Britain and China, 1840-1970 Empire, Finance and War

This book presents a range of new research on British-Chinese relations in the period from Britain’s 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. Platt 3. Britain and China, and India, 1830s-1947 Robert Bickers 4. The Interest of Our Colonies Seems to Have Been Largely Overlooked: Colonial Australia and Anglo-Chinese Relations Benjamin Mountford 5. ‘Coolies’ or ‘Huagong’? Conflicting British and Chinese attitudes towards Chinese contract workers in World War One France Paul J. Bailey 6. 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 Qianping 8. Curative Finance: Francis Aglen, Bond Markets, and the Early Republic, 1911-1928 Hans van de Ven 9. Expansion and Defence in the International Settlement at Shanghai Isabella Jackson 10. Nationalistic Enthusiasm versus Imperialist Sophistication: Britain from Chiang Kai-shek’s Perspective Sherman Lai 11. ‘Decolonisation' in China, 1949-1959 Jonathan J. Howlett

Robert Bickers is Professor of History at the University of Bristol, UK. Jonathan J. Howlettis a Lecturer in Modern Asian History at the University of York, UK.