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

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

Biography

Robert Bickers is Professor of History at the University of Bristol, UK.

Jonathan J. Howlett is a Lecturer in Modern Asian History at the University of York, UK.

"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 through migration, labour, foreign capital and wars. This transnational character of the British presence in China presents us with difficulties in distinguishing clearly between what was ‘Chinese’ and what was ‘foreign’, a theme that seems central to several chapters in this volume (especially those by
Hirata, Howlett, Jackson and Chen)."
Shilpa Sharma, China Report