Paper was invented by us, so why are we now being held back by Germany in papermaking? What's the reason for this?

During the Western Han Dynasty, Cai Lun invented economical and practical paper based on the achievements of his predecessors, making outstanding contributions to the inheritance of Chinese civilization later on. 

More than a thousand years later, Chinese papermaking technology spread to the European continent, providing great convenience for its booming education, politics and business. 

However, Germany, which once benefited from China's papermaking technology, now instead holds China back in papermaking technology and monopolizes the Chinese papermaking equipment market. Why is this so?

Origins of Papermaking in China

Before 61 A.D., there were three main types of writing materials in ancient Chinese society: traditional bamboo slips and wooden documents, hemp fiber paper made from used hemp rope and rags, and the last type of paper was precious satin and silk.

The disadvantage of the first type is bulky, text carrying capacity is very small; the second shortcomings is the appearance of rough, writing is very inconvenient; the last kind of silky appearance, despite the smooth writing, but the cost is expensive, ordinary people simply can not afford to use.

With the continuous progress of ancient Chinese civilization and social development needs, an economical and practical paper, become a cultural heritage, the progress of civilization, the reality of the need.

Fortunately, a man called Cai Lun appeared in the Western Han Dynasty.

Because of the needs of the position, Cai Lun daily need to write a lot of material, but the reality of the existence of several kinds of text carrier are very inconvenient, which makes Cai Lun had the idea of inventing paper.

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Cai Lun

Since then, Cai Lun went to the workshop of paper making whenever he had time to investigate, and followed the craftsmen to learn the technique of paper making.

Once, when Cai Lun was passing by a river, he happened to see a group of children playing with bamboo poles picking the compost on the surface of the river.

Cai Lun carefully observed and found that the compost would quickly dry up when it left the water, and it was thin and light.

He picked it up and touched it, and found that its texture was so soft and thin that he could write on it.

This gave Cai Lun inspiration, after returning to his home, he immediately collected a large number of old cloth, cotton wool, bark, will be chopped into a pot of boiling, and then filtered out of the pulp into the water, stirring evenly, and then try to use the mat to fish pulp, this layer of uniformly attached to the mat pulp after drying, it becomes a paper can be used for writing.

Of course, behind Cai Lun's success in realizing this series of steps, he experienced thousands of experiments.

The emergence of Cai Lun's papermaking greatly improved the environment for the dissemination of culture in ancient China, and was a landmark invention in the history of the development of Chinese civilization.

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Paper industry stuck in the neck

China's paper industry has been developing for more than a thousand years and has made numerous brilliant achievements.

Today, China's paper industry also stands on top of the world.

According to the research of China's paper industry network, from the scale of production, economic and trade, science and technology level and other eight dimensions of assessment, China in the world nearly a hundred paper-making countries, the first place.

China's paper production, consumption, waste paper recycling volume and other areas, all in the world's first place.

China's 14 paper companies perennial ranked in the world's top 100 paper industry, followed by new Chinese companies are constantly among the list, and the ranking more and more forward.

“The world's largest paper machine” ‘the world's fastest paper machine’ and other terms are often used to describe the Chinese companies' paper equipment.

It is not difficult to find that in the industrial development of the West lagged behind the premise of one or two hundred years, China's paper industry is still in just a few decades to catch up, become one of the global paper industry giants.

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However, China's continuation of the ancient glory of the paper industry at the same time, there are some criticized problems, that is, the core technology of papermaking by the neck of a foreign country.

At present, China's paper field can be named enterprises, with almost all the German production of machinery and equipment.

It is important to know that the West's original papermaking is imported from China.

In 1150, Spain established the first paper mill in Europe, followed by France, Italy, Britain, the Netherlands, the United States in the 12th century to the 17th century has built factories, while Germany is in 1391 to create the first local paper enterprises.

In terms of time alone, the German paper industry lags behind China by 1,300 years.

However, time has changed, as the birthplace of papermaking in China, nowadays even have to import German paper-making equipment.

So what has happened in the 600 years since the end of the 14th century to bring China to the point where it is being held hostage in the field of papermaking?

Why is papermaking stuck in the neck?

In fact, China's backwardness in the field of industrial production technology, traced back to the roots of a reason - the backwardness of the modern era.

When the West ushered in the Industrial Revolution, the scale of machinery to replace manual labor, China is stuck in closed-door ills.

Until the middle of the 19th century, the British blasted open the door of the Chinese people realize that, without realizing it, we are no longer the original “heavenly kingdom”.

However, it was too late. China, which had not undergone the Industrial Revolution, lagged far behind the West in terms of industrial production and military power, which led to more than one hundred years of modern humiliation.

When the Chinese nation was in a deep crisis of extinction, how could we think of developing papermaking?

Until after the founding of new China, the domestic industrial production is gradually on track.

But compared to the West hundreds of years of industrial development, how can China do in the short term to catch up?

The backwardness of papermaking is only a microcosm of China's industrial development, which is seriously lagging behind that of the West.

Voith

With a company as powerful as Voith, there seems to be no excuse for China to import its papermaking equipment.

Of course, our own papermaking technology is also developing rapidly.

In the 30 years since the reform and opening up, China has made major breakthroughs in paper-making equipment and production processes.

Especially in China's industrial restructuring, enterprise transformation environment, China's paper industry, cleaner production technology to achieve world-renowned results.

Successive innovations in papermaking chemicals, the emergence of large-scale high-speed paper machines, and improved utilization of wood pulp have reduced water consumption in papermaking while greatly reducing pollution emissions.

Now China's paper industry is developing steadily in the direction of high quality and low consumption, and it is believed that it won't take long for China's paper-making equipment to replace Voith of Germany.

conclusion

As the birthplace of papermaking, it is somewhat embarrassing to have to turn around and import papermaking equipment from other countries.

But this is ultimately the inevitable result of different historical footprints. What we can do is to humbly learn and continue to improve on the basis of acceptance.

Supported by thousands of years of profound cultural heritage, whether in papermaking or other industrial production, China will eventually return to the top of the world.

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