ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the development of the several core enterprises between 1870 and 1897. It analyses the patterns of resource mobilization, and explores the effects of foreign and domestic factors on each enterprise. The chapter shows that the same limited data base supports an alternate perspective: that between 1870 and 1897, Chinese industrialization was gaining momentum because of a mutually supportive interaction of official aid and enterprise success. China Merchants’ was the first economic self-strengthening enterprise established in the wake of the 1870 failure of the Alcock Convention. It served as a model for most other major self-strengthening enterprises as well as stimulated official support for modern industry. The Telegraph Administration modified the self-strengthening model in that there was more control by the government, but it was run as a business. The aggregate investment in Chinese self-strengthening enterprises developed before 1897 was less than 20 million taels.
