An investigation into the 1936 execution of a Cantonese official leads to a reassessment of regional and national politics and state-led industrialization in Republican China.

Part history, part biography, and part mystery story, SmokelessSugar reveals how the concept of a national economy took shape inChina by investigating the 1936 execution of Feng Rui, a provincialofficial who introduced modern sugar milling in Guangdong.

Examining the circumstances of Feng Rui's arrest on charges ofcorruption, Emily Hill traces the construction of a Chinese nationaleconomy through cross-border interactions between industry andagriculture and between China and Japan. She makes the case that Fengwas, in fact, a scapegoat in a multi-sided power struggle in whichpolitical leaders vied with commercial players for access toChina's markets and tax revenues. This illuminating studychallenges conventional wisdom about the effectiveness of theRepublican state in promoting national unity during the Nanjing decadeand highlights continuities in official economic policies from the1930s to the Communist era.