Bankers And Diplomats In China 1917 1925

First Published in 1981. Contrary to Chairman Mao's assertion that political power comes from the barrel of a gun, this study contends that political power in China in the early 1920s emanated from the boardrooms of foreign banks. The author's interest in the way financial concerns have shaped foreign policy began with the discovery that the Lloyd George government attempted to influence the American government's policy on the British war debts by offering concessions concerning the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. This study should provide understanding concerning the causes of Chinese bitterness as well as suggest the conflicts experienced by diplomats in balancing public and private interests.

Politics can be a profitable business as can be found in Republican era Canton amidst a politically fragmented China. Competing merchant groups in Hong Kong sought to finance the regional Canton government in return for financial concessions. This patronage system made commercial endeavours dependent on politics and embedded business in politics.

Britain’s relationship with China in the nineteenth and early twentieth century is often viewed in terms of gunboat diplomacy, unequal treaties, and the unrelenting pursuit of Britain’s own commercial interests. This book, however, based on extensive original research, demonstrates that in Britain after the First World War a combination of liberal, Labour party, pacifist, missionary and some business opinion began to argue for imperial retreat from China, and that this movement gathered sufficient momentum for a sympathetic attitude to Chinese demands becoming official Foreign Office policy in 1926. The book considers the various strands of this movement, relates developments in Britain to the changing situation in China, especially the rise of nationalism and the Guomindang, and argues that, contrary to what many people think, the reassertion of China’s national rights was begun successfully in this period rather than after the Communist takeover in 1949.

The rapid growth of foreign banks has aroused a growing interest in the academic field and specifically as regards to the question of why foreign banks exist. This book aims to establish the relationship between trust as contextual knowledge capital built between the Chinese government and foreign banks and foreign banks. knowledge capital and the relationship between the former and foreign banks. long-term commitment. By investigating the development strategy of foreign banks and by examining and explaining the importance of foreign banks. long-term commitment to their development, this book has demonstrated that foreign banks established branches in China not only to follow their home-country customers in order to retain their knowledge capital but also to gain market access. Trust as contextual knowledge capital built between foreign banks and the Chinese government could assist their knowledge capital retention and their market access strategy. Foreign banks. long-term commitment could help them to achieve this contextual knowledge capital. This book thus has major implications for the development strategy of foreign banks in a government-oriented economy with a controlled banking sector. The first book covering the relationship between the governments trust and support and the rise of foreign banks in China Few studies have analysed the development of foreign banks from the standpoint of government, i.e. the supply side of the banking licence, and the relationship between the development of foreign banks and the trust built between foreign banks and the government The first book showing how some big foreign banks in China, such as HSBC, built relationship with the Chinese government

China's recent economic reforms have opened its economy to the world. This policy, however, is not new: in the late nineteenth century, the United States put forward the Open Door Policy as a counter to European exclusive 'spheres of influence' in China. This book, based on extensive original archival research, examines and re-evaluates China's Open Door Policy. It considers the policy from its inception in 1899 right through to the post-1978 reforms. It relates these changes to the various shifts in China’s international relations, discusses how decades of foreign invasion, civil war and revolution followed the destruction of the policy in the 1920s, and considers how the policy, when applied in Taiwan after 1949, and by Deng Xiaoping in mainland China after 1978, was instrumental in bringing about, respectively, Taiwan's 'economic miracle' and mainland China’s recent economic boom. The book argues that, although the policy was characterised as United States 'economic imperialism' during the Cold War, in reality it helped China retain its sovereignty and territorial integrity.