Cold Chains, Uneven Trust: Chinese Eggs and the Politics of Refrigeration

This article uses the global trade in Chinese egg products to rethink the history of refrigeration beyond narratives of technological diffusion and thermal colonialism. Tracing the rise of China's egg-processing industry in the treaty ports, it argues that refrigeration functioned not simply as a colonial technology but as an infrastructure through which states, firms, and consumers negotiated questions of hygiene, trust, and market power. British and American companies introduced refrigerated production systems that Chinese enterprises selectively adapted, while the rapid expansion of low-cost exports provoked protectionist campaigns and sanitary disputes in Europe and the United States. "Chinese eggs" became a political and cultural problem through which anxieties about industrial food, racial difference, and international competition were expressed. As export markets contracted during the interwar crisis of the twentieth century, refrigeration expanded into China's domestic economy through cold storage, logistics, and mass consumer culture. The article shows how refrigeration reshaped both global food politics and everyday urban life in modern China.