HELLO CHINA

UNDERSTAND CHINA · MODERN HISTORY

Shanghai

Shanghai’s modern transformation is more complicated than a story of rapid prosperity after opening. The treaty-port system brought coerced access and divided jurisdictions as well as commerce, industry, publishing, political movements and migration. Industrial restructuring after 1949 and Pudong’s development from the 1990s shifted the city’s centre again.

City timeline

  • 1843 · The treaty port opens — After the Treaty of Nanjing, Shanghai opened to foreign trade. Concessions followed, placing the existing county town and river commerce beside new jurisdictions.
  • 1853—1864 · War refugees and rapid expansion — The Taiping wars drove Jiangnan refugees into Shanghai, pushing concessions, lilong, commerce and workshops beyond earlier boundaries while straining housing and public services.
  • 1921 · New political forces emerge — The First National Congress of the Communist Party of China met in Shanghai, showing how workers, students, publishing and intercity transport formed a new political environment.
  • 1925—1927 · Mass movements, labour politics and purges — May Thirtieth, strikes and armed conflict brought workers and neighbourhoods into national politics; the 1927 purges caused severe violence and organisational rupture.
  • 1932—1945 · Urban war, refugees and occupation by invading Japanese forces — Two attacks on Shanghai by invading Japanese forces, followed by the isolated-concession period and full occupation, transformed housing, supplies and security as civilians endured bombing, displacement, inflation and repression.
  • 1949—1970s · A national industrial base — The economy and urban space were reorganised as Shanghai became a major comprehensive industrial base supplying equipment, expertise and workers across China.
  • 1990s— · Pudong and a new urban centre — Pudong’s development concentrated finance, trade, transport and new-city construction east of the Huangpu, producing today’s two-bank urban landscape.

Begin with these places

  • The Bund and Laochengxiang — Compare the treaty-port waterfront with the scale of the old Chinese city.
  • Site of the First CPC National Congress — Place political organisation within a city of workers, publishing and transport.
  • Yangpu riverfront industrial heritage — See how factories and wharves have become layered public space.