Tailor to the World: China's Emergence as a Global Power in Textiles

CHINESE TEXTILES: AN INDUSTRY WITH A DISTINGUISHED PAST AND A BRIGHT FUTURE There is perhaps no industry in the history of Chinese civilization as storied as the textile industry. For this study, however, our concern lies mainly with the industry's development in the post-Mao era and its experience with the MFA. Over the last two decades, textiles has served as a leading sector as China has undergone domestic commercialization and deepened its integration into the world economy, a role similar to that played in Japan and elsewhere in East Asia. Indeed, historians, economists, and political scientists have long recognized the critical role of textile manufacturing in the process of economic development. During the Mao era, the textile industry not only met the basic clothing needs of China's large, predominantly poor population, but it also served as an important source of capital for projects in other industrial sectors. Indeed, the textile industry has borne an enormous tax burden in the half century since the People's Republic of China (PRC) was established. During the reform era, moreover, the industry has also been the country's leading source of net foreign exchange earnings, with the trade surplus in textiles (exports minus imports) exceeding U.S. $250 billion over the last two decades. As far as the size of the textile industry is concerned, estimates range widely.