[{"command":"openDialog","selector":"#drupal-modal","settings":null,"data":"\u003Cdiv id=\u0022republish_modal_form\u0022\u003E\u003Cform class=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form ecl-form\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 action=\u0022\/en\/article\/modal\/6328\u0022 method=\u0022post\u0022 id=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 accept-charset=\u0022UTF-8\u0022\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHorizon articles can be republished for free under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EYou must give appropriate credit. We ask you to do this by:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 1) Using the original journalist\u0027s byline\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 2) Linking back to our original story\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 3) Using the following text in the footer: This article was originally published in \u003Ca href=\u0027#\u0027\u003EHorizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003ESee our full republication guidelines \u003Ca href=\u0027\/horizon-magazine\/republish-our-stories\u0027\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EHTML for this article, including the attribution and page view counter, is below:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\u0022js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textarea form-item-body-content js-form-item-body-content ecl-form-group ecl-form-group--text-area form-no-label ecl-u-mv-m\u0022\u003E\n \n\u003Cdiv\u003E\n \u003Ctextarea data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 aria-describedby=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 id=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 name=\u0022body_content\u0022 rows=\u00225\u0022 cols=\u002260\u0022 class=\u0022form-textarea ecl-text-area\u0022\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EAsian trade may have launched Europe\u2019s industrial age\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEuropeans have long been fascinated with Asian goods. Fine porcelain from China and Indian fabrics fuelled the rise of merchant trade houses like the British East India Company that delivered goods to Europe beginning in the 1600s.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile ships crossing the Atlantic to the Americas came back laden with grocery goods like tobacco and sugar, Asia catered to a different taste\u2014luxury consumption.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProfessor Maxine Berg led a team of researchers at Warwick University in the UK as part of the TRADE project, funded by the EU\u2019s European Research Council to investigate the impact of Asian trade on Europe from 1600 to 1830.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018I think it was a major stimulus to industrialisation,\u2019 she said. \u2018In order to outfit and run a ship going to Asia you had to cover the expenses equivalent to three Atlantic ships. The returns had to be worth the higher costs of these voyages.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBefore the 18th century, the best porcelain was only available to the European market through trade with China. Europeans lacked the secret formula of clay and minerals that the Chinese were able to mix to make hard paste porcelain\u0026nbsp;until the early 18th century, and even then they produced much higher-priced porcelain, even taking into account the costs and lengths of the China voyages.\u003Cfigure role=\u0022group\u0022 class=\u0022@alignright-width43@\u0022\u003E\n\u003Cimg alt=\u0022Chinese export porcelain dinner plate c. 1725 from the Yongzheng reign, Qing dynasty. Image courtesy of SANTOS-London\u0022 height=\u0022515\u0022 src=\u0022\/research-and-innovation\/sites\/default\/files\/hm\/Porcelain%20dinner%20plate.PNG\u0022 title=\u0022Chinese export porcelain dinner plate c. 1725 from the Yongzheng reign, Qing dynasty. Image courtesy of SANTOS-London\u0022 width=\u0022556\u0022\u003E\n\u003Cfigcaption class=\u0022tw-italic tw-mb-4\u0022\u003EChinese export porcelain dinner plate c. 1725 from the Yongzheng reign, Qing dynasty. Image courtesy of SANTOS-London\u003C\/figcaption\u003E\n\u003C\/figure\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat didn\u2019t stop attempts to imitate Chinese porcelain though. Starting from the Middle Ages, Europeans tried to produce similar goods, leading to colourful earthenware pottery such as faience and majolica.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018It was a product innovation that became desirable in its own right,\u2019 Prof Berg said. \u0027Every court had its own porcelain works, but this produced expensive porcelain for the court and the aristocracy.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0027The product innovation was carried out in a whole series of small factories and kilns producing cheaper and different-looking versions.\u0027\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong style=\u0022font-size: 13.008px; line-height: 1.538em;\u0022\u003EMass production\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMore important than cultivating a luxury consumer was the idea from Asia that luxury could be mass-produced. Chinese porcelain was produced on a huge scale for global export in a city called Jingdezhen, located in modern Jiangxi province.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018Those factories in Jingdezhen, when news came out about them through Jesuit reports, I do think it had a demonstration effect that was quite distinctive from just bringing in the luxury objects and trying to imitate what they look like,\u2019 Prof. Berg said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018It was actually a demonstration that you could produce fine high-quality goods for mass markets, and to do this on a huge scale, and that was something that Europeans learned in the 18th century.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFine cottons from India known as muslins had a similar effect on European fashions and on the burgeoning cotton industry in Britain.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018The muslins are interesting because they were kind of favoured products in India. There are stories about entire saris that were produced so finely they could be fitted into a snuff box. So what happens when the British start producing cotton is they seek to produce these fine lightweight cottons,\u2019 Prof. Berg said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe techniques developed by British mills as they discovered how to use water and steam to improve production methods were replicated across Europe as the industrial revolution spread.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EModern techniques\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEven today, learning new techniques is often at the heart of investment across continents. Professor Francesca Spigarelli is coordinating the POREEN\u0026nbsp;team at the University of Macerata in Italy, which has set up collaborations between economists, engineers, and legal scholars in China and Italy.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGreater investment in green technology is a key area of focus for the EU-funded project.\u003Cblockquote class=\u0022tw-text-center tw-text-blue tw-font-bold tw-text-2xl lg:tw-w-1\/2 tw-border-2 tw-border-blue tw-p-12 tw-my-8 lg:tw-m-12 lg:tw--ml-16 tw-float-left\u0022\u003E\n \u003Cspan class=\u0022tw-text-5xl tw-rotate-180\u0022\u003E\u201c\u003C\/span\u003E\n \u003Cp class=\u0022tw-font-serif tw-italic\u0022\u003E\u2018It was actually a demonstration that you could produce fine high quality goods for mass markets.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cfooter\u003E\n \u003Ccite class=\u0022tw-not-italic tw-font-normal tw-text-sm tw-text-black\u0022\u003EProfessor Maxine Berg, Warwick University, UK\u003C\/cite\u003E\n \u003C\/footer\u003E\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018Thanks to this cooperation with engineers, I was able to understand some trends, some motivations for why Chinese companies invest in Europe that are related to some technical aspects of what is the state of the art of renewable energy in China versus Europe,\u2019 Prof. Spigarelli said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe also found that this often operated along regional lines. For example, 90 % of Chinese investments in solar energy from 2004 to 2013 were made in Germany, and most by companies from Jiangsu province.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe learning goes both ways. Researchers at the EU-funded ASEM-AQUACULTURE project run out of Ghent University in Belgium set up a forum to introduce fish-farming experts in Europe to their Asian counterparts.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile the project was able to help set up a network of farms in Asia that could help each other to improve fish health and apply international food safety standards, European fish farmers, who have long only farmed one type of fish in one area, were also able to study new techniques from China.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018In Asia you have a lot of integrated practices, and the one that is the most appealing for Europe is in the coastal areas of China were they do multitrophic aquaculture,\u2019 project coordinator Professor Patrick Sorgeloos said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn other words, it combines harvesting fish with other species like seaweed and molluscs, the effect being that they help maintain the environmental balance. Excess carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus produced by the fish as waste is recycled via organic and inorganic matter as food, for the farming of molluscs and seaweed respectively.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018With the project I think we have been able to come up with more transparent and correct information, and facilitated the links between Europeans and Asians,\u2019 Prof. Sorgeloos said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/textarea\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\n \u003Cdiv id=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 class=\u0022ecl-help-block description\u0022\u003E\n Please copy the above code and embed it onto your website to republish.\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cinput autocomplete=\u0022off\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022form-abgdseho0pafitduan-xyytqb7lp8pgewjahnagouzi\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_build_id\u0022 value=\u0022form-abgDSehO0pafitDuaN-XYYTqB7LP8pgEwJahnAgouZI\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003Cinput data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_id\u0022 value=\u0022modal_form_example_modal_form\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003C\/form\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E","dialogOptions":{"width":"800","modal":true,"title":"Republish this content"}}]