4 - Railway Dreams

Summary

In Chapter 4, the book turns to the involvement of foreign bankers and financiers in Chinese railway development during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, the chapter focusses on the loan negotiations for the financing of the railway connecting Tianjin in northern China and Pukou in China’s south between 1898 and 1910. These loan negotiations were mainly undertaken by representatives of German and British financial groups in China and Chinese officials. By exploring the interaction between these foreign and Chinese negotiators, the chapter highlights the important role the ’contact zone’ and transnational networks played on the Chinese frontier in the foreign financing of Chinese railways. The chapter also shows how Chinese negotiators exhibited substantial agency within such transnational networks and were able to win very favourable loan terms. More generally, the chapter shows how these transnational financial networks reflected the development of financial globalization during the early twentieth century, connecting local officials in China with markets and individual investors in Europe.