Abstract
Considered in the setting of global — or simply international — history, British gentlemanly imperialism was only one among many, not always ‘gentlemanly’ forms of imperialism.1 Taking as an example informal imperialism in China before the First World War, this chapter will focus on the interaction of various ‘imperialisms’, aligned at times nationally, at other times sectorally, and on the concepts that underlie these various forms of imperial expansion.2 Gentlemanly capitalism could have a perceptible and distinctive effect at the ‘point of imperial impact’ only if specific factors in the international and peripheral environment were aligned in a certain way. The circumstances under which gentlemanly capitalism could ‘filter through’ to overseas territories that were not under British rule were very specific and, as will be seen, short-lived.3
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
For the concept of ‘imperialisms’, see R. Girault, Diplomatie européenne et impérialismes (Paris, 1979), 148, 177f.;
W.J. Mommsen, ‘Europäischer Finanzimperialismus vor 1914. Ein Beitrag zu einer pluralistischen Theorie des Imperialismus’, in: W.J. Mommsen, Der europäische Imperialismus. Aufsätze und Abhandlungen (Göttingen, 1979), 85–148;
also B. Barth, ‘Internationale Geschichte und europäische Expansion: Die Imperialismen des 19. Jahrhunderts’, in: W. Loth and J. Osterhammel (eds), Internationale Geschichte. Themen — Ergebnisse — Aussichten (Munich, 2000), 309–27.
P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, Vol. 1: Innovation and Expansion, 1688–1914 (London/New York, 1993), 424.
For a general overview, see J. Osterhammel, China und die Weltgesellschaft. Vom 18. Jahrhundert bis in unsere Zeit (Munich, 1989);
J. Osterhammel, ‘Britain and China, 1842–1914’, in A. Porter (ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. III: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford/New York, 1999), 146–69. For issues concerning the powers and problems of modernization in China, see my Imperialismus und Modernisierung. Siam, China und die europäischen Mächte, 1895–1914 (Munich, 2000).
For the diplomacy of the ‘scramble’, see B. Barth, Die deutsche Hochfinanz und die Imperialismen. Banken und Außenpolitik vor 1914 (Stuttgart, 1995);
E.W. Edwards, British Diplomacy and Finance in China, 1895–1914 (Oxford, 1987);
G. Kurgan-Van Hentenryk, Léopold II et les groupes financiers belges en Chine: La politique royale et ses prolongements, 1895–1914 (Brussels, 1972);
E-tu Zen Sun, Chinese Railways and British Interests, 1898–1911 (New York, 2nd ed. 1971);
L.K. Young, British Policy in China, 1895–1902 (Cambridge, MA, 1968).
Edwards, Diplomacy; Lee En-han, China’s Quest for Railway Autonomy, 1904–1911: a Study of the Chinese Railway-Rights Recovery Movement (Singapore, 1977); Sun, Chinese Railways.
Paul Claudel, Sous le signe du dragon, Paris 1957 (6th ed.), 128.
Memo Defence of Indo-China (1904), Archives Nationales-Centre des Archives d’Outre-Mer, Gouvernement Général de l’Indochine, 26673; cf. the report by the German military attaché in Paris, 13.8.1904, Bundesarchiv Berlin, China 72; Satow to Lansdowne, 14.4.1905, PRO FO 17/1671; N.P. Petersson, Deutsche Weltpolitik in der französischen Einflußsphäre. Deutsche und französische Aktivitäten in Südchina, M.A.-thesis Tübingen 1994, 87–9.
For Germany: W. Sting, Der Ferne Osten in der deutschen Politik vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg (1902–1914), 2 vols (Frankfurt, 1978), 460–90, 502f., 531;
U. Ratenhof, Die Chinapolitik des Deutschen Reiches von 1871 bis 1945. Chinas Erneuerung, Großmachtrivalitäten in Ostasien und deutsches Weltmachtstreben (Boppard, 1987), 197, 209;
K. Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich. Deutsche Außenpolitik von Bismarck bis Hitler 1871–1945 (Stuttgart, 1995), 236 ff.
Edwards, Diplomacy, 59–65 and ch. 4; E.W. Edwards, ‘The Far Eastern Agreements of 1907’, in: Journal of Modern History XXVI (1954), 340–55;
K. Hildebrand, ‘Europäisches Zentrum, überseeische Peripherie und neue Welt. Ü ber den Wandel des europäischen Staatensystems zwischen dem Berliner Kongreß (1878) und dem Pariser Frieden (1919–20)’, in: Historische Zeitschrift 249 (1989), 53–94;
Hildebrand, Reich, 222–7, 241 ff.; Ratenhof, Chinapolitik, 201 ff., 226 ff.; G. Rozman (ed.), The Modernization of China (New York/London, 1981), 226 (quotation).
On railway diplomacy in China, see Barth, Hochfinanz; D. Brötel, Frankreich im Fernen Osten. Imperialistische Expansion in Siam und Malaya, Laos und China, 1880–1904, Stuttgart, 1996;
Edwards, Diplomacy; F.H.H. King, The History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, 4 vols., Cambridge/New York 1988/89;
Lee, Railway Autonomy; Sun, Chinese Railways; C.B. Davis, ‘Railway Imperialism in China, 1895–1939’, in: C.B. Davis /K.E. Wilburn, Jr. (eds), Railway Imperialism, New York/Westport/London 1991, 155–74;
Hou Chiming, Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China, 1840–1937, Cambridge, MA, 1965;
R.W. Huenemann, The Dragon and the Iron Horse: the Economics of Railroads in China, 1876–1937, Cambridge, MA, 1984. My Imperialismus und Modernisierung offers a somewhat more detailed overview and more references than can be given here.
Nathan A. Pelcovits, Old China Hands and the Foreign Office (New York, 1948).
The ‘new departure’ implied a strong rejection of the views of ‘treaty port society’ described in R. Bickers, Britain in China: Community, Culture and Colonialism, 1900–1949 (Manchester/New York, 1999).
For an overview, see A. Feuerwerker, ‘The Foreign Presence in China’, in: Cambridge History of China, vol. 12, 128–207; J. Osterhammel, ‘Semi-Colonialism and Informal Empire in Twentieth-Century China: towards a framework of analysis’, in: W.J. Mommsen and J. Osterhammel (eds), Imperialism and After. Continuities and Discontinuities (London, 1986), 290–314.
Grey to Jordan, 31.8.1906, PRO FO 371/35 (my emphasis). The ‘new departure’ must be seen in the context of a change of government, a general reappraisal of foreign policy perspectives (A.J.P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe (1848–1918) (London, 1957), 427 ff., 438, 437 f.), and a change of diplomatic representatives in Beijing all happening simultaneously. A limited ‘new departure’ in British policy can be found, at the same time, in India and Egypt as well: R. Hyam, Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815–1915: a Study of Empire and Expansion (Basingstoke, 2nd ed. 1993), 266–72.
Jordan to Campbell, 4.2.1909, PRO FO 350/5. The basic goals of British railway policy in China are described in: Memo Railways in China, 16.1.1908, PRO FO 371/418. See also Edwards, Diplomacy, and, for a colonial context, M. Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology and Ideology of Western Dominance (Ithaca, 1989), 222;
H. Sieberg, Colonial Development. Die Grundlegung moderner Entwicklungspolitik durch Großbritannien, 1919–1949 (Stuttgart, 1985);
M. Havinden and D. Meredith, Colonialism and Development: Britain and Its Tropical Colonies, 1850–1960 (London, 1993), 99–111. ‘Ideology’ is used here in the sense implied by M.H. Hunt’s contribution to ‘A Roundtable: Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations’, in: Journal of American History 77 (1990).
D.C.M. Platt, Finance, Trade and Politics in British Foreign Policy, 1815–1914 (Oxford, 1968), 299. Quotation: Jordan to Campbell, 23.7.1908, PRO FO 350/5.
J.G. Barlow, Sun Yat-sen and the French, 1900–1908 (Berkeley, 1979), 67 ff., 77 ff.;
M.-C. Bergère, Sun Yat-sen (Paris, 1994), 199–215;
J.K. Mulholland, ‘The French Connection that Failed: France and Sun Yat-Sen, 1900–1908’, in: Journal of Asian Studies 31 (1972), 77–95, here 90 ff.
Brötel, Frankreich, 553–8, 571–579; Edwards, Diplomacy, 115–22; King, Hongkong Bank, 388–94; Kurgan-Van Hentenryk, Léopold II, 616–63, 737–46; Lee, Railway Autonomy, 219–23; M. Meuleau, Des Pionniers en Extrême-Orient. Histoire de la Banque de l’Indochine, 1875–1975 (Paris, 1990), 225–8; Sun, Chinese Railways, 137–41; Bapst to Pichon, 20.3.1908, MAE NS Chine 200; Jordan to Campbell, 3.4.1909, 24.6.1909, PRO FO 350/5; Memo railway negotiations, 27.4.1908, MAE NS Chine 448.
Memo Hankeou Pékin, 20.12.1908, MAE NS Chine 200; Memo entreprises financières en Chine, Dec. 1908, MAE NS Chine 345; Girault, Diplomatie européenne, 190 f., 193 f. This ‘modernization’ of French imperialism is completed with the 1908 reorientation and not, as R.S. Lee suggests in France and the Exploitation of China, 1885–1901: a Study in Economic Imperialism (Hongkong/Oxford/New York, 1989), 267–74, with Delcassé’s rejection in 1899 of the most contradictory aspects of the strategies pursued by his predecessor Hanotaux.
O. Franke, ‘Die deutsch-chinesische Hochschule in Tsingtau, ihre Vorgeschichte, ihre Einrichtung und ihre Aufgaben’, in: O. Franke, Ostasiatische Neubildungen. Beiträge zum Verständnis der politischen und kulturellen Entwicklungsvorgänge im Fernen Osten (Hamburg, 1911), 200–17;
F. Kreissler, L’action culturelle allemande en Chine. De la fin du XIXe siècle à la Seconde Guerre mondiale (Paris, 1989), 65, 127–71;
K. Mühlhahn, Herrschaft und Widerstand in der ‘Musterkolonie’ Kiautschou. Interaktion zwischen China und Deutschland, 1897–1914 (Munich, 2000), 236–55; Stingl, Der Ferne Osten, 601–9.
Quoted in R.A. Dayer, Finance and Empire: Sir Charles Addis, 1861–1945 (London, 1988), 53.
The terms of these agreements are analyzed in King, Hongkong Bank, 345–51 and Osterhammel, China, 214–21. All important agreements are printed in J.V.A. MacMurray, Treaties and Agreements with and Concerning China, 1894–1919, 2 vols. (New York, 1921). The lines concerned were three concessions dating from the 1898 scramble (Guangzhou–Hongkong, British; Tianjin–Pukou, British–German; Shanghai–Ningbo, British); the already operating line Beijing–Hankow (Belgian–French) repurchased by the Chinese government with a foreign loan; finally the lines Guangzhou–Hankow and Hankow–Chengdu (Huguang-railways) for which no concession agreement existed.
Jordan to Grey, 22.5.1911, PRO FO 371/1080; Jordan to Campbell, 22.4.1911, 15.5.1911, PRO FO 350/7; Jordan to Grey, 18.9.1911, PRO FO 371/1081. The perception of risk and importance of timing are also stressed by J.H. Fincher, Chinese Democracy: the Self-Government Movement in Local, Provincial, and National Politics, 1905–1914 (London/Canberra, 1981), 116.
For the weakness of the ‘collaborators’, see Sun, Chinese Railways, 113–19; S.A.M. Adshead, Province and Politics in Late Imperial China: Viceregal Government in Szechwan, 1898–1911 (London/Malmö, 1984), 84.
For evidence from the German side, see Rex to Bethmann Hollweg, 25.10.1910, AA China 1/73; 3.2.1910, 4.2.1910, AA China 4/23; 7.1.1911, AA China 1/74; 7.1.1911; Luxburg to Bethmann Hollweg, 26.5.1911, AA China 4/26. As to the extent of the modernization programme, see D.R. Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850–1914 (New York, 1988); King, Hongkong Bank, 382, 251–6; Mommsen, ‘Finanzimperialismus’, 91, 99.
The aversion of Chinese Reformers across the political spectrum to capitalism is described by Chi Wen-Shun, Ideological Conflicts in Modern China: Democracy and Authoritarianism (New Brunswick, 2nd ed. 1992), 293 f., 325
and J.E. Schrecker, The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective (New York, 1991), 124.
P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, ‘Afterword: the Theory and Practice of British Imperialism’, in: R.E. Dumett (ed.), Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: the New Debate on Empire (London/New York, 1999), 196–220, here 204 f.
Of course, a socially dominant position of gentlemanly capitalism is the background to explaining this attitude. Quotation: J. Sachs, ‘Global Capitalism: Making It Work’, in: The Economist, 12.9.1998, 21–5.
Just a sample: L. Woolf, Imperialism and Civilisation (London, 1928), 13 f., 65 ff.;
G. Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary History (Harmondsworth, 1967);
I. Clark, Globalization and Fragmentation: International Relations in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 1997), 12 ff.
Copyright information
© 2002 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Petersson, N.P. (2002). Gentlemanly and Not-so-Gentlemanly Imperialism in China before the First World War. In: Gentlemanly Capitalism, Imperialism and Global History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403919403_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403919403_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-43183-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4039-1940-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)