TY - CHAP
T1 - Playing with “Alien Fire” (Yanghuo)
T2 - Matches in Late Nineteenth-and Early Twentieth-Century China
AU - Chan, Kai Yiu
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Matches were imported into China beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, and by the late 1870s “copies” started to appear, side-by-side with other foreign investment in the treaty ports. Combining modern technology of the chemical industry and mechanization, matches went deeply into daily life, used in cooking, keeping warm, lighting, and to light cigarettes throughout the twentieth century. This Chinese “copying” of the “match culture ” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries shows that the process of proliferation in manufacturing and distribution involved technology transfer, as well as international and inter-regional competition and cooperation. It also encountered state intervention and corporate manipulation. This chapter suggests that the “copying issue,” which allowed newcomers to enter the industry relatively easily, turned into the major obstacle to corporate growth.
AB - Matches were imported into China beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, and by the late 1870s “copies” started to appear, side-by-side with other foreign investment in the treaty ports. Combining modern technology of the chemical industry and mechanization, matches went deeply into daily life, used in cooking, keeping warm, lighting, and to light cigarettes throughout the twentieth century. This Chinese “copying” of the “match culture ” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries shows that the process of proliferation in manufacturing and distribution involved technology transfer, as well as international and inter-regional competition and cooperation. It also encountered state intervention and corporate manipulation. This chapter suggests that the “copying issue,” which allowed newcomers to enter the industry relatively easily, turned into the major obstacle to corporate growth.
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U2 - 10.1007/978-981-10-3752-8_11
DO - 10.1007/978-981-10-3752-8_11
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85078765893
T3 - Studies in Economic History
SP - 203
EP - 223
BT - Studies in Economic History
PB - Springer
ER -