China's ancient mineral industry used to hold the leading position in the world in terms of mineral production and technological level. In the course of several thousand years it made very important contributions to China's political, economic and cultural development, social progress and productive force upgrading. Later on, however, much due to the fact that the feudal dynasties failed to pay due attention to summarizing experience to strive for further development and to absorbing and introducing timely the new scientific and technological achievements from other countries of the world, China's mineral industry remained in a backward state in modern times.

1.2.2.1 China's Geological and Mineral Survey Work in Modern Times

China's modern geological and mineral survey work initiated quite late. The early-stage geological work in modern times was carried out by foreigners. For instance, an American was invited to China by the Government of the Qing Dynasty and investigated the Jingxi coal deposit in 1862~1865.A German traveller came seven times to China for geological field trips during the period of 1861~1872 and wrote a book entitled China, with two pamphlects on physiography and geology appended, thus playing a pioneering role in the geological study of China. He travelled to 14 provinces of China: Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Zhili (now Hebei), Henan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Shandong and Fengtian (now Liaoning) and expressed his views on the estimated reserves of coal in China, saying that China was the "world's No. 1 country of coal resources" and that the coal reserves were "estimated at 1,890 billion tons in merely one single province of Shanxi".A British and a Swedish were also invited to investigate coal and iron ore deposits in Hubei and explore iron ore deposits at Longguanshan, Hebei Province in 1876 and 1914, respectively.

With the aim to train Chinese geologists, the Government of the Qing Dynasty set up, under the Jiangnan Army School, a mining and railway school, with geology and mineralogy included in its curriculum, in October, 1898. Among the graduates majoring in geology there were Zhou Shuren (Lu Xun), Gu Liang (Rui Shichen) et al. Zhou Shuren wrote the book An Outline of Geology of China in 1903 and again wrote jointly with Gu Liang the book Annals of Mineral Resources of China in 1905. These two books together with the Geological Map of Zhili Province compiled by Kuang Rongguang, a returned student from the United States comprised the earliest literature of geology written by the Chinese themselves in modern China. In 1909 the Jingshi University (the predecessor of the Peking University) set up under its College of Sciences a Department of Geology, which had one German teacher and only 3 students then. After the victory of the Revolution of 1911, the Mining Department of the Ministry of Industry under Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's Nanjing Provisional Government was responsible for administrating the national geological survey work in 1912. Under the Mining Department a section of geology was established with Zhang Hongzhao in charge, which marked that the Chinese Government had for the first time a geological administrative organ and the modern geological undertakings of China began to take the first step. In 1913 the Section of Geology was renamed the Geological Survey (with Ding Wenjiang as its director) to assume the responsibility of the planning and management of the national geological survey work. During the 1923~1935 period, Geological Surveys were set up successively in Henan, Hubei, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou and Jiangxi Provinces. These provincial geological surveys were responsible for geological investigations and mineral prospecting activities within the respective provinces. A number of research institutes of geology were also set up in the system of the Academy of Sciences in the same period. A national research institute of geology was established in 1913. Led by Zhang Hongzhao, this institute undertook the training of qualified geologists. With Ding Wenjiang and Weng Wenhao participating in the teaching work, the institute then enrolled 30 students, thus indicating the actual beginning of China's educational undertakings in geology. Some well-known geologists Xie Jiarong, Wang Zhuquan, et al. were among the first-group graduates in 1916. In 1908, the Peking University transformed its geology major into the Department of Geology and invited Li Siguang (J.S. Lee) and Grabau A.W., an American geologist, to be professors of the Department. Later on, geology departments were also established successively in the Zhongshan University, Qinghua University, Southwest United University, Tangshan Jiaotong University, Shandong University, Beiyang University, etc. It was one of the characteristics of the early geological education that a student majoring in geology was concurrently a student of mining engineering and metallurgy. In 1916, the first group of geological professionals brought up in China started geological investigations of the Longyan and Jingjin iron ore deposits in Hebei and Echeng iron ore deposit in Hubei and presented investigation reports, which were the earliest reports on the investigations of iron ore deposits written independently by Chinese geological surveyers. According to the records in the Annals of Iron Ore Deposits of China, there were 1,142 iron ore occurrences found in China in modern times. Among them over 60 were the important iron ore occurrences the investigations of which were made by China's own geological teams in the 1926~1928 period, including those in Xuanhua of Hebei, Taiyuan of Shanxi, Anyang of Henan, Bayan Obo of Inner Mongolia, Daye of Hubei, southern part of Anhui, western part of Jiangxi, Jiande of Zhejiang, Longyan of Fujian, Liguo of Jiangsu, Panzhihua of Sichuan, Yimen of Yunnan, Shuicheng of Guizhou, Ningxiang of Hunan, Yunfu of Guangdong, Tianshui of Gansu and Fengxian of Shaanxi. The geological investigations resulted in the discovery of a series of important iron ore deposits such as the Bayan Obo and Panzhihua iron ore deposits and the Damiao iron ore deposit in Chengde, where mining is still going on at present. In the 30s and 40s of the 20th century, in order to revitalizing the mineral industry of their motherland, geologists of the older generation spared no pains to carry out mineral investigations in the vast areas of China and succeeded in discovering a group of mineral deposits including the Huainan coal deposit, bauxite deposits in Guizhou, phosphorite deposits in Yunnan, etc. Besides, they also explored and evaluated, in varying degrees, the Daye iron ore deposit in Hubei, the iron-copper deposits on the middle-lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the coal deposits in Shanxi, the Gejiu tin deposit in Yunnan, the tungsten deposits in southern Jiangxi, the Dongchuan copper deposit in Yunnan, the mercury deposits in the Hunan-Guizhou region, the nonferrous metallic ore deposits in Hunan, the Yumen petroleum deposit in Gansu, and the petroleum, coal and manganese deposits in northern Shaanxi. In 1922 the Geological Society of China was established, and the Annals of Geological Society of China and Geological Review, two publications sponsored by the Geological Society of China, carried altogether over 200 papers relating to geology of mineral deposits, involving scores of mineral resources such as coal, petroleum, natural gas, oil shale, uranium ore, iron ore, manganese ore, zircon, copper ore, lead-zinc ore, gold ore, silver ore, tin ore, molybdenum ore, antimony ore, mercury ore, bauxite, kaolin, fluorite, pyrite, graphite, talc, barite, realgar, orpiment, magnesite, dolomite, limestone, jadestone, and diamond.

1.2.2.2 Outline of China's Mineral Development in Modern Times

China's modern mineral development work started from the iron ore and coal mining. In the later half of the 19th century, in order to initiate the westernization drive and the building of the Beiyang (Liaoning-Hebei-Shandong) Navy and to manufacture firearms, warships and machinery to suit the needs of national defence and economic development, the Qing government felt that the conventional coal and iron ore mining was no longer capable to cope with the requirement of the developing situation and so spent no less than 2 million taels of silver on importing from abroad a great deal of steel products (up to 130,000 tons in 1891), cement (50,000 t/a), plate glass, pottery products, asbestos products and other building materials on the one hand and began the planning and arrangement to develop a modern mining and mineral processing industry on the other hand.

In 1874, Li Hongzhang, Governor-General of Zhili (Hebei) Province, and Shen Baozhen, Governor-General of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, presented a memorial to the Qing imperial government for permission to run on a trial basis coal and iron ore mines to meet the military and civil needs. Then, the Cizhou Coal and Iron Ore Mine of Zhili Province made a purchase order for iron-smelting machinery from the United Kingdom in 1875 but this plan came to a premature end because of the difficulty in transportation. Modern coal mines were first set up in Kaiping of Hebei and Chilung of Taiwan. The Chilung coal mine was constructed in 1876 and began to produce coal in 1876, with an annual coal output of 30,000~50,000 tons. This mine stopped production after the Sino-French war in 1884 because the mine shaft had been blown up. The preparatory arrangements for the Kaiping Coal Mine began in 1877 and its branch mines such as the Tangshan Mine, Linxi Mine and Xishan Mine were successively erected in the following several years. In 1912, the Kaiping Mine was merged with the Luanzhou Mining Bureau into the Kailuan Bureau of Mines and this mining district has remained as one  of the most important coal bases in China so far. By the year of 1894 when the Sino-Japanese War of 1894~1895 broke out, the Qing imperial government had also opened up other 13 modern coal mines, including the Cizhou Coal Mine in Hebei, Guichi Coal and Iron Ore Mine in Anhui, Xishan Coal Mine in Beijing, Zichuan Coal Mine in Shandong, Wangsanshi Coal Mine and Maanshan Coal Mine in Jiangxia, apart from the Chilung and Kaiping Coal Mines mentioned above. These mines were of bureaucrat capital in nature and were small in scale and most of them were poorly managed. In 1897, Germany forced the Qing government to sign a leasing treaty and thus obtained the right to build a railway in Shandong and the mining right to develop mineral resources in a 15 km wide zone on both sides of the railway. Afterwards, the Great Britain, Russia, France and Japan successively grabbed the similar rights. By the time the Qing Dynasty was overthrown by the Revolution of 1911, the imperialist powers had opened up coal mines in Kaiping, Luanzhou, Jiaozhu, Mengxian, Pingdingzhou, Luan, Zezhou and Kaiyang as well as the Benxihu and Lincheng Coal Mines of relatively large scales. China's coal industry was then basically controlled by the foreign-funded coal mines as their coal output made up approximately 83.2% of the national total. In 1903, the Chinese people set off a campaign for the return of the mining right from the hands of foreigners and achieved a certain success. In the meanwhile, coal mines of national capital such as the Yangquan, Datong, Shouyang, Jincheng, Yixian, Liuhegou, Pingxiang and Jiawang Mines were initiated and reached a certain scale of production. However, the coal mines invested by foreign firms still occupied the leading position, with their coal output making up 55.4% of the national total of 12.8 million tons in 1913. During the First World War of 1914~1918, China's national capital gained a certain development and opened up the Huadong, Changxing, Beipiao, Zhengfeng, Changcheng, Liujiang, Yili, Zhonghe, Taitong and Huainan Coal Mines, thus bringing about an increase in coal output from 12% of the total in 1912 up to 24%. In the period of the Japanese invasion into China, Japan forcibly occupied altogether more than 200 coal mines and plundered 420 million tons of coal resources from China from 1931 to 1945. At that time, in order to solve the problem of fuel demand in the areas ruled by the Kuomintang (KMT), the Commission of Resources initiated 29 coal mines and additionally encouraged indiviguals to set up 59 private coal mines. These mines were small in scale and only 35 mines of them owned a daily production capacity of over 100 tons each. Some small coal mines were also opened up in the base areas in the enemy's rear. According to the post-war statistics, only in the Shanxi-Qahar-Hebei Border Region there were 473 small coalpits with a daily coal output of about 2,000 tons. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, a small part of the coal mines seized by Japan was taken over by the people's regime of the border region, while most of them by the Kuomintang regime. These coal mines were seriously damaged during China's War of Liberation (1945~1949) and were not restored and developed until after the founding of the New China.

There were 40-odd mines that were engaged in the exploitation and utilization of iron ores in the modern times. Some of them were quite large in production scale and began to use the latest machinery and equipment for excavation, ore dressing and transportation. The annual iron-ore output of the Anshan Iron Ore Mine of Liaoning Province, for example, amounted to 600,000~1,000,000 tons; the highest annual output of the Daye Iron Mine of Hubei Province was 1,445,000 tons of iron ores (in the year of 1942); and the Maanshan Iron Mine topped its highest output of 900,000 tons of iron ores in 1941. The development of iron ore deposits promoted the development of China's national iron-steel industry. In 1890, Zhang Zhidong, Governor-General of Hunan-Hubei-Guangdong-Guangxi Provinces introduced advanced mining and smelting technologies and equipments from abroad, when he was in charge of the preparatory work for the construction of the Hanyang and Daye Iron Mines. The Daye Iron Mine began to produce 40,000 tons of iron ores on a trial basis in 1891 and was formally put into production in 1893. Thus, it became China's first open-cast iron mine applying advanced technologies in the modern times. The Hanyang Ironworks was constructed and went into production in 1894. Apart from the 60,000 tons of steel products it provided for the building of domestic railways, its products were sold far to the United States and Japan. In 1908, the Hanyang Iron Mine and the Daye Iron Mine got associated with the Pingxiang Coal Mine to establish the Han-Ye-Ping Coal-Iron Mining and Smelting Company, which was the first iron-steel-coal integrated complex in China in the modern times as well as the largest iron-steel integrated complex in the Far East at that time. This complex produced 119,300 tons of pig iron and 50,000 tons of steel in 1910. The construction of the Daye Iron Mine and Hanyang Ironworks and the establishment of the Han-Ye-Ping Coal-Iron Mining and Smelting Company marked the initiation of the modern iron-steel industry in China.

With regard to nonferrous metallic mineral resources, the Xihuashan and Dajishan tungsten ore deposits were discovered in the southern part of Jiangxi Province successively in 1908 and 1918. Thanks to military needs and the pressing demand for tungsten on the international market, these two tungsten ore deposits were soon placed under development and consequently the output of tungsten concentrates increased sharply from 20 tons in 1908 up to 1,000 tons in 1918 and even rose to 14,000 tons during the Second World War. The Gejiu Tin Mine of Yunnan Province that had been operating, at first for lead ores and then for tin ores, since the ancient times unfolded a relatively large-scale mining in the modern times. It produced an accumulative total of over 310,000 tons of tin concentrates in the 60 years' period of 1889~1949. The Shuikoushan Lead-Zinc Mine of Hunan Province which began its mining operation from the 11th century used to be a mine engaged predominantly in extracting silver and gold through lead smelting before the founding of the New China.

As to noble metals, apart from the extraction of silver from Pb-Zn ores by smelting, gold ore were also mined in some areas. For instance, the Mohe Gold Mine of Heilongjiang Province produced up to several hundred thousand taels in 1887.

In the aspect of the development and utilization of petroleum and gas resources, the progress was slow. Before 1949 there were only a few oil and gas fields that were subjected to development. They were the Miaoli oilfield in Taiwan, the Yanchang oilfield in Shaanxi, the Dushanzi oilfield in Xinjiang, the Laojunmiao oilfield in Gansu, the Ziliujing, Shiyougou and Shengmeishan gas fields in Sichuan and the Chinshui, Chutung, Niushan and Liuchongxi gas fields in Taiwan. A series of geological survey work for oil-gas resources was carried out by the geologists of the older generations from the early 20th century. In the 30s geophysical exploration methods were introduced for application to oil-gas prospecting. There were only 15 oil drilling rigs in use before the founding of the New China and the oil-gas drilling workers bored all together 169 drill wells with an accumulative footage of about 67,000 meters from 1907 to 1949. So the oil-gas exploration and development work showed a weak foundation and a small scale on the whole. The 45 years from 1904 to 1948 recorded an aggregate total output of only 2,785,000 tons of crude oil (excluding the outputs in Taiwan and Xinjiang) and the annual crude oil output in 1943, the year of the highest output, amounted merely to 320,000 tons.

The development and utilization of nonmetallic mineral resources has continued without interruption from the ancient times to the present. As indicated by the enormous quantities of building materials such as granites, marbles, glazed tiles and black bricks used for the construction of a serious of ancient and modern architectural swarms including the Summer Palace in Beijing and the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, the development and utilization of building materials nonmetallic minerals was very considerable in scale. Based on the development of building materials mineral resources, a number of cement and plate glass Plants were set up in the late 19th century and the early 20th century in Macau, Tangshan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Guangzhou, etc., but they were poorly managed. And it was only the Qixin Cement Company (evolved from the Tangshan Cement Plant) that survived through a tough and difficult struggle and the construction of a rotary kiln and thus became the pioneer of China's cement industry. Around the First World War, as the big powers were too busy to attend to the affairs in the East, the import of foreign commodities declined, thus providing an opportunity for the development of the national industry. In 1914, the Qixin Cement Company initiated the Qixin Ceramic Factory to produce sanitary equipment and floor tiles, which preluded China's ceramic industry. In 1922 the Sino-Belgium cofunded Yaohua Glassworks in Qinhuangdao began to produce plate glass and this promoted the development of China's plate-glass industry. Afterwards, more than 30 cement plants and cement products factories were erected in Shanghai, Shandong, Taiyuan, Tianjin, Shenyang and Chongqing in the 1924~1927 period. Besides, the 1912~1916 period saw the establishment of the Danba Mica Mine in Sichuan, the Yingcheng Gypsum Mine in Hubei and the Haicheng Talc Mine in Liaoning. While the mining and processing of nonmetallic minerals was experiencing a transition from a manual operation to a modern industrial production, the development and utilization of building material minerals on the whole remained at a comparatively low level. Before 1949, the highest yearly output of cement was 2.29 million tons (in 1942) and that of plate glass was 1.29 million wt. cases (50 kg per case).

The geological survey for chemical industry minerals was initiated in the 20-30s of the 20th century. The Haizhou phosphate deposit in Jiangsu was discovered by way of analysing the phosphatic wall rocks of the Nanshan manganese deposit in 1919 and was then geologically investigated successively by Liu Jichen, Xie Jiarong, Zhang Zuhuan, et al. Chen Yuqi et al. discovered the Kunming phosphate deposit when looking for refractory clay for the Kunming Smelting Plant in 1931. Li Chunyu, Wang Zhuquan, Chen Guoda, Yuan Jianqi, et al. carried out investigations of pyrite deposits in Sichuan, Hunan, Guangdong, Qinghai and Yunnan Provinces, respectively. Ye Liangfu et al. investigated the alunite deposits in Zhejiang and Anhui. The development and utilization degree of chemical industry minerals was relatively low and there were only a few related mines in China in the modern times. They were mainly the Haizhou Phosphate Mine in Jiangsu, Chuannan Pyrite Mine in Sichuan, Yangquan Pyrite Mine in Shanxi, Maanshan Pyrite Mine in Anhui, Yingde Pyrite Mine in Guangdong, Caojiankou Pyrite Mine in Liaoning, Pingyang Alunite Mine in Zhejiang, Lujiang Alunite Mine in Anhui and Shimen Realgar Mine in Hunan. These mines were relatively backward in mode of production (mostly operating manually) and were low in output.

To sum up, China's mining and mineral processing industry in modern times was characterized by the following features: first, it was typically semicolonial in nature; second, it began to practise the capitalist mode of production and management; third, it began to introduce more or less advanced machinery and equipment in some areas to substitute the manual operations of handicraft workshops; and fourth, the national mineral industry struggled forward in a harsh environment with a weak foundation and developed at a slow speed with a small scale of production. In 1949 there were 300-odd mines that were more or less completely preserved in the entire country, and in the same year China produced 32.43 million tons of coal, 125,000 tons of petroleum, 158,000 tons of steel, 250,000 tons of pig iron, 590,000 tons of iron ores, 13,000 tons of ten nonferrous metals, 4,073 kg of gold, 6,000 tons of chemical fertilizer, 40,000 tons of sulphuric acid, 2,985,000 tons of salt, 912,000 wt. cases of plate glass and 660,000 tons of cement. All this indicates that the overall level of the industry then was very backward.