Chow - Britains Imperial Retreat From China, 1900-1931

Britains Imperial Retreat from China, 19001931

Britains 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 Britains 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 Chinas national rights was begun successfully in this period rather than after the Communist takeover in 1949.

Phoebe Chow is in the International History Department at the London School of Economics, UK.

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Britains Imperial Retreat from China, 19001931

Phoebe Chow

First published 2017

by Routledge

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2017 Phoebe Chow

The right of Phoebe Chow to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Names: Chow, Phoebe, author.

Title: Britain's imperial retreat from China, 19001931 / Phoebe Chow.

Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2017. | Series: Routledge studies in the modern history of Asia; 119

Identifiers: LCCN 2016003838| ISBN 9781138909847 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315693743 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Great BritainForeign relationsChina. | ChinaForeign

relationsGreat Britain. | ChinaForeign public opinion, BritishHistory 20th century. | Great BritainForeign relations19011910. | Great BritainForeign relations19101936. | ImperialismHistory20th century. | Public opinionGreat BritainHistory20th century. | Nationalism ChinaHistory20th century. | ChinaHistoryRepublic, 19121949.

Classification: LCC DA47.9.C6 C48 2017 | DDC 327.5104109/041dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016003838

ISBN: 978-1-138-90984-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-69374-3 (ebk)

Contents

The British imperial retreat from China that began in the mid-1920s was motivated by ideas similar to those that had motivated the application of British imperialism in China. The potentialities of the Chinese market spurred Britons to fight for free trade in the First Opium War of 18391842. Less than a hundred years later, the barely opened market provided justification for proponents of imperial retreat who argued that only the goodwill of the Chinese could cause them to buy British goods. The unequal treaties imposed after the Opium Wars, forcing China to allow foreigners to disregard Chinese sovereignty and live by their own laws, were justified by assumptions of moral and legal superiority. The Britons who went to China, bringing the fruits of an advanced civilisation, were entitled, by this logic, to protection under their own enlightened laws from the injustices of a cruel and backwards civilisation. The assumptions of moral correctness and superiority, however, also contained the seeds of retreat, since the logic of moral arguments ultimately condemned the imperial endeavour. These tensions, existing from the beginning of Britains informal empire in China, continued to eat at and ultimately erode imperial resolve, causing Britain to embark on a retreat from China in the middle of the 1920s.

Criticism about Britains treatment of China was ever-present, even as policymakers, bankers, businessmen and missionaries took advantage of Chinas weakness to extract concessions, make a profit and proselytise. This may cause us to dismiss those criticisms, since they were usually espoused by fringe elements and did not materially affect policy. But the argument in this book is that ideas that undermined the dominant narrative were important and we cannot fully understand Britains decision to relinquish its unequal rights and concessions in China without paying attention to changes in narrative. That is why the book title includes a year not often associated with retreat 1900. It would be audacious and ill informed to claim that Britains retreat began in 1900, a year in which the Western powers were actively participating in the scramble for China. But it would be less audacious and more reasonable to point out subtle changes in how opinion-makers and policymakers spoke and wrote about China, beginning with 1900. The increasing popularity of a sympathetic narrative, evident in debates about Chinese nationalism in the first two decades of the twentieth century, ultimately laid the foundations for imperial retreat.