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British Policy in the Reorganization Loan to China 1912–13

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

K. C. Chan
K. C. Chan
Affiliation:
University of Hong Kong
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Extract

The Reorganisation Loan, or as many Chinese writers call the Grand Loan of the Second Year of the Republic of China (Min-erh ta chiehk'uan ), arranged by the ‘Old Consortium’,1 played a significant role in Chinese internal affairs in the early twentieth century. The loan has been condemned by Chinese historians, nationalist and communist alike, as one of the ugliest crimes committed by the imperialist powers in China because it enabled Yüan Shih-k'ai to defeat the Kuo-min tang in the Second Revolution in 1913, and to rid China of all semblance of democracy up to the point in 1915 when he aspired to re-establish an empire and to occupy the dragon throne himself. Being unanimously labelled as ‘father of the warlords’, Yüan's autocratic practices and his sudden death in June 1916 have always been blamed for throwing China into the disastrous warlord period, in which the country was split into autonomous units, and in the subsequent decades experienced chaos, weakness, and humiliation.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , July 1971 , pp. 355 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

1 The ‘Old Consortium’, the origin of which will be explained later in the article, was distinct from the ‘New Consortium’ which was formed in 1918 under the initiative of the American government but was refused by the Chinese government for fear of international control of China's finance. See, Hou, Chi-ming, Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China 1840–1937 (Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For example Li, Chien-nung, Chung-kuo chin pei-nien cheng-ch'ih shih (Chinese Politics in the Past Hundred Years) (Taiwan Commercial press, 1957), II, p. 395;Google ScholarHung-jan, ChouChung-kuo min-chu szu-hsiang yün-tung shih (History of the Democratic Ideas and Movement in China) (Taipei, 1964), p. 338Google Scholar; Chung-yu, Chu, Pei-yang chün-fa ti t'ung-ch'ih (The Rule of the Northern Warlords) (Peking, 1956), p. 3Google Scholar; and Chüyin, T'ao, Pei-yang chün-fa t'ung-ch'ih shih-chih shih-hua (History of the Period under the Rule of the Northern Warlords) (Peking, 1957), I, p. 174.Google Scholar

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19 This figure was given to Jordan, by Yüan, , confidential clause in Jordan to Grey, tel. 88, 1 March 1912, FO 371/1315.Google Scholar

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25 Such protests were abundantly available in FO 371/1312.

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52 Jordan, to Grey, , tel. 192, 20 September 1912, Grey to Jordan tel. 154, 21 September 1912, FO 371/1322,Google Scholar

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56 There were constant rumours of such Chinese overtures: Jordan, to Grey, , tel. 215, 19 October 1912; and Foreign Office minute, 23 October 1912, FO 371/1323.Google Scholar

57 Field, , American Participation in the China Consortiums, p. 84;Google Scholar and Jordan, to Langley, , private, 4 November 1912, FO 350/8.Google Scholar

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71 Jordan, to Grey, , tel. 103, 28 April, 1913, FO 371/1593.Google Scholar

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