Breaking with the Past

Breaking with the Past PDF Author: Hans van de Ven
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231510527
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 427

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Book Description
Between its founding in 1854 and its collapse in 1952, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service delivered one-third to one-half of all revenue collected by China's central authorities. Much more than a tax collector, the institution managed China's harbors, erected lighthouses, and surveyed the Chinese coast. It funded and oversaw the Translator's College, which trained Chinese diplomats while its staff translated Chinese classics, novels, and poetry and wrote important studies on the Chinese economy, its financial system, its trade, its history, and its government. It organized contributions to international exhibitions, developed its own shadow diplomacy, pioneered China's modern postal system, and even maintained its own armed force. After the 1911 Revolution, the agency became deeply involved in the management of China's international loans and domestic bond issues. In other words, the Customs Service was pivotal to China's post-Taiping integration into the world of modern nation-states and twentieth-century trade and finance. If the Customs Service introduced the modern governance of trade to China, it also made Chinese legible to foreign audiences. Following the activities of the Inspectors General, who were virtual autocrats within the service and communicated regularly with senior Chinese officials and foreign diplomats, this history tracks the Customs Service as it transformed China and its relationship to the world. The Customs Service often kept China together when little else did. This book reveals the role of the agency in influencing the outcomes of the Sino-French War, the Boxer Rebellion, and the 1911 Revolution, as well as the rise of the Nationalists in the 1920s, and concludes with the Customs Service purges of the early 1950s, when the relentless logic of revolution dismantled the agency for good.

Breaking with the Past

Breaking with the Past PDF Author: Hans van de Ven
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231510527
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 427

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Book Description
Between its founding in 1854 and its collapse in 1952, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service delivered one-third to one-half of all revenue collected by China's central authorities. Much more than a tax collector, the institution managed China's harbors, erected lighthouses, and surveyed the Chinese coast. It funded and oversaw the Translator's College, which trained Chinese diplomats while its staff translated Chinese classics, novels, and poetry and wrote important studies on the Chinese economy, its financial system, its trade, its history, and its government. It organized contributions to international exhibitions, developed its own shadow diplomacy, pioneered China's modern postal system, and even maintained its own armed force. After the 1911 Revolution, the agency became deeply involved in the management of China's international loans and domestic bond issues. In other words, the Customs Service was pivotal to China's post-Taiping integration into the world of modern nation-states and twentieth-century trade and finance. If the Customs Service introduced the modern governance of trade to China, it also made Chinese legible to foreign audiences. Following the activities of the Inspectors General, who were virtual autocrats within the service and communicated regularly with senior Chinese officials and foreign diplomats, this history tracks the Customs Service as it transformed China and its relationship to the world. The Customs Service often kept China together when little else did. This book reveals the role of the agency in influencing the outcomes of the Sino-French War, the Boxer Rebellion, and the 1911 Revolution, as well as the rise of the Nationalists in the 1920s, and concludes with the Customs Service purges of the early 1950s, when the relentless logic of revolution dismantled the agency for good.

In the Chinese Customs Service

In the Chinese Customs Service PDF Author: Paul Henry King
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description


Catalogue of the Chinese imperial maritime Customs Collection, at the united States international Exhibition Philadelphia, 1876

Catalogue of the Chinese imperial maritime Customs Collection, at the united States international Exhibition Philadelphia, 1876 PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description


The Chinese Maritime Customs

The Chinese Maritime Customs PDF Author: B. Foster Hall
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description


Chinese Maritime Customs Service

Chinese Maritime Customs Service PDF Author: China. Hai guan zong shui wu si shu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The Customs' Gazette, published by order of the Inspector General of Customs of China in Shanghai, provided quarterly reports on trade that were prepared and submitted by various custom houses based across the country. This statistical and narrative information provided the central Chinese government with an in-depth analysis on trade. But, the Gazette also provided insights into local and regional economic and social conditions, policing of customs and trade, and conditions at Treaty Ports.

Imperial Maritime Customs

Imperial Maritime Customs PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1016

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Book Description


Britain's Imperial Cornerstone in China

Britain's Imperial Cornerstone in China PDF Author: Donna Brunero
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113434094X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
This book provides an overview of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service, focussing especially on its later years and in particular on the experiences of the foreign administration.

Government, Imperialism and Nationalism in China

Government, Imperialism and Nationalism in China PDF Author: Chihyun Chang
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135122334
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
The Chinese Maritime Customs Service, which was led by British staff, is often seen as one of the key agents of Western imperialism in China, the customs revenue being one of the major sources of Chinese government income but a source much of which was pledged to Western banks as the collateral for, and interests payments on, massive loans. This book, however, based on extensive original research, considers the lower level staff of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and shows how the Chinese government, struggling to master Western expertise in many areas, pursued a deliberate policy of encouraging lower level staff to learn from their Western superiors with a view to eventually supplanting them, a policy which was successfully carried out. The book thereby demonstrates that Chinese engagement with Western imperialists was in fact an essential part of Chinese national state-building, and that what looked like a key branch of Chinese government delegated to foreigners was in fact very much under Chinese government control.

The Chinese Maritime Customs

The Chinese Maritime Customs PDF Author: Basil Edward Foster Hall
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Customs administration
Languages : en
Pages : 53

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Book Description


Britain's Imperial Cornerstone in China

Britain's Imperial Cornerstone in China PDF Author: Donna Brunero
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134340931
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
This is an in-depth account of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service, a uniquely cosmopolitan institution established in the wake of China's defeat in the Opium Wars (1842 to 43), and a central feature of the Treaty Port system. The British-dominated service was headed by the famous Robert Hart who founded a far-reaching customs administration that also encompassed other responsibilities such as marine and harbour maintenance, quarantine, anti-piracy patrols and postal services. This institution sat at a crucial juncture between Chinese and foreign interests, and was intimately linked to British interests and fortunes in the Far East. Following the establishment of the Republic in 1911 there were grave misgivings as to whether the foreign element of the Service would survive. Yet the Service grew in influence and strength, ensuring the foreign inspectorate a continued role in China's affairs. Delivering an overview of the Service, its bureaucracy, fiscal responsibilities and life for foreigners in its employ, focusing especially on the later years of the Service, Donna Brunero draws on the experiences of the foreign administration of the Service as it attempted to negotiate between Chinese and foreign expectations and interests.