BANKERS AND DIPLOMATS IN CHINA19171925 Bankers and Diplomats in China 19171925
The Anglo-American Relationship
Roberta Allbert Dayer
FRANK CASS
First published 1981 in Great Britain by
FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED
2 Park Square, Milton Park,
Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and in the United States of America by
FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016
Transferred to Digital Printing 2006
Copyright 1981 Roberta A. Dayer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Dayer, Roberta Allbert
Bankers and diplomats in China, 19171925.
1. ChinaPolitics and government19121937
2. Banks and banking, ForeignChina
951.041 DS775
ISBN 0-7146-3118-3
ISBN 978-1-1351-6765-3 (ePub)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Frank Cass and Company Limited.
Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent
Printed and bound by CPI Antony Rowe, Eastbourne
For my Parents, Dorothy and Eugene Allbert
Table of Contents
| Railway Map of China, Oct. 1918 |
This study began in a graduate seminar given by John F. Naylor at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1969. Since that time, Professor Naylor has provided steady encouragement, patient understanding and superb criticism for seemingly endless drafts, first of the dissertation (finished in 1972), later of this manuscript. Debts to such gifted teachers can only be acknowledged, never repaid.
Laurence Schneider first encouraged me to venture into the complicated politics of Republican China and, like John Naylor, read and commented upon both the dissertation and the book manuscript. My efforts to understand and explain events in China were helped further by Roger Des Forges, who combined in equal dosages, detailed criticism with kind understanding. In the early stages of my research, I discussed the whole question with William Appleman Williams who provided helpful suggestions and who also generously agreed to read and comment on the dissertation. Clifton Yearley, then Chairman of the Department of History at the State University of New York at Buffalo, read and commented upon the final draft, providing some trenchant suggestions. My sincere thanks goes to all these scholars. Naturally, I alone take responsibility for the final product.
All historians depend upon libraries, librarians and archivists to make the raw material of history available to them. I deeply appreciate the help and hospitality extended to me at the following universities and institutions: Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Stanford, Toronto, Birmingham, England, the Hoover Presidential Library, the Library of Congress, the National Archives, Washington, D.C., the British Museum, the Public Record Office, London, England, and the Beaver-brook Library, London, England.
In the summer of 1978, after this book had gone to press, I received word that the private papers of Sir Charles S. Addis, still in the possession of his family, were available to serious scholars. Thereupon, I undertook a very quick trip to London where I had the double good fortune of using not only the Addis Papers but the correspondence of Sir Francis Aglen, the Inspector-General of the Imperial Maritime Customs in China. I am indebted to the librarians at the London School of Oriental and African Studies for allowing me to research the Aglen papers. Miss Robina Addis, the daughter of Sir Charles, not only provided gracious hospitality but shared many of her memories of her father with me, for which I am very grateful.
Finally, this work was begun and completed in the midst of raising a young family, who may at times have felt pre-empted by bankers and diplomats in China. Therefore, I would like to thank my children, Roger, Cindy, and Larry, my husband, Dr. Roger, and my parents, Eugene and Dorothy Allbert, for sharing the cost of historical research with me. Their love, understanding and encouragement assured the completion of this work.
Contrary to Chairman Maos 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. Ultimately, any governments ability to survive depends on its ability to mobilize capital for desired undertakings, whether they be routine functions such as paying salaries or larger undertakings such as building a navy or investing in the resources of underdeveloped countries. Thus, those who control capital can exercise enormous influence over political decisions as well as determine in some instances who makes these decisions. To a banker or businessman, the foregoing observations might appear superfluous, a constant of daily life.
Perhaps it is because most historians are not bankers or businessmen that they have devoted little attention to the influence which bankers exert over foreign policy.
My interest in the way financial concerns have shaped foreign policy began with the discovery (in the British Cabinet Minutes of the early 1920s) that the Lloyd George government attempted to influence the American governments policy on the British war debts by offering concessions concerning the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. In the case of China policy in the early 1920s, the bankers views were decisive.
The immediate post-World War I years were of critical importance in determining future international relations in East Asia. During the war, the British had become alarmed concerning their Japanese allys intentions in China. Wounded by war, London looked to Washington to counter Japanese expansion. Late in 1920, the British Foreign Office established a special committee to study and make recommendations on future Far Eastern policy. This expert committee concluded that British and American interests in China were identical and that therefore, Great Britain should work with the United States in opposing further Japanese expansion in China and in encouraging the development of a strong, unified China which would provide a market for British goods and investments. Following the consideration of this report, the British Cabinet encouraged the Americans to call a Conference on Naval Disarmament and Far Eastern Questions which convened in Washington in November 1921. At the Conference, the British delegation bowed to American pressure and abrogated the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
During the months before the Washington Conference convened, American policymakers had reached much the same conclusions as their British counterparts concerning American goals in East Asia. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes had asked various department heads and Asian specialists to prepare special studies and make recommendations concerning China, Japan, naval disarmament and so forth. These reports were unanimous in their conclusion that Japanese expansion in China and Siberia threatened American national interests. In the words of one War College study:
