Portraits across Borders is an interview series about people who live, study, and work between two worlds. Each conversation follows one individual whose life has unfolded across China and Europe. From a Chinese translator living in Luxembourg to a cotton cultivation researcher in the coastal regions of northern Jiangsu – interviewees share what they have learned from navigating different cultures, and how their perspectives have changed over time. Together, these stories form a collection of portraits that remind us that meaningful dialogue begins with listening to individual experiences. In a time when EU-China headlines are shaped by geopolitical debates, these conversations portray human experiences behind Europe-China relations – one story at a time.
For this edition of Portraits across Borders, Shiqing Xiao spoke with Cao Mingran about his doctoral research on the transition from salt production to cotton cultivation in the coastal regions of northern Jiangsu from the late Qing period to the early People’s Republic. He explains why Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Jian matters, how cotton cultivation connected local land reclamation to global capitalism, and why serious China research remains important at a time when public discussion of China in Europe is often politicised or simplified.
“When a society or culture becomes overly simplified in public discourse, serious research becomes even more important. Historical research can show us a China that is complex, diverse, and constantly changing.”
Studying Chinese History at Leiden
Welcome to the Portraits across Borders series. Today we are joined by Cao Mingran, who is currently pursuing a PhD at Leiden University. His research focuses on modern Chinese history, socio-economic history, and global capitalism.
Mingran, could you briefly introduce yourself?
Cao Mingran: Thank you. My name is Cao Mingran, and I am currently a third-year PhD candidate at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies. My research interests centre on modern Chinese history and socio-economic history. My doctoral project focuses on the history of cotton cultivation in the coastal region of northern Jiangsu, especially from the late Qing period to the early People’s Republic. More specifically, I study the transition from a salt-producing economy to a cotton cultivation economy, and how this process shaped relations between the state, business, local society, global market, and the environment.
You did your undergraduate studies in the United States, and your master’s in the United Kingdom. Why did you choose Leiden for your PhD?
Cao Mingran: There are several reasons. During my studies in the US and the UK, I became increasingly interested in historical research, especially questions related to the transformations that took place during China’s modernisation. After completing my master’s degree, I returned to China and worked for a period of time. During that time, my interest in pursuing a PhD became stronger, so I began applying to different doctoral programmes.
Leiden became a very good option for me. My current supervisor, Professor Limin Teh, is a great scholar of Chinese economic history and labour history, and our research interests are closely aligned. Compared with the U.S. and the UK, the doctoral training in Leiden and continental Europe is in some ways closer to the British system, but the financial burden can be much lower than in the UK, where PhD funding is often limited. For me, it was a strong academic and practical choice.
Leiden also has a remarkable tradition in Chinese studies. It is an international academic environment, and English can be used as the main language of academic communication and research. That was important because it meant I did not need to pay the extra cost of learning another European language before beginning my research. More importantly, Leiden’s Chinese Studies programme is one of the largest and most important centres for China-related research in continental Europe. There are scholars working on history, political economy, communication, art history, and many other fields. That made Leiden an attractive place to pursue this project.
From Salt to Cotton: Explaining the Research
Let us turn to your doctoral research. Could you explain your project in a way that is accessible to a general audience?
Cao Mingran: My research focuses on the period from 1895 to 1950, from the late Qing to the early People’s Republic. Geographically, I look at the coastal regions of northern Jiangsu, roughly corresponding to today’s Nantong and Yancheng. This area experienced a major transformation from an economy centred on salt production to one centred on land reclamation and cotton cultivation.
Although this sounds like a local story, it reveals much broader changes in China’s society, economy, and environment. It is connected to China’s modernisation and industrialisation, as well as to the development of global capitalism. I am especially interested in a group of business institutions known as land reclamation companies. These companies were involved in transforming former salt-producing areas into cotton-growing regions.
The earliest and most famous example was the Tonghai Land Reclamation Company, founded by Zhang Jian in 1901 on the coast of what is today Qidong, near Nantong. It was the first modern joint-stock company in Chinese history devoted to agricultural development. This was before the Qing government issued its first company law in 1904, so Zhang Jian was experimenting with corporate organisation before the legal framework fully materialised.
By the late 1910s and around 1920, Jiangsu had become the province with the highest cotton output in China. That raises an important question: why was so much cotton being grown? The answer lies in industrialisation. Cotton was needed by the emerging industrial cities of the lower Yangtze region, including Shanghai, Wuxi, and Nantong. These cities had many textile mills, founded by both Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs. In the history of industrialisation, cotton textiles were often one of the first and most important industries, such as what happened in England. Once factories were established, they needed a reliable supply of raw cotton.
This shows that agriculture and industry did not develop separately. We often imagine agriculture as traditional and industry as modern, but in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, agricultural production and industrial development were deeply intertwined. Industrialisation required agricultural raw materials. Zhang Jian and others began to create land reclamation companies along the northern Jiangsu coast to supply that need.
The Decline of the Salt Economy
Your project also deals with the transformation from salt to cotton. Why was that shift important?
Cao Mingran: The region I study was once an important salt-producing zone. In the Ming and Qing eras, the Liang-Huai salt system was highly significant, and Yangzhou was a major centre of salt commerce. The salt produced along the northern Jiangsu coast was transported through a sophisticated canal system to Yangzhou and then distributed to fixed sales regions.
Salt was extremely important to the Qing state’s fiscal system. Around 1800, salt revenue made up roughly 40 percent of Qing government revenue, and the Liang-Huai salt region contributed around 40 percent of national salt revenue. That means this region alone may have accounted for around 15 percent of the state’s total fiscal income. It was enormously important.
But in the modern period, the salt economy declined. This was due to many factors: the Taiping War, environmental changes, coastal sedimentation, and the decline of salt-merchant capital. At the same time, the region was geographically close to Shanghai, Nantong, and Wuxi, cities that were becoming more closely connected to global capitalism. That created conditions for a major regional economic transformation. The old salt economy gave way to cotton cultivation, and the region became integrated into a new industrial and commercial network.
Business, the State, and the Question of Continuity
Your project seems closely related to the relationship between business and the state. How do you approach that question?
Cao Mingran: That is one of the central research questions of my dissertation. The companies responsible for cotton cultivation were private joint-stock companies. Yet they were transforming areas that had previously been under highly regulated state control through the salt production system. This meant that they had to interact closely with the state.
I examine how these companies dealt with different political regimes over roughly fifty years: the late Qing, the Beiyang government, the Nationalist government, the period of the War of Resistance against Japan, and the early People’s Republic. I ask whether the relationship between business and the state was defined more by continuity or by rupture. My current preliminary conclusion is that continuity was stronger than rupture.
From the beginning, these companies existed before the legal framework for companies was fully established. The state granted Zhang Jian and other elites various privileges. On the surface, state power seemed to withdraw from certain areas, but in practise the state was mobilising private financial capital, cultural capital, and social capital to serve broader industrialisation goals.
A good example is Zhang Jian himself. Between 1913 and 1915, he served as Minister of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce in the Beiyang government. Some of the land reclamation policies he had experimented with in northern Jiangsu were then brought to the national level. Local experience became national policy. In that sense, my project is local in its starting point, but it has broader significance for understanding modern China.
Why cotton, why Jiangsu?
How did you arrive at this topic? Why cotton, why Jiangsu, and why the period from 1895 to 1950?
Cao Mingran: There are three main reasons. First, I have long been interested in economic transformation, especially during the period of the industrial revolution and industrialisation. Second, I am from Jiangsu myself. I am from Suzhou, but my maternal grandfather’s side has a connection with Nantong, so I have always been into the local history of northern Jiangsu.
At first, I considered topics related more to inland northern Jiangsu or the Grand Canal region, such as Huai’an and Yangzhou. But as I worked through archival materials, I found that in places like Nantong and Yancheng, there had been many land reclamation companies engaged in cotton cultivation during the modern period. That connected directly with my broader interest in industrialisation.
Third, I realised that this local story could reflect much larger historical trends. Through cotton cultivation in one coastal region, we can discuss modern Chinese industrialisation, state-building, global capitalism, environmental transformation, and the restructuring of regional economies.
Zhang Jian and Local Autonomy
Zhang Jian appears many times in your research. He became a top scholar in the imperial examination but chose to pursue industry rather than a conventional official career. He advocated “saving the nation through industry” and also promoted local autonomy. What did local autonomy mean in his case?
Cao Mingran: This is a very interesting question. In the Beiyang period, especially after Yuan Shikai’s failed attempt to become emperor and his death in 1916, China entered an era of high warlordism and political fragmentation. Zhang Jian did advocate a certain degree of local autonomy during this period. But we need to ask: autonomy for whom?
Today, when we talk about autonomy, we may think of a community, a school, or ordinary citizens governing themselves. But in Zhang Jian’s context, autonomy did not mean workers’ rights, peasants’ rights, or broad democratic self-government. It largely meant that local elites had significant governing power to provide public goods within a region.
We can discuss Zhang Jian’s autonomy in three ways. First, at the provincial level in Jiangsu, the Beiyang period is often described through the concept of “military-gentry regime,” because warlords had to cooperate with local elites to govern and raise funds. In Jiangsu, however, the power of the gentry was particularly strong, while military power was relatively weaker. Zhang Jian, together with other Jiangsu elites such as Huang Yanpei, became influential representatives of this elite politics. In the late 1910s, Zhang Jian helped establish an organisation called Sushe [苏社], a quasi-political party, which attempted to influence Jiangsu provincial politics within its provincial parliament.
Second, in Nantong, Zhang Jian [张謇] did not formally serve as county magistrate, but he founded or controlled more than forty enterprises and social, cultural, and educational institutions. Many of the organisations that provided public services or generated economic benefits were shaped by his influence. His brother Zhang Cha [张詧] also managed many of these enterprises and institutions. Through his land reclamation projects, Zhang Jian also developed an industrial police force, which gave him both indirect and direct influence over local society.
Third, the land reclamation companies themselves performed many public management functions. They built and maintained water infrastructure, managed tenant farmers and labour, founded schools, provided social services, and even maintained order through their own police forces. From this perspective, autonomy created space for local development when central authority was weak. But it also meant that local elites could become very powerful. That tension is part of what makes the topic interesting.
What History Tells us about China’s Development Model
If we connect your research to China today, how can it help us understand China’s development model, industrial policy, or the relationship between state and market?
Cao Mingran: Although my research is about modern Chinese history, I often think about its relevance to the present. China’s economy and society have many continuities, and history helps us see their earlier forms.
One thing my research shows is that it is difficult to draw a clear line between public and private. The land reclamation companies I study were private enterprises in the sense that they had investors and shareholders. In today’s language, we might call them private or non-state enterprises. Yet their founders were often retired officials or local elites with strong connections to the government. They also pursued goals linked to national economic visions.
Zhang Jian’s doctrine of “cotton and iron” is a good example. He believed that cotton and steel were the two industries China needed to develop first in order to industrialise. His enterprises were privately organised, but they were also serving a national industrial vision. In that sense, were they public or private? From the perspective of investment, they were private. From the perspective of function, they had public characteristics.
These companies also performed quasi-state functions at the local level. They built infrastructure, managed labour, provided social services, ran schools, and maintained local security. This blurring of public and private is not only useful for understanding Chinese economic history; it can also contribute to broader discussions of global economic history.
Some legacies continue even today. Nantong remains an important centre of China’s cotton textile industry, especially in home textiles. Many Nantong cotton textile enterprises have now gone abroad, investing in places such as Vietnam as labour costs in China have risen. These contemporary developments are connected, in different ways, to the historical processes I study.
Why Study China Seriously Today?
We are now near the end of the interview. Why is it still important to study China seriously today, especially in Europe, where China-related discussions can be highly politicised and labelled?
Cao Mingran: In recent years, not only in Europe but across the world, we have seen the rise of populism and deglobalisation. In European societies, there are also simplified and stereotyped views of China. In this environment, serious research on China, and on other regions as well, becomes even more important.
When a culture or society you do not understand becomes overly simplified in your mind, you do not necessarily become more willing to learn about it. Instead, you may feel that you already know what it is. Fixed opinions form, and people become less willing to understand each other. That is a problem.
My research is somewhat distant from current geopolitics, but it shows a complex and diverse Chinese society in historical perspective. If European readers encounter research like this, they may realise that Chinese history one hundred years ago, or eighty years ago, was far more complex than simple images suggest. They may then ask whether our understanding of China today, or Asia today, is also too simplified. In that sense, historical research can encourage us to embrace complexity.
In your view, what might European academia overlook when studying Chinese history?
Cao Mingran: Many scholars in European universities are working on Chinese history, and the field is very diverse and rich. So my answer is not necessarily about Europe alone, but about the broader trends in academia.
On the one hand, it is very good that we now have many different research topics. On the other hand, because academic disciplines have become increasingly specialised, some more structural questions may receive less attention. In the discipline of history, this includes questions of political economy and long-term historical processes. I think this is partly a result of disciplinary development, but it is something worth reflecting on.
Advice for Younger Scholars
Before we finish, what advice would you give to young people who want to study China, especially those considering an academic path?
Cao Mingran: I am not sure I can offer advice, but I would say this: whatever topic you study, choose something that truly interests you.
I agree. A PhD takes three or four years, and you need genuine interest and passion to continue. If you want to understand a topic deeply, doctoral research gives you the time to keep digging into it.
Thank you, Mingran, for joining European Guanxi and for sharing your research with us.
Cao Mingran: Thank you very much to European Guanxi for the interview.
Closing Note
Cao Mingran’s research reminds us that modern China cannot be understood only through the language of nation-state, market competition, or geopolitics. A local history of cotton cultivation in coastal Jiangsu opens onto questions of industrialisation, global capitalism, business-state relations, and environmental change. It also offers a broader lesson for China studies today: in an age of political labelling and simplified narratives, historical complexity matters.