China: The Industrial Revolution (1967)

[Music] to become a Modern Nation China must increase its industrial capacity short of the country has been forced to rely on human energy huge engineering projects like this Dam are being built using the hand labor of thousands of workers but today the face of China is changing China's people labor to dig the tunnels lay the rails and construct the foundation for an industrialized [Music] [Music] Nation from huge dams will come new electric power for an ancient land it's production the country is turning out heavyduty steel and is also manufacturing some of its own machinery [Music] [Music] but China has far to go four out of every five Chinese are peasants who still work with the tools handed down from father to son for a thousand years to modernize a country as backward as this is a gigantic task to build an industrial base a country needs raw materials winter and summer sever teams travel across China in search of coal and iron copper oil and other raw materials the country needs and they are being found China is discovering that she has most of the basic minerals she needs to develop heavy industry the country has the third largest supply of coal in the world iron reserves enough to last for centuries oil has been in short supply but new fields are being prospected new wells are coming in and the geologists have found supplies of tin copper manganese lead bite all necessary for Industrial Development from the products of her oil refineries China is making Plastics and other synthetic materials the textile industry is important to the nation's economy China grows her own cotton to weave cotton cloth for her enormous population she is reported to have almost as many spindles in Shanghai alone as there are in all of England textile Machinery which formerly had to be imported from abroad is now made in China in a country where transportation is primitive a bicycle is a valued possession millions of bicycles are made in China [Music] [Music] this Factory manufactures both bicycles and light motorbikes while the majority of bicycles are used domestically these motorbikes are mostly for [Music] export China's foreign trade is small in relation to her population but she is beginning to trade with more and more countries and as she produces more this trade will expand most of her trade is carried in foreign ships but China is building a few of her own oceangoing [Music] fighers still far from being self-sufficient China must buy much of what she needs from other countries [Music] in recent years China has had to import large supplies of wheat but in turn has sold some of her rice to other [Music] countries the ships that dock at China's sea ports fly the flags of many nations but as yet China can export little most of what she makes she needs herself [Music] China's industrialization is closely tied to her agricultural needs her people require many more tractors than she now produces to increase food production she needs farm equipment of every kind China is now manufacturing some trucks and buses turning out a few automobiles building some of her own locomotives to turn out manufactured products China needs people skilled and trained in working with modern tools in China's schools children get practical training these children are learning electronics as they assemble radios this University Engineering class is specializing in the construction of [Music] dams using a large working model of a dam the students learn how to apply the principles of hydraulics which they must know if they are later to build the Dam's China needs [Music] dams that Supply new electric power are now being built by engineers and graduates of her own technical schools universities train Engineers to build these installations and technicians to run them [Music] as technology advances the country is beginning to produce many of her own Machine Tools but the age of the machine is only beginning in this country now experiencing the Industrial Revolution much of what China wants to accomplish must be done by human labor it was decided to build a road across this Open Water a Causeway to an island over which trucks and trains could travel without modern engineering equipment the only way possible was to sail out into the Open Sea with boats loaded with huge Boulders and then using all the strength they had heave the Rocks overboard and stone by Stone begin to lay the foundation for the [Music] [Music] project slowly through hard and bitter labor the work went forward the people built one end out from the island the other end from the mainland then they worked to join the two ends but through the narrowing gap between the two ends the sea began to run faster and faster the boats were too small the tides too Swift try as they would the people could not unload the stones in time [Music] [Music] again and again they were tossed back in [Music] defeat an engineer came up with a [Music] solution instead of of dumping the stones one by one tie them into huge bundles and then at a precise moment he the whole load overboard at once [Music] [Music] the plan succeeded the causeway was built [Music] [Applause] [Music] today China is beginning to move forward beginning to enlarge and improve her transportation system [Music] new housing is being erected in the city stores some new goods are beginning to [Music] appear the metals discovered by the geologists have become shiny new pots and pans new thermos jugs are admired they're designed to be both practical and [Music] attractive a housewife admires a new sewing machine made in China [Music] but consumer goods are still rare China's primary needs are for more modern tools here on the farms more than 500 million of her people are peasants to grow more food they need new pumps new generators vast amounts of new chemical fertilizers in this immense and crowded land changes come slowly here and there an electric pump replaces an old water wheel here and there a tractor is a giant step [Music] forward China started late and she still has a long way to go [Music] most people must still work with primitive tools most must still rely on human energy but the industrial revolution has begun [Music]