Remeasuring China. The Local and Translocal Dimensions of the Chinese Weights and Measures Reforms (ca. 1927-1937)

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This research project focuses on the multifaceted dimensions of the Chinese weights and measures reforms during the Republican Period, particularly the Nanjing Decade (1927-1937). During that time period, the Chinese government sought to introduce the metric system all over the country. Yet for two main reasons, this initiative did not amount to a clear-cut change from one measurement system to another. Firstly, the preexisting landscape of Chinese weights and measures was extremely diversified, and already under the Qing Dynasty there had not been a unified system. Secondly, the metric system was not the only foreign influence on the realm of Chinese weights and measurements. Rather, there was a pluralism of international standards (British, Japanese, and other) that was particularly visible in the foreign concessions of Chinese cities and within the orbit of large international companies. The metric reforms were thus taking place in a complex environment of regional fragmentation and competing international standards for weights and measures. Through four carefully selected case studies, this project will explore various facets of the great metrological transformations of this time period. Two studies take the government (institutions and persons) as their points of departure, yet at the same time they also consider the ramifications of the central administration’s policies for different segments of Chinese society. The remaining two case studies focus on other groups, most notably intellectuals and small-scale merchants, and they show how they were not only passive recipients of top-down policies but rather active agents in the transformative processes, negotiating their own lifeworlds and interests with the wider patterns of change. In all case studies, the many-sided roles of international powers will, when appropriate, be put to the foreground. The same is the case with China’s regional diversity. The project will result in a book-length study. A second declared objective of this project is to prepare an online collection of the rich and diverse body of primary sources and secondary literature (both in several languages) on China’s complex metrological history during the first decades of the twentieth century. Both steps are important since this facet of 20th-century Chinese history has not yet been the subject of much historical inquiry. This is a significant gap since China’s metrological reforms offer many important insights into the country’s multi-layered transformations during the Republican Period– transformations that did not only foster homogeneity but also a high degree of contention, inequality and asynchronicity.