The issue of the development of China's cotton textile industry during the Ming and Qing dynasties is of great significance to the study of the different development paths of China and the West in modern times. Taking the market demand of Chinese cotton textiles as a perspective, it can be found that: although the domestic and international market demand of Chinese cotton textiles increased in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the emergence and competition of cotton textile industry in other places of China made the market-oriented specialized production of cotton cloth in the Jiangnan region with superiority suffered from the strong competition from the production of cotton in rural areas in the form of small-scale peasant economy, which was produced in the form of sideline, then the former faced the situation of shrinking market and decreasing profit margins due to the latter with its more labor inputs, cheaper prices of cotton supplied, that’s the character of “involution”. it mainly manifested in the market demand was relatively insufficient, low profits ratio, so that spinning technology and other core technologies lack of development momentum, and ultimately lost competitiveness in the international market competition. Since then, coping with the involution of domestic industrial competition had become an important task in the modernization of China.

Market Demand, Involution, Production Cost, Core Technology, Modernization