The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 12: Republican China, 1912-1949, Part 1
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ECONOMIC INTERESTS 203
capitalized upon this through boycotts (for example, in 1905, 1908, 1909,
1915,
1919-21) both against goods produced by foreign plants in China
and against imports, and probably also through more frequent labour
disputes in foreign-owned than in Chinese-owned factories. Anti-imperia-
list sentiment was a growing reality, but it does not follow that, because
nationalist propaganda pronounced it so, foreign industry in China in
fact retarded China's modernization, undermined handicraft production
(which contradicts the first assertion), prevented the growth of Chinese
manufacturing, or exploited Chinese workers any more (or less) egre-
giously than native capitalists.
Transport
In the first two decades of the twentieth century, 85 to 90 per cent of
China's foreign trade by value was carried in foreign flag vessels. Foreign-
owned shipping also moved two-thirds of the coastal trade between open
or treaty ports, insofar as this freight was carried in 'foreign-type vessels'
and thus recorded in the Maritime Customs statistics. 'Inland waters
navigation', that is steamer trade to or between places other than treaty
or open ports, was recorded by the customs only to the extent that dutiable
cargo entered or left such a port. In the absence of value data, we may
judge from the number of foreign (1,125) and Chinese (211) vessels
registered under the Inland Steam Navigation Regulations in 1914 that
this traffic, too, was dominated by foreign shipping.
That China's overseas trade was carried primarily in foreign vessels
is not surprising, but cabotage, that is, coastal and inland navigation, in
international law is generally restricted to domestic carriers. Trade by
foreign vessels between Chinese ports and navigation of China's rivers
had been imposed upon China by the treaty powers; no reciprocal right,
even in theory, was received by China.
It is impossible to assess the precise quantitative effects of foreign
coastal and riverine steamer trade on traditional junks and their boatmen.
Chinese government opposition to expansion of steam shipping reflected
apprehension of disorders sparked by unemployed boatmen. On the other
hand, Chinese junks probably benefited on balance from an expansion of
total inland trade. There were countless places unreachable by steamer
which were tied into the growing commerce by 500,000 junks which plied
not only the rivers but also extensive networks of canals and creeks. All
the qualitative indications as well as the scattered statistics available for
the 1930s suggest that the junk was still the main means of transport in
South China. Even in 1959 only 36 per cent of the total volume of goods
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2O4 THE FOREIGN PRESENCE IN CHINA
transported
in the
People's Republic
of
China was carried
by
the modern
transport sector;
the
rest primarily
by
junk.
Between
1903 and 1918 the
major Yangtze River steamer route
was
shared
in
roughly equal proportions (with respect
to
both number
of
vessels
and
total tonnage)
by
four shipping companies: Butterfield
and
Swire's China Navigation Company, Jardine's Indo-China Steam Naviga-
tion Company, the Japanese NisshinKisenKaisha, and the Chinese-govern-
ment owned China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company. New England
skippers
and
Scottish chief engineers predominated
in the
British
and
Chinese fleets. ('Tradition held that
if
you wanted
the
"chief",
you
just
called "Mac" down
the
engine-hatch
and he
appeared'.
68
)
To
avoid price
wars,
these large lines frequently negotiated shipping rates among them-
selves. British
and
Japanese shipping dominated overall
in the
overseas
and inter-port trade,
the
Japanese gradually drawing closer
to
their rival
(38
per
cent British and
21
per
cent Japanese
of
the total tonnage entered
and cleared
by
customs
in
1910 compared
to 38 per
cent
and
29
per
cent
respectively
in
1919).
Transport accounted
for
nearly
a
third (31.5
per
cent)
of
direct foreign
investment
in
China
in
1914. The bulk
of
this third was invested
in
rail-
ways,
the
capitalization
of
the steam shipping companies being relatively
small. Foreign railway interests were
a
complex amalgam ranging from
a fair number
of
unrealized railway concessions
to
several major lines
directly controlled
by
foreign powers. Between these
two
extremes were
lines built entirely
or in
part with foreign loans under contracts which
generally granted the construction
of
the lines
to
the lenders (who profited
as purchasing agents
for
imported materials)
and,
before
the
1908 Tien-
tsin-Pukow Railway Agreement, placed
the
management
of the
lines
in
the hands
of the
lenders during
the
period
of the
loan.
In
some cases
before
1908 the
foreign agencies were granted
a
share
of
the
net
profits
until
the
loans were repaid. Even after 1908 most loan agreements
pro-
vided
for a
foreign chief engineer which implied some participation
by
the creditors
in the
management
of
the lines.
As
of
1918,
out of an
approximate total
of
6,700 miles
of
railway lines
in operation, including Manchuria,
the
lines built entirely with Chinese
capital included only
a few
hundred miles
of the
incomplete Canton-
Hankow line,
the
short Tientsin-Shanhaikwan section
of the
Peking-
Mukden line,
and 376
miles
of the
Peking-Suiyuan line. Only
the
last
mentioned
had
been built by Chinese engineers. Foreign-owned railways
68 Esson
M.
Gale, Salt for the
dragon:
a
personal history
of China,
ifoS—jf, 66.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
ECONOMIC INTERESTS 205
totalled 2,487 miles: the Chinese Eastern Railway (Russia, 1,073 miles),
the South Manchurian Railway and its branches (Japan, 841 miles), the
Yunnan Railway (France, 289 miles), and the Kiaochow-Tsinan Railway
(Germany, Japan from 1915, 284 miles). Between 1913 and 1915 the
4,000 miles of track constituting the Chinese Government Railways
were welded into a national system, so far as accounts and statistics were
concerned, with the assistance of Dr Henry Carter Adams (of the Uni-
versity of Michigan and the Interstate Commerce Commission) who
served as adviser to the Chinese government on the standardization of
railway accounts during 1913-17. Foreign financial interests, however,
in varying degrees continued to have claims on much of this mileage. By
the provisions of their several loan contracts British investors had sub-
stantial control of the Peking-Mukden line (600 miles) and the Shanghai-
Nanking line (204 miles); and they participated in the management of
the southern section of the Tientsin-Pukow line (237 miles), the Shanghai-
Hangchow-Ningpo line (179 miles) and the Taokow-Chinghua line (95
miles) through the employment of British chief engineers and other
personnel. A French chief engineer represented French creditors of the
Cheng-T'ai (Shansi) railway (151 miles), and Belgian, Dutch, and French
engineers and accountants supervised the 365 miles of the Lunghai line
which had been completed by 1918.
The 'imperialist' purposes of the several powers was what brought
foreign capital into China's railways. As glaring symbols of foreign
violations of Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity, both the con-
cession lines and those with heavy foreign indebtedness drew the wrath of
Chinese nationalism. Foreign political interests, too, contributed to the
construction of a less than optimum network of parallel lines in Manchu-
ria. While no study has yet been made of this question, it is probable
that as a result of wars and political changes in China and abroad, a sub-
stantial part of the foreign capital invested in railways was never repaid.
In any case, the enormous physical capital construction contributed by
the foreigner played a crucial role in providing modern transport facili-
ties in the northern half of China, where widely separated economic
regions and the absence of substantial water routes were major barriers
to economic development. The Government Railways of China, even
after payment of their foreign debt service, showed a profit of Ch.841
million on a total investment of Q1.5&522 million in 1920. This Ch.$4i
million is gross of any imputed interest on the Chinese government share
of the total investment. If that return is calculated at
5
per cent, a net profit
of
Ch.$31
million still remained. In the warlord era, especially from 1922,
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2o6 THE FOREIGN PRESENCE IN CHINA
profits fell
and an
increasingly smaller proportion came under
the
Peking
government's control, yet these largely foreign-built and foreign-financed
lines were
an
economic success.
Public finance
In
the
decade
1912-21,
at
least 70 mostly quite small unsecured loans
and
advances with
a
total outstanding balance
of
perhaps Ch.$2oo million
in
1921 were made
to
various central government
or
provincial agencies
by
a very wide variety
of
foreign lenders.
The
largest were
the
notorious
'Nishihara loans'
of
1917-18, payments
to
Chinese officials
by
means
of
which Japanese interests sought
to
advance their claims
in
Manchuria
and Mongolia. Given
the
deteriorating financial situation
of the
Peking
government, these loans were mainly
in
default.
The
outstanding railway
loan balance
of
about Ch.$3oo million,
in
contrast was regularly serviced
from
the
income
of the
several lines until about 1925.
But the
largest
part
of
China's foreign public indebtedness was made
up by the
Japanese
war
and
indemnity loans,
the
Boxer indemnity,
the
Crisp Loan
of
1912,
and
the
Reorganization Loan
of
1913, which together represented
an
outstanding balance
in
1921
of
approximately Ch. $ 1,000 million.
69
These
debts were
all
secured
on
either
or
both
the
Maritime Customs Service
revenue
and the
Salt Administration revenue,
and
principal
and
interest
were paid without interruption.
Apart from
the
railway loans, these foreign funds contributed nothing
to the Chinese economy. The indemnity loans and the Boxer indebtedness
represented
a net
drain while
the
rest were expended
for the
largely
unproductive administrative
and
military needs
of the
Peking govern-
ment. Foreign lenders saw themselves
as
propping
up the
central govern-
ment
or
supporting some particular faction against its rivals. Their banks
in Shanghai profited
as
the depositories
of
the customs
and
salt revenues
earmarked
for
repayment
of
the secured loans,
and
from their control
of
the foreign exchange market
on
which Chinese silver was converted into
the gold payments stipulated
in the
loan agreements. Perhaps some
political influence with Peking
was
secured. Even excluding
the
Boxer
indemnity, annual payments
of
interest
and
amortization
on
China's
foreign debt
in the
second decade
of
the century amounted
to at
least
a
quarter
or a
third
of the
revenue
of the
impoverished Chinese central
government. (Financial data
for the
early republic remain
an
unstudied
morass.)
69 Hsu I-sheng,
Chung-kuo chin-tai aai-chai shiht'ung-chi
tzu-liao,
iSf)-ip2?(Statistical materials
on foreign loans in modern
China,
185
3-1927); and
TheChinayearbook,
192},
713-27, 744-8.
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ECONOMIC INTERESTS 207
About
all
that
can be
said
in
favour
of
China's foreign indebtedness
in
the early republic
is
that
on a per
capita basis
-
perhaps Ch.$3
in
1921
-
it was
low by
international standards.
Overall,
the
foreigner's economic gains, based
in
part
on
and multiplied
by
bis
privileged position, were
not
absolute deductions from China's
economic welfare.
On the
contrary, China's indigenous economic
mod-
ernization
- the
first ruptures
of the
'high-level equilibrium trap' which
ensnared
the
Chinese economy
at a low
level
of
total output
-
began only
in response
to the
exogenous shock
of
imported foreign goods
and
foreign manufacturing
in
China.
70
Trade, foreign investment
in
manufac-
turing
and
transport,
and the
importation
of
technology produced
absolute gains
for the
Chinese economy, albeit
the
growth
of
national
product
was
slow
and its
social distribution questionable.
In a
different
political context, that is,
if
China
had
been served
by an
effective central
government,
the
backward
and
forward linkages
of
foreign trade
and
foreign manufacture with
the
Chinese-owned sector
of the
domestic
economy could undoubtedly have been greater.
The
foreign economic
presence, however,
was
only
one
factor
- and not the
major
one - con-
tributing
to the
debility
of
the Chinese polity.
70 See Robert
F.
Dernberger,
'The
role
of
the foreigner
in
China's economic development,
1840-1949',
in
Perkins, ed.
China's modern
economy,
19-47.
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CHAPTER
4
POLITICS IN THE AFTERMATH
OF REVOLUTION:
THE ERA OF YUAN SHIH-K'AI, 1912-16
The years immediately following the Revolution of 1911, when Yuan
Shih-k'ai was president of the first Chinese republic (1912-16), can be
approached in two quite different ways. One emphasizes the beginnings
of warlordism: the breakdown of political unity, the emergence of military
rule,
and the spread of an amoral and treacherous spirit of
sauve qui peut
among those in authority. In this view, the triumph of the Revolution was
rendered meaningless even at the very moment of
victory.
When the for-
mal mandate to govern was passed from the child Manchu emperor and
his court to Yuan Shih-k'ai in February 1912, China lost her powerful
monarchical symbols of political integration with a history of over two
thousand years. In exchange, an unscrupulous and reactionary militarist
occupied the central post, with neither programme nor imperial potency;
the new republican forms meant little. The result, according to this view,
was a rapid slide into warlordism under Yuan Shih-k'ai's aegis.
The second approach stresses the continuities with the pre-revolu-
tionary years and sees the Revolution of 1911 not as another episode in
the weakening of China's polity, but as an early climax in a nationalist
movement to invigorate politics and society. In this view, the aftermath
of the revolution witnessed a testing in practice of the two competing
ideas of self-government and administrative centralization, that had been
winning adherents during the previous decade. It was a time of energetic
political experimentation. Along with experiment went conflict, as the
expansion of political participation collided with efforts to centralize
authority. But it was only after these competing programmes had each
had a period of vigorous life that the attributes of warlordism emerged.
The Yuan Shih-k'ai presidency period is best understood, according to
this interpretation, as the logical consequence of China's first wave of
nationalism, embracing both its virtues and its fatal flaws.
Ample data can be marshalled on behalf of either approach. In this
account the second approach is favoured, because it seems to make more
sense of the leading political tendencies, among which Yuan's presidency
was only one. But the first approach is a useful corrective to any inadvert-
208
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THE AMBIGUOUS LEGACY OF THE REVOLUTION 209
ent glorification of the politicians of the period. This first wave of nation-
alism, after all, came nowhere near attaining its essential objective of a
strong and independent Chinese state. More thoroughgoing attempts
were required before China's sovereignty was recovered. And meanwhile,
warlordism and its special oppressions intervened.
THE AMBIGUOUS LEGACY OF THE REVOLUTION
Whichever approach
is
preferred, the ambiguity
of
the Revolution
of
1911 must be acknowledged, hovering as it did between success and fail-
ure,
with the unresolved tensions
in
the polity being passed
on to
the
early republic. Our account
of
the period begins
by
noting these am-
biguities or tensions and discussing their various sources.
The ambiguity of
the
revolutionary aftermath began with the negotiated
settlement
of the
revolution
itself.
The
first talks between imperial
officials and representatives
of
the revolutionary forces took place
in
November 1911, about one month after the first republican successes.
Formal negotiations began in December. The main issues were worked
out during January 1912, and the abdication of the Ch'ing monarch was
decreed
on
12 February. Within three more months the institutions
of
a new national government were functioning in Peking. Who had won
?
Judging from the eruption of armed attacks on the government in 1913
and 1916 (sometimes called the Second and Third Revolutions), we can
conclude that the settlement
of
1912 was an unstable compromise.
On the one hand, the settlement consolidated
an
enormous revolu-
tionary victory. The Ch'ing dynasty was overthrown,
a
feat that had
eluded numerous previous attempts, including
the
massive Taiping
Rebellion
of
the mid nineteenth century. Moreover,
the
Ch'ing was
replaced by
a
new form of government; the imperial order, which had
supported
an
immeasurable accumulation
of
attitudes
and
political
habits, was abolished. Both these accomplishments proved
to
be irrev-
ocable, despite attempts to rescind one or both of them in 1915-16 and
1917.
The two irreducible aims
of
the republican revolutionaries had
been permanently achieved:
the
overthrow
of
the Manchus
and the
establishment of a republic.
On the other hand, the new arrangements were far from ideal for those
who had served the revolution the longest. Perhaps the generous set-
tlement accorded the abdicating child emperor and his large household,
including promise
of a
substantial stipend, was
a
harmless concession
(though his survival allowed the Japanese to use him in the 1930s when
establishing
a
subservient Manchu kingdom
in
the north-east). Revolu-
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2IO THE ERA OF
YUAN
SHIH-K'AI,
I 9 I 2-1 6
tionary expectations were more seriously compromised by the new head
of state, Yuan Shih-k'ai, a leading imperial official. The revolutionary
spokesmen accepted the 52 year-old Yuan to lead the new order as the
price for his arranging the Ch'ing abdication and in order to avoid a
prolonged civil war. Some were even optimistic about his likely future
role.
He was capable and could be labelled a 'progressive' among the
mandarins. After all his power was to be limited by constitutional ar-
rangements, including a cabinet and a national legislature, designed by
the revolutionaries themselves. But the resulting compromise of a con-
stitutional president with no established revolutionary or republican
commitments was to prove a source of great uneasiness. This uneasiness
was heightened by Yuan's unwillingess to leave Peking in order to
receive his presidential confirmation in Nanking, the centre of revolu-
tionary power by early 1912. And it was further augmented by the limited
role accorded veteran revolutionaries, who were excluded from the fin-
ancial and army posts in the first republican cabinet in Peking. The
question of who had won the revolution remained clouded.
Another ambiguity lay in the effect of the revolution on national unity.
Conceived in nationalism, the revolution demanded the preservation of
the territory of the Ch'ing dynasty as a basis for the new nation. Yuan's
rise to the presidency stemmed from the urgency of this demand. In
practice, however, the revolution severed most administrative ties
between the provinces and the central government. In some provinces,
ironically, distrust of Yuan as president increased the resistance to
reconstituting administrative links between province and centre. Further-
more, the outlying areas of Outer Mongolia and Tibet had moved towards
complete separation from any Chinese government.
In the case of Mongolia and Tibet, the set-back to Han Chinese na-
tionalist goals had two aspects. Local non-Han elites took the occasion to
escape from Peking's control, thereby shrinking the Ch'ing legacy to the
republic. And foreign powers took the opportunity to expand their
spheres of influence, thereby tightening the strategic encirclement of
China. Begun in reaction to late Ch'ing programmes of intervention in
these old dependencies, princely Mongolian and Tibetan movements to
throw off Peking's authority succeeded in late 1911 and early 1912. But
they consolidated their successes only under Russian protection in Outer
Mongolia and British protection in Tibet. Peking's subsequent efforts to
recover these lost territories had, of necessity, to take the form of nego-
tiating with these European powers. Neither Russia nor Great Britain was
insisting on full colonial absorption. But all that the early republican gov-
ernments could salvage was a tenuous suzerainty in these outlying por-
tions of the former Ch'ing empire.
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THE AMBIGUOUS LEGACY OF THE REVOLUTION 211
Foreign governments took advantage of revolutionary disruption in
a variety of
ways.
The degree of foreign participation in China's customs
collection greatly increased, when foreign commissioners became not
just assessors and accountants but also actual collectors of the revenue.
Further, the proceeds were, by arrangements struck during the revolu-
tion, deposited in foreign banks before disbursement. The measure
gave foreign financiers both heightened controls and profits. These and
other augmentations of foreign privilege during the Revolution of 1911
betrayed Chinese nationalism and sullied the revolutionary banner.
A number of circumstances marking the revolution help to explain
the ambiguities of the result. The revolutionary movement, whose
broadest organization had been the T'ung-meng hui, had failed to pre-
serve solidarity in the years preceding the revolution. Its national leaders
often had little connection with revolutionary developments in the pro-
vinces and were unable to weld into a cohesive whole the forces that
burgeoned there during the revolution. Such unified revolutionary de-
termination as they were able to muster was blunted by the fear that
continued disruption and warfare might lead to full-scale foreign inter-
vention, for which they were strategically and psychologically quite un-
prepared. Hence, despite a loosely joined accumulation of revolutionary
troops that quantitatively far surpassed those at the disposal of the Ch'ing
court, compromise seemed necessary. Compromise included accepting
the Ch'ing prime minister, Yuan Shih-k'ai, as president. Although 14
provinces established revolutionary governments, in the revolution's
aftermath the old revolutionary organization could rely on committed
adherents as chief executives in only three provinces (Kwangtung, Kiangsi
and Anhwei). Revolutionaries had in fact never been completely in charge
of the revolution and were not disposed to press the issue.
Another feature of the revolution that contributed to the ambiguity of
the result was the social conservatism that accompanied its political ra-
dicalism. The revolution replaced a venerable system of government
with the latest Western model. The constitution located sovereignty in
the people. Sovereignty was to be exercised by a national assembly
(or parliament) plus a president, cabinet and judiciary. But it soon became
apparent that the new political system would not displace the prevailing
social elites from their positions of dominance. On the contrary, the old
ruling class emerged both unscathed and invigorated. Although secret
societies with their lower class constituencies were active, notably in
Szechwan and Shensi, they did not seriously challenge the political pre-
eminence of army officers, republican revolutionary politicians, and the
leaders of self-government bodies. All three of these dominant groups
were socially elite, mainly gentry. Another possible threat to the received
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212 THE ERA OF YUAN SHIH-K'AI, I 9 I 2-1 6
social order was the existence of mass armies, mobilized in support of
the revolution in several provinces. But these too were contained and,
where necessary, forcibly dispersed (Kwangtung was the most dramatic
case).
The formal recognition of popular sovereignty was accompanied by
the spread of political participation in the society, and this was radical.
But at the same time the organized forces of the revolution, no matter
how quarrelsome among themselves, were generally united in keeping
political control in upper class hands, especially those of the gentry, and
this was conservative. When Chiao Ta-feng as revolutionary military
governor of Hunan appeared to be basing his power on secret societies
in late October
1911,
he was assassinated, and a more socially conservative
grouping around the provincial assembly leader, T'an Yen-k'ai, took
power. When the revolutionary government in Kweichow persisted in an
alliance with lower class elements, it was overthrown in March 1912 by
military force from a neighbouring' revolutionary province (Yunnan).
The Chinese social elite had become more variegated in its cultural styles
and economic activity since the late nineteenth century. But in the after-
math of the 1911 Revolution it still acted with remarkable cohesion and
determination in defence of its interests. The few defectors or waverers
were easily deposed, without resort to assistance from Yuan Shih-k'ai
in Peking.
While the gentry were successfully guarding against threats to their
social power, they made two demands on the national and provincial
leadership. The country should remain unified; and the localities should
enjoy self-government. Here was another source of unresolved tension
in the revolutionary aftermath. Chinese unity was both a treasured his-
torical inheritance and, in the face of foreign designs, an urgent present
necessity. There seemed to be no serious dissent from this fundamental
proposition. But how was Chinese unity to be organized
?
In the wake of
the revolution some important political leaders and groups urged a cen-
tralized administration. They included Yuan Shih-k'ai in Peking and
Ts'ai O, military governor in the distant province of Yunnan. A central-
ized administration was a plank in some party platforms. But in the early
months after the revolution, these voices were drowned out (and voted
down in the national assembly) by the advocates of local self-government,
who often espoused an extreme form of provincial autonomy.
The idea that autonomous provinces would better serve Chinese na-
tionalism than would a centralized state had gained considerable currency
in the last years of the Ch'ing. After most provinces emerged from the
revolution fully autonomous, there was little disposition to surrender
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