Britain and China, 1840-1970 Empire, Finance and War [Hardcover]

This book presents a range of new research on British-Chinese relations in the period from Britains first imperial intervention in China up to the 1960s. Topics covered include economic issues such as fi nance, investment and Chinese labour in British territories, questions of perceptions on both sides, such as British worries about, and exaggeration of, the China threat, including to India, and British aggression towards, and eventual withdrawal from, China.

Introduction 1. 'The Usual Intercourse of Nations': The British in Pre-Opium War Canton John M. Carroll 2. British Intervention in the Taiping Rebellion Stephen R. Platt3. Britain and China, and India, 1830s-1947 Robert Bickers4. The Interest of Our Colonies Seems to Have Been Largely Overlooked: Colonial Australia and Anglo-Chinese Relations Benjamin Mountford5. Coolies or Huagong? Conflicting British and Chinese attitudes towards Chinese contract workers in World War One France Paul J. Bailey6. Sino-British Relations in Railway Construction: State, Imperialism and Local Elites, 1905-1911 Koji Hirata 7. Foreign investment in modern China: an analysis with a focus on British interests Chen Qianping8. Curative Finance: Francis Aglen, Bond Markets, and the Early Republic, 1911-1928 Hans van de Ven9. Expansion and Defence in the International Settlement at Shanghai Isabella Jackson 10. Nationalistic Enthusiasm versus Imperialist Sophistication: Britain from Chiang Kai-sheks Perspective Sherman Lai 11. Decolonisation' in China, 1949-1959 Jonathan J. Howlett

This volume provides a sophisticated understanding of the British presence in China and the actors and agencies involved within the broader contours of the British Empire. Its chapters help to trace the construction of the British presence in China as a transnational agent througl³-