is different from the past statement that comprador income mainly comes from commission. Wang Jingyu pointed out that before the mid-1960s, the commission system between foreign firms and comprador had not been formally established. At that time, many foreign companies would rather pay a fixed salary than a comprador commission. After the mid-1960s, the commission system was gradually established. At first, the comprador's commission was generally 2%, but later, due to competition, the commission tended to decline. In the late 1960s, some of them remained at 2%, while others dropped to 1%. From the 1970s to the end of 1980s, the commission rate of 1% became a common phenomenon. By the early 1990s, it had further dropped to 0.5% or even 0.25%. During the thirty years from 1865 to 1894, the total trade volume was 4.9 billion US dollars. In the past 30 years, the amount of commission has been calculated according to the highest proportion. Even if all the import and export trade is handled by the comprador and all the commissions are drawn, it will be less than 654.38+0 billion taels. If calculated according to the lowest proportion, it is only120,000. This figure is obviously not enough to constitute the main part of hundreds of comprador explosive wealth. Wang Jingyu believed that the comprador engaged in self-operated business in his special capacity was the main way for him to get rich.
Wang Jingyu also demonstrated the historical fact that comprador capital was transformed into national capital in China during the capitalist period. Wang Jingyu explained with rich historical facts that a considerable part of the capital of the earliest capitalist modern enterprise in China was transformed from comprador capital. Then, Wang Jingyu analyzed why the comprador is more willing to invest in new capitalist enterprises than those bureaucrats, landlords and old businessmen who have even accumulated more wealth. Wang Jingyu pointed out that the main reason why the comprador first invested in new enterprises was that he first came into contact with the capitalist mode of exploitation, and his capital first enjoyed the "fruit" of this mode of exploitation. His capital movement keeps pace with his master, the foreign capitalist. The principle of pursuing profit maximization also plays a leading role in comprador capital as a tool for foreign predators. As a tool of foreign invaders' trade plunder, the comprador has set up its own commercial organization in addition to collecting commissions, from which it can obtain more commercial profits. When foreign invaders expand from the circulation field to the production field and from the trade field to the investment field, the comprador naturally establishes its own enterprises outside the foreign enterprises with shares, thus obtaining more corporate profits. The transformation of comprador capital from circulation to production, from dependence on foreign enterprises to self-run enterprises, is not out of comprador patriotism and national consciousness, but represents the transformation of comprador capital to national capital, which is a historical progress. At the same time, it also makes the newly-born capitalist enterprises in China have a natural dependence on foreign capital forces. Wang Jingyu's works in this field include On the Emergence of Capitalism in China, On the Emergence of Capitalism in China and the Relationship between Westernization Enterprises and Capitalism in China, On the Emergence of Modern National Capital Enterprises, On the Historical Conditions of the Emergence of Capitalism in China, The Emergence Process of Modern Capitalist Enterprises in China, Modern Handicraft Industry in China and Its Position in the Emergence of Capitalism in China, etc. Many people in the field of economic history believe that bureaucratic capital and state capital are different in nature and must be produced in completely different ways. From the early westernization enterprises to the bureaucratic capital of Beiyang warlords and even the formation of four families, this is a road for the emergence and development of bureaucratic capitalism. Early folk modern enterprises inherited the seeds of feudal capitalism and developed into national capitalism. In this regard, he made a different conclusion. Taking coal mines, cotton mills, Yunnan copper mines, Sichuan salt wells and other industries as examples, he demonstrated that in the 1970s, when modern industries in China came into being, primitive handicrafts in many departments did not develop into modern industries for machine production.
China's transition from handicraft workshop to big machine factory did not occur before the appearance of big machine industry, but after it appeared, which is an important feature of China capitalism. This feature is due to the combination of small agriculture and cottage industry in China. Around the 1970s, in industries that plundered raw materials and promoted finished products (such as Guangdong silk reeling and Shanghai shipbuilding). ), handicraft industry is likely to "transition" to the machine. However, in-depth research shows that the new machine industry is not the further development of capitalism in terms of operators, capital, machinery and technology. So it can't be a large number of private modern enterprises from the germination to the early stage of capitalism, let alone the main way. In other words, there is no direct inheritance between them. As for westernization enterprises, we can't simply regard them as the starting point of bureaucratic capitalism, because there is always a contradiction between two forces and two futures in commercial enterprises supervised by the government, and some commercial enterprises supervised by the government have later evolved into commercial enterprises. In his view, in order to prove the same strain, it is a conclusion drawn from a simple analogy that westernization enterprises are state monopoly capitalist enterprises.
Wang Jingyu thinks that capitalism and bourgeoisie in semi-colonial and semi-feudal society are different, namely bureaucracy, comprador capital and national capital. However, recognizing that these two distinct capitals exist at the same time does not necessarily mean that they are produced in different ways. In other words, to see the complexity of the process, we should not simplify it and apply it across the board. The emergence of national capital enterprises in China has gone through three different ways, which can also be said to be three different types. Taking the silk reeling industry as an example, he explained that in the process of national silk reeling industry in China, there were not only the establishment of pure commercial silk reeling factories, but also the transformation of foreign silk mills owned by foreign firms and government-run silk mills operated by westernization groups. These three methods are universal.
Wang Jingyu believes that in the existing monographs on the modern economic history of China, when it comes to the historical conditions for the emergence of modern enterprises, it is almost invariably analyzed from three aspects: commodity market, labor market and monetary wealth accumulation. This is necessary. However, this kind of analysis can't proceed from the concept, and can't analyze China like the analysis of western countries, because China's social conditions are different, and it must be studied from the special social and historical conditions of semi-colonial and semi-feudal China. Another important issue that is almost ignored by all researchers is to study the emergence of modern capitalist enterprises in China from the perspective of productivity changes. The study of productive forces is to study what production tools are used for production. This is the ultimate basis for distinguishing various economic times. In this regard, he studied the relationship between the introduction of foreign technology and capitalism in China.
Wang Jingyu's research on the emergence of the bourgeoisie in China mainly focuses on the formation process of the bourgeoisie. He believes that under the invasion of foreign capitalism, the industry and commerce in China feudal society are facing two different changes. First, it was squeezed out and hit by foreign capital, leading to decline or even elimination; One is to adapt to the needs of the invading capitalism, so as to be preserved and even developed. China Industry 1933
In the book National Income of China, 1933, edited by Wu, the manufacturing industry was studied. At that time, the economic statistics studied all the statistical data about factory production in China in 1933. But there are three main omissions in this statistic: it does not include foreign factories; Excluding factories in Northeast China and some remote provinces; Does not include power generation, currency manufacturing, film manufacturing and other factories. Wang Jingyu's statistics supplemented these omissions, made some other amendments and supplements, and made relatively complete and accurate statistics. Wang Jingyu compared the industrial development level of China and western countries from 65438 to 0933 in the article "Industrial Production and Employment in Pre-war China" published in the English magazine "Journal of Economics" sponsored by the Royal Economic Society. He also made an in-depth study on the development level of industrial production in northern China during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period. The main papers are: Estimation of Industrial Capital and Production in North China in Wartime, Industrial Production Index in North China in Wartime, Industrial Capital, Employment and Production in North China in Wartime, etc. These works were groundbreaking at that time. The representative work in this field is The Development and Non-development of Capitalism in China. The central clue of the popular modern history of China in the past is the so-called "three revolutionary climaxes", namely the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Boxer Rebellion and the Revolution of 1911. In the 1980s, many scholars opposed the development of capitalism in China as the central clue of China's modern history. On this basis, Wang Jingyu went further, thinking that we should not only study the development of capitalism in China, but also study its underdevelopment and its reasons. This underdevelopment is not only manifested in the overall level of capitalism, but also in the disharmony between point and surface, which is manifested in the coexistence of point development and surface underdevelopment, the long-term coexistence of advanced industry and traditional agriculture, and the long-term coexistence of machine industry and handicraft industry.
Wang Jingyu believes that studying the development and non-development of modern capitalism in China can not only help us understand the modern history of China more accurately, but also inspire us to reflect on the current reality, because this is the basis for understanding the national conditions of China. On the central clue of China's modern economic history, 1989 The editorial department of Research on China's Economic History organized a written discussion. Later, special discussions appeared in other publications. Wang Jingyu drew nutrition from these discussions and expounded his views more and more clearly. In 2002, he published "The Development and Non-development of Capitalism in China", which showed the clues of China's modern economic history. Participated in the special research work on China's modern economic history 1840- 1894 presided over by Mr. Yan. At the end of 1980s, Wang Jingyu presided over the National Key Research Project "Modern Economic History of China, 1895- 1927". This project lasted for more than ten years, and Wang Jingyu worked hard, which was really unusual in the past ten years. The final result was published in 2000, with 6,543,800 words and three volumes [8]. Under the arrangement of Wang Jingyu, the author of this book pays attention to the first-hand information, constructs the whole research system on the basis of special research, and becomes a weighty masterpiece. Wang Jingyu's recently published anthology "Anthology of Wang Jingyu" and "Overview and Case Analysis of Modern Capitalism in China" can also be classified into the category of comprehensive research. The former collected 19 papers from Wang Jingyu, while the latter collected 20 papers from Wang Jingyu. The contents of the two papers are rarely repeated, and both of them demonstrate the development and non-development of capitalism in China from both macro and micro aspects.