Origins of Socialist China’s Automo-bile Industry

The Many Origins of Socialist Motoring: Shanghai, Continuity and China’s Automobile Industry across 1949
Conventional narratives of the origins of China’s automobile industry often focus on the establishment of the First Automobile Works (FAW), built with Soviet assistance in the 1950s. This project argues that important precedents can be found in smaller-scale automobile-related workshops in Shanghai before 1949. These workshops preserved technical knowledge, skilled personnel and production practices that continued into the early years of the People’s Republic. By tracing these continuities, the project examines how pre-PRC industrial capacities informed the development of the socialist vehicle industry. It focuses in particular on the transmission of engineering expertise and production know-how, as well as institutional and organisational overlaps between pre- and post-1949 enterprises. Conceptually, the project engages with Karl Gerth’s notion of »unending capitalisms« and applies it to the sphere of industrial production. Rather than treating 1949 as a sharp rupture, it explores the persistence and transformation of production practices across political regimes.

The project forms part of the larger research project »Bloc-Building and (Dis-)Continuity«, which investigates cross-border connections and transformations in industrial enterprises during the early Cold War. By integrating the Chinese case, it contributes to a more global perspective on socialist industrialisation and offers new insights for comparison with Soviet and East Central European developments.

Part of: Bloc-Building and (Dis-)Continuity. Cross-border connections and transformations in industrial enterprises in East Central Europe and China, 1945-1960 (Jan Zofka)

External Project Partners:
Tomasz Olejniczak; Associate Professor in the Department of Management, Director of Doctoral School, Kozminski University, Warsaw 
Aleš Skřivan; Professor in Economic and Social History, Chair of Department of Economic History, Prague University of Economics and Business 
Valeria Zanier; Associate Professor for Chinese Studies, Universitá di Bologna