Railway Construction and Modern Transformation of Mountainous Economy in China's Hinter-land
Modern integration of markets in mountainous regions,due to its complex terrain,difficult transportation,and special commodities,has been rather weak in mainstream marketing studies.Taking the Beichuan Railway,the first one built in Sichuan,as a lens,we can examine the modern transformative process of the integration and evolution of traditional markets and modern markets in a mountainous society in the course of in-dustrialization.Unlike the railways and coal mines in the northeastern and coastal re-gions,which were mostly under the control of imperialist powers,the construction and operation of the Jiangbei-Hechuan Railway,with the help of cross-regional knowledge,technology,and labor supply,was all the time kept in the hands of local forces,and this provides a rare local perspective for discussing modern economic transformation.Similar to Skinner's finding,the mountainous market in the post-railway era did not go against the traditional market,and yet was an extension,development,and growth af-ter regional restructuring.Unlike his observation,however,the modern market in the mountainous region of the eastern Sichuan is not a standard hexagonal market,but a linear growth along the river and railway.In the modern transformation from an organic economy to a mineral economy,regional and national economic ties in the eastern Si-chuan mountainous region have become closer,and there has never been a clear separa-tion between industry and agriculture,city and countryside as well as tradition and mo-dernity,as can been seen in the industrialization of the Western society.
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