This year almost went by without a trip to China--previously unthinkable until it nearly happened! Yet again Charles saved me from the monotony of life at home. In December we headed to Fujian, Yunnan, and even crossed the border into northern Laos exploring issues pertinent to Charles' next book.

I was less than delighted by the prospect of a winter visit to China, but our trip was limited to southern provinces, and the weather turned out to be surprisingly comfortable. Southern China is often overcast and rainy during the winter months, if not cold, but in this case it was neither--clear skies and temperate all the way!

Our goal was twofold: learn about the influx of American crops and silver during the late-Ming dynasty from scholars in Fujian, and see how the rubber industry has taken hold of southern Yunnan and, more recently, begun to spill over the border into Laos.

As you might be able to tell from the prior, there is little I can relate without writing a paper on the topic (which I'm not here to do), and even less for me to show you, since we were for the most part interviewing history professors. For that part you can read Charles' book when it comes out--it'll be good.

Perhaps worth mentioning before I go on, however, is the most unexpected and interesting discovery in Fujian, though only indirectly related to our topic, being separated by a couple hundred years of history. This bit of history occurred back in the 14th century. During the Song dynasty, Quanzhou (a coastal city in Fujian) became China's first major international sea port (at the time it was known as Zaytun, which may come from the word "satin," one of the main goods traded there). The port eventually fell from importance during the Yuan-Ming transition, but what's interesting are the circumstances behind the sudden change. Apparently, it was at least partially due to conflict between islamic factions, namely Sunnis and Shiites. It makes sense that Persian traders would have a significant presence at an important Asian port, and at first they, as foreigners, stayed relatively unified in their foreign home, but over time they were given power over the local Han (including official positions) by the ruling Mongols (also a foreign minority), and eventually became embroiled in government power struggles that grew more virulent towards the end of the Yuan dynasty, which naturally split the muslims along factional lines and led to armed conflict. It's somewhat unexpected (and yet, not surprising at the same time) that Sunnis and Shiites were battling it out as far away as China seven centuries ago...

With that diversion out of the way, I can now focus on rubber, which is exactly what Xishuangbanna is doing today. "Banna" is the Dai Autonomous Prefecture in southern Yunnan, a region once covered by tropical rainforest, China's little slice of southeast Asia (Hainan island would count, too). I say "once" covered because half a century ago, China decided to turn it into a seemingly endless rubber plantation. For the uninitiated, rubber is a vital link in any attempt at industrialization, which is what China was doing at the time. Add to that a UN embargo on strategic products going into China during the Korean War, and China had little choice but to find a domestic source for this important resource.

The first decade or so was spent testing the viability of planting rubber trees in Banna, which is essentially at the far northern edge of where it is possible to grow them before the climate is too cold. Once they had this down, the government scaled it up (something China is quite good at, as we all know), forming ten companies across the prefecture to oversee expansion and production. And there went the tropical rainforests (the pictures will do a better job of saying this).

China originally used labor imported from other provinces, essentially writing off the local minority populations as too "stupid" and backward to farm rubber, but necessity and scale eventually forced the government to include them, which has certainly come to mean a lot to the local economy. Rubber tapping is relatively labor intensive, by the way, and requires one person per hectare throughout the season (eight months of the year), so temporary workers aren't really a solution.

The rest of the story I'll include along with the pictures.

[21 dec 08]