What role do you think Pomeranz gives to the importation of new
world crops in his analysis of China's ecological/demographic
situation after 1750? One paragraph. And to the settlement of new
lands? Same paragraph. And to Chinese colonization? Not a word,
just a different word, "immigration". And to non-Han minorities?
They don't exist except in quotation marks: "clashes between
'natives' and 'immigrants' were frequent".
And that one paragraph lies hidden in his discussion of China's
regional trade; "....the rapidly growing number of people who
cleared and cultivated hillsides in late 18th and early 19th century
China. This hillside settlements has long been linked to the
Chinese adoption of foreign crops *[note: "foreign" not American]*
(potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc ["etc" really means tabacco,
peanuts] that would grow on highland and inferior soils. This
places hillside clearance in a Malthusian context, with population
growth forcing people onto inferior land and the new crops
providentially allowing them to survive there *[note, it is a religious
illusion to assume that potatoes would permit more to survive], or
with new [sic] food lands allowing population to grow further" (247).
This is it, and then comes the final dismissal: "Such poor
highlanders scratching out a living with inferior foods would be
irrelevant to the export surpluses of the more fortunate farmers in
the valleys". The hills were basically irrelevant as consumers of
the exports of other regions. Worse yet, what is "relevant to our
story" is that "what was grown on the hillsides and former
wasteland - tea, peanuts - were in greater demand [in wealthy
regions like the Lower Yangzi] because of increased prosperity, not
just rising population"!! So, not only are the potatoes out, but the
hills were occupied because living standards were going up
elsewhere, enough that people began to desire peanuts, which
could be profitably grown in the hills!
