 |
 |
__________________________________________________ China Postgraduate Network www.bacsuk.org.uk/cpn<http://bacsuk.org.uk/?page_id=234> __________________________________________________ This mailing list provides details of China-related events, funding organisations and job opportunities __________________________________________________ POST CATEGORY: Lecture FROM: University of Nottingham TOPIC: "A nation reawakened’ The old China trade versus the ‘new’ China trade, In the Context of the 1400 year old history of a nations obsession with silver’" Speaker: Professor Adrien Von Ferscht 13th October 2015 at 4pm A18, Si Yuan Building, Jubilee Campus 4.00-5.00 Guest speaker 5.00-5.30 Q&A Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided on arrival China was one of the last countries in the world to adopt the gold standard and did so after a 1400 year use of silver as the basis of its economy - a use that bordered on being an obsession; the Chinese word for “bank” is ?? - literally meaning “silver house”-there lies the clue. This silver obsession accounted for 30% of the world GDP during the Ming Dynasty with the Ming treasury having some $190billion in today’s values. Combine this with the traffic of trade from the west along the Silk Route and we have what is effectively the beginning of world trade as we know it today. By default, anything connected with China will be complex; the China Trade period [1757---1842]. The Canton System was devised to control trade with the West within China. As with all things Chinese, there was a structure and a hierarchy, with the Emperor at the top of the pyramid. Equally Chinese, if a system was devised and imposed to curb any activity that was essentially money – making in intent, Chinese merchants would seek ways to circumvent it. Foreign merchants were eager to collude. Despite vigorous denial by the state, commerce and trade in and with China today have haunting similarities to the complexities of the Canton System and the collusion and corruption that was an integral part of it. Is the export of $571,045,520,000 worth of electronics to the West the new opium? Adrien von Ferscht is widely considered to be the world expert on Chinese Export Silver [1785-1940]. His cataloguing of this unique and complex silver category is used by auction houses around the world as the definitive reference source. He is a member of the Academic Committee at the Academy for International Communication of Chinese Culture at Beijing Normal University. As an Honorary Research Fellow, he heads a research hub at University of Glasgow’s Scottish Centre for China Research that encompasses a multi-disciplinary research spectrum. _________________________________________________________________ To send your message to China Postgraduate Network mailing list, forward it to: [log in to unmask] To subscribe, make amendments to subscription or view previous posts visit: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cpn <https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=cpn> For further information, comments or enquiries regarding the CPN, email us at: [log in to unmask]