SHANGHAI

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 00097733
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 34
• Document Creation Date: March 9, 2023
• Document Release Date: September 28, 2020
• Case Number: F-2016-01277
• Publication Date: January 27, 1972

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DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Re
Shanghai
1,11,1\1?
Mandato:1-7 Review
Cz_sse NI-N 96 �
2_
ort
Approved for Release 2o AUG 1996
Date
� �
CIA/BCI CR 72-7
January 1972
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CON F IAL
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CONTENTS
Page
Introduction
1
Overview of the City �
5
Selected Points of Interest
12
Downtown Shanghai
12
Area of Former Foreign Settlements
12
The Old Chinese Town
19
Other Areas of Shanghai
20
Western Area
20
Southwestern Area
22
Selected Industrial Areas
22.
CO IAL
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CONE 71,
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Directorate of Intelligence
January 1972
Shangha
Municipali
).
INTELLIGENCE REPORT
Shanghai
Introduction
1. Shanghai is China's largest port and,
industrial city and the most populous urban center
on the mainland of Asia. The half-caste child of
East and West, it was built by Western capitalists
on the mud flats of the winding, Whangpoo River
(Huang-pfu Chiang). Around the fourth century
A.D., Shanghai was only a small fishing village at
the confluence of the Huang-p'u Chiang and Soochow
Creek (Su-chou Ho). In later centuries it became
the port for the city of Su-chou, then the center
of this part of China. In A. D. 1279 the port
declared itself independent of Su-chou, began
paying taxes directly to Peking, and changed its
name to "Shanghai," which literally means "up
from the sea"; it must still have been relatively
unimportant, however, as Marco Polo, who wrote of
all the major cities in the region at this time,
failed to mention it.
2. By the mid-1700's, agents of the British
East India Company had become impressed with
Shanghai's potential as a trading post. Sited
only 14 miles from the estuary of the Yangtze
Note: This report :Jas orepared by the Office of
3asi,c_and Geographic intelligence and coordinated
within the Directorate of InteLligence.
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River, it had as its hinterland the 750,000 square
miles of Yangtze Basin, an area that has always
contained perhaps as much as half of China's
population. Further, it was in a location destined
to become_ the center of coastal trade between north
and south China. The British, as well as traders
from Europe, America, and later on from Japan,
finally gained free access to Shanghai and the
Chinese ports of Canton, Amoy, Foochow, and
Ning-po as a result of the 1842 Treaty of Nanking
that ended the Opium War; these ports were then
opened to foreign trade and their foreign residents
were place outside the jurisdiction of Chinese laws.
3. In 1843, the first British Consul to
Shanghai arranged for the acquisition of a 43-acre
site for the foreign traders, most of whom were
British. This land, located near the confluence
of the Huang-1)1u Chiang and Su-chou Ho, comprised
the initial British Concession, which within the
next 6 years was expanded to 470 acres. In 1863,
the British Concession and an American settlement
that had never been legally established were com-
bined to form the International Settlement. The
other major foreign land holding in Shanghai, the
French Concession, was held independently. It was
located south of the International Settlement and
just north of the walled Old Chinese Town. To-
gether, the two foreign settlements covered
slightly more than 3 square miles.
4. Within the 25-year period following the
signing of the Nanking treaty, Shanghai gained
national primacy in both foreign and domestic
trade. The foreign population had grown to 1,000
by 1860. (In 1936, foreigners numbered about
60,000 in an estimated total population of 4
million.) Shanghai became a city of opportunity
that attracted individuals from all over the
world; they came to build empires for themselves,
and in the process, erected Shanghai. Sited on
a mud flat with bedrock about 1,000 feet below,
Shanghai was ill-suited for the construction of
multistoried buildings. Yet about a dozen
Western-style skyscrapers of stone and cement,
- -
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square
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rising as_.much as 300 feet, were built on the west
side of Shanghai's famous Bund to house banks,
clubs, firms, and hotels. (The muddy tidal fore-
shore along the Huang-p'u Chiang and Su- chou Ho
could not be used until embankments were con-
structed -- a process known in all the China
treaty ports by the Anglo-Indian term, "bunding."
The Shanghai Bund was constructed in 1862.)
S. As Shanghai flourished, it became notorious
as the "Paris of the East" and the "Adventurer's
Paradise," appellations that were associated with
its seaport bawdiness, brothels, opium dens,
cabarets, clubs, and night life that were so
popular with visiting sailors and tourists as well
as with the "Shanc,,hailanders," the Western foreign
national residents. Shanghai gave its name to the.
practice of kidnapping men to sail ships whose
crews had deserted for the "better things" to be
found in Shanghai. In 1934, it was estimated that
Shanghai led the world's major cities in the
incidence of prostitution. Perhaps the most odious
of the vices that permeated Shanghai was the opium
trade. In the French Concession, street vendors
sold paper packets of opium that were labeled with
the seller's name, address, and telephone number.
Opium dens flourished openly, particularly in the
French Concession until the late 1930's, and well
into the 1940's under only the thinnest of disguises.
6. The Army of the People's Republic of China
moved into Shanghai in May 1949; in the eyes of
the Chinese Communists this must have been an act
of poetic justice as the Chinese Communist Party
was founded in Shanghai in 1921. With extraordinary
patience and deliberation, the new administrators
of the city set about ridding the city of a
multitude of beggars, prostitutes, and drug addicts,
thousands of which were sent to rehabilitation
schools. Slowly, but with almost surgical precision,
the Government rid Shanghai of most of the vices
that had flourished there for more than a century.
Today only vestiges of the city's vice-ridden past
remain -- such as occasional prostitutes in the
park, but they do not enjoy Government sanction.
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7. The old monuments to foreign rule have
been transformed since 1949. The race course is
now a People's Park; the Hong Kong and Shanghai
Bank building has been taken over by the municipal
administration; the once exclusive Shanghai Club
was converted to the Seamen's Club; and the ornate
Cathay Hotel, revolutionized, has emerged as the
Peace Hotel.
S. Shanghai has always been noted for its
political radicalism and sense of independence.
As a result of this, as well as its size, it is
accorded the rank of municipality and thus reports
directly to the Central Government in Peking.
More Westernized than any other Chinese city,
Shanghai still has an air of subdued levity blended
with political practicality that makes it unique in
China.
9. Population transfers to the interior were
carried out immediately following "liberation" in
1949 and on into the 1950's -- some of which par-
alleled earlier abortive industrial relocations;
during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960's
additional people were sent to the countryside.
Notwithstanding these moves, however, greater
Shanghai now has a population of over 10 million,
of which it is estimated that 6 to 7 million live
in the city proper. The rural countryside
immediately surrounding the city has a relatively
high population density, too; but many of these
people live in the net of service centers outside
the edge of the city and are separated from it by
broad expanses of cultivated fields.
10. Shanghai today is one of the most
important cities in China, whose relative rank
reflects its favorable location and the richness
of its commercial and industrial inheritance.
Following the establishment of the PRC, a removal
of indus-Lry to the interior was planned and, in
part, carried out; however, the regime realized
the economic foolishness of this plan by the late
1950's, and Shanghai's existing industrial plants
were then renovated and expanded. Shipbuilding
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have
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and repair facilities, an expanded chemical
industry, and a greatly increased machine building
and iron and steel industry, account for an in-
creasing proportion of the city's industrial
output.
11. The Chinese are proud of Shanghai's
industrial accomplishments, and they commonly
display their "show piece" industrial plants and
worker's apartments to visitors. Buildings and
other relics of the Treaty Port Era, however, may
actually be of more interest to the Westerner. A
visit to the Old Chinese Town gives the hurried
visitor an appreciation of the traditional Chinese
town that still exists in many parts of China.
Overview of the City (See Figures 2 and 23)
12. Shanghai evolved from the walled Old
Chinese Town that foreigners found upon their
arrival in 1843, when the city was opened to
foreign trade. The encircling walls have now been
replaced by streets, but many of the characteristics
of the traditional Chinese town remain in this
section of the city.
13. The original foreign settlement, which
was under exclusive British control, was established
near the confluence of the Huang-p'u Chiang and the
Su-chou Ho. The settlement area extended southward
from the area of the Su-chou almost to the Old
Chinese Town. The major commercial core of the
present city -- established by Westerners -- is
found in this area. Tall office buildings,
characteristic of the central business districts
of most large Western cities, line the Chung-shan
Tung-lu (the Bund) and Nan-ching Lu (Nanking Road).
14. The former French Concession lies just
south of the British Concession, from Yen-an Lu
on the north to Tung-men Lu on the south. The
commercial importance of this area was second only
to that of the British; presently, several
institutions including the Shanghai Museum and
other governmental and cultural buildings are
CONFI
EIGN DISSEM
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Figure 2
Shanghai
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7
to Ar,ia of P!cposed
Civic Cer::e.r
to Hun n tao
�International
Airport
503S43 1-72
Viies
Former French
Concession
Old
Chinese
Town
toWL,chingand
Min-nsing
/
sek-"e'''ec\
Shanghai
located here near the Bund. Pleasant residential
neighborhoods with quiet streets and large secluded
homes were established in the westward extensions
of the French Concession; now many institutions are
located here. Included are a medical college,
several hospitals, Culture Square -- a huge
auditorium -- and the former home of Dr. Sun Yat-sen
which now houses a small museum.
15. The British foreign settlement area was
later extended westward and north of Su-chou Ho
.and eastward along the Huang-p'u Chiang, incor-
porating the American settlement; it was renamed
the International Settlement As the city expanded,
the Chinese themselves developed additional out-
lying areas, only one of which merits special
attention -- the intended Civic Center area of
Greater Shanghai in the Chiang-wan district. At
6
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Shanghai '
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the hub of the district is a traffic circle, from
which streets radiate in spokelike pattern, the
spokes being joined, in turn, by other streets.
Many educational, governmental, or military in-
stitutional facilities are in this area; included
among them is the well-known Fu-tan University,
specializing in the sciences, and T'ung-chi
University, an engineering school.
16. After the establishment of the PRC, the
old industrial centers along Su-chou Ho and on
both banks of the Huang-01u Chiang became relatively
less important as industry in other areas expanded.
The highly touted heavy manufacturing district of
P'eng-p'u has been established north of the city,
and an integrated iron and steel plant has been
built nearby in the Wu-sung district. The
Kao-ch'iao district on the right bank of the
Huang-p'u, north of the island of Fu-hsing. (Fu-hsing
Tao), now boasts a petroleum refinery and petro-
chemical plant. South of the city a widely publicized
new industrial suburb, Min-hsing, has been established,
while closer to the city is the Wu-ching Chemical
Complex.
17. Industrial expansion has been complemented
by the construction of new housing -- commonly
workers apartment buildings -- in the areas of new
industrial activity as well as in some of the former
slums. Such expansion has also required the
provision of additional services -- such as child
care centers, dispensaries, and retail stores.
18. Most civilian visitors arriving in
Shanghai by air land at Hung-ch'iao International
Airport, west of the city, or possibly at Lung-hua
Airfield to the south if on a domestic flight; the
two airfields. north of the city are exclusively
military. The main railroad station is located
within the city north of the central- business
district. Ship passengers are landed at the
customs wharf, alongside the Bund, directly in
front of the Customs Building.
19. Shanghai's climate is fairly similar to
that of Norfolk, Virginia. The Shanghai winter,
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Figure 3. Shanghai. Looking south along the Bund
from Shanghai Hotel. The Su-chou Ho in foreground
10,,qs into Huang-piu Chiang to left. P'u-tung
district is on far side of Huang-p'u Chiang,
opposite the Bund. Huang-p'u Park in left middle-
ground extends south between the Bund and the
Huangp'u Chiang.
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