Conclusion

British gentlemanly imperialism had to operate within a three-level structure. 1) Metropolitan. European governments, banks and companies pursued their own strategies resulting from the alignment of various domestic forces with their own specific agendas and outlook.

The interplay of forces at these three levels only rarely allowed for strategies defined in one place to filter through unaltered, or for metropolitan forces like gentlemanly capitalism to have a clearly distinguishable influence on global history. Only during the years 1905-11 did gentlemanly imperialism manage to give direction to the forces at the international level and seem to find partners on the periphery. Just as Britain had been forced to behave more imperialistic­ally and in a less gentlemanly manner during the 'scramble' and after 1911, France and Germany were, in these years, more or less left with co-operative financial imperialism as the only possible policy under prevailing circumstances. In order to get a clear picture of the forces interacting in the shaping of 'global history', we need an international or transnational history of empire. Cain and Hopkins have recently suggested a perspective which might be useful in this respect: they proposed to distinguish 'structural power' (establishing processes, building structures and disseminating values) from 'relational power' (direct influence on specific decision-making processes).⁵⁶ Asking which forces shape structures and procedures and how strong structures and proced­ures are as opposed to relations may help us internationalize the history of imperialism.

British policy within the framework of co-operative financial imperi­alism was distinguished from that of other powers by the conscious pursuit of 'structural power'.⁵⁷ Gentlemanly imperialism implied an ideology that defined and at the same time legitimized a European role in Asia. European and Asian interests, modernization, the market, and imperialism were described as sensibly related to each other and as parts of a coherent whole. Such an outlook - however eurocentric or hypocritical it may appear today - was at least capable of guiding action and adaptation in a way that cruder expansionist ideologies were not. It supported a policy directed, in a very modern way, at secur­ing 'global leadership on the cheap' by holding out the promise of prosperity through free markets.⁵⁸ Increasingly, such a policy had to be pursued in the face of a - likewise very 'modern' - resistance against a world order dominated by the market and by Western ideas and values. Here, the notion of 'structural power' helps us to see that this resis­tance was not only, as has frequently been asserted, the beginning of a global 'revolt against the West',⁵⁹ but also the expression of forces within the West opposed to free trade, finance, liberalism, internation­alism, and the rules and procedures required to uphold them. In this respect, the extent to which the influence of gentlemanly capitalist interests on British policy and their overall success depended upon forces from outside Europe like the United States deserves further study. At any rate, the forces responsible for the failure of European co­operative financial imperialism in China are, to a significant extent, the same that, on the level of global history, brought about the collapse of the pre-1914 European world order - nationalism, protectionism, a general dissatisfaction with a liberal world order, and a widespread readiness to seek to exploit, rather than reform, this order's con­tradictions.

Notes

1 I thank Professor Lynn Zastoupil for his comments on the style as well as the sub­stance of an earlier draft of this paper, and Professors Peter J. Cain and Antony G. Hopkins for their comments on the version presented at the conference.

2 For the concept of 'imperialisms', see R. Girault, Diplomatie europeenne et imperialismes (Paris, 1979), 148, 177f.; W.J. Mommsen, 'Europäischer Finanzimperialismus vor 1914. Ein Beitrag zu einer pluralistischen Theorie des Imperialismus', in: WJ. Mommsen, Der europäische Imperialismus. Aufsätze und Abhandlungen (Gottingen, 1979), 85-148; also B. Barth, 'Internationale Geschichte und europäische Expansion: Die Imperialismen des 19. Jahrhunderts', in: W. Loth and J. Osterhammel (eds), Internationale Geschichte. Themen - Ergebnisse - Aussichten (Munich, 2000), 309-27.

3 For the purpose of this paper it may be useful to distinguish gentlemanly cap­italism, a specific alignment of social forces characteristic of British society, from gentlemanly imperialism, the specific expansionist movement based on these forces.

4 PJ. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, Vol. 1: Innovation and Expansion, 1688-1914 (London/New York, 1993), 424. For a general overview, see J. Osterhammel, China und die Weltgesellschaft. Vom 18. Jahrhundert bis in unsere Zeit (Munich, 1989); J. Osterhammel, 'Britain and China, 1842-1914', in A. Porter (ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. III: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford/New York, 1999), 146-69. For issues concerning the powers and problems of modernization in China, see my Imperialismus und Modernisierung. Siam, China und die europäischen Mächte, 1895-1914 (Munich, 2000).

5 For the diplomacy of the 'scramble', see B. Barth, Die deutsche Hochfinanz und die Imperialismen. Banken und Außenpolitik vor 1914 (Stuttgart, 1995); E.W. Edwards, British Diplomacy and Finance in China, 1895-1914 (Oxford, 1987); G. Kurgan-Van Hentenryk, Leopold II et les groupes financiers belges en Chine: La politique royale et ses prolongements, 1895-1914 (Brussels, 1972); E-tu Zen Sun, Chinese Railways and British Interests, 1898-1911 (New York, 2nd ed.

6 Edwards, Diplomacy; Lee En-han, China's Quest for Railway Autonomy, 1904-1911: a Study of the Chinese Railway-Rights Recovery Movement (Singapore, 1977); Sun, Chinese Railways.

7 Satow to Lansdowne, 22.5.1905, Public Record Office, London (PRO), 30/33/14/13; Edwards, Diplomacy, 59-65 and ch. 4.

8 Paul Claudel, Sous le signe du dragon, Paris 1957 (6th ed.), 128.

9 Memo Defence of Indo-China (1904), Archives Nationales-Centre des Archives d'Outre-Mer, Gouvernement General de l'Indochine, 26673; cf. the report by the German military attache in Paris, 13.8.1904, Bundesarchiv Berlin, China 72; Satow to Lansdowne, 14.4.1905, PRO FO 17/1671; N.P. Petersson, Deutsche Weltpolitik in der franzosischen Einflußsphäre. Deutsche und franzosische Aktivitäten in Südchina, M.A.-thesis Tübingen 1994, 87-9. For Germany: W. Stingl, Der Ferne Osten in der deutschen Politik vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg (1902-1914), 2 vols (Frankfurt, 1978), 460-90, 502 f., 531; U. Ratenhof, Die Chinapolitik des Deutschen Reiches von 1871 bis 1945. Chinas Erneuerung, Großmachtrivalitäten in Ostasien und deutsches Weltmachtstreben (Boppard, 1987), 197, 209; K. Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich. Deutsche Außenpolitik von Bismarck bis Hitler 1871-1945 (Stuttgart, 1995), 236 ff.

10 Edwards, Diplomacy, 59-65 and ch. 4; E.W. Edwards, 'The Far Eastern Agreements of 1907', in: Journal of Modern History XXVI (1954), 340-55; K. Hildebrand, 'Europäisches Zentrum, überseeische Peripherie und neue Welt. Über den Wandel des europäischen Staatensystems zwischen dem Berliner Kongreß (1878) und dem Pariser Frieden (1919-20)', in: Historische Zeitschrift 249 (1989), 53-94; Hildebrand, Reich, 222-7, 241 ff.; Ratenhof, Chinapolitik, 201 ff., 226 ff.; G. Rozman (ed.), The Modernization of China (New York/London, 1981), 226 (quotation).

11 On railway diplomacy in China, see Barth, Hochfinanz; D.

Imperialism in China, 1895-1939', in: C.B. Davis/K.E.Wilburn, Jr. (eds), Railway Imperialism, New York/Westport/London 1991, 155-74; Hou Chi­ming, Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China, 1840-1937, Cambridge, MA, 1965; R.W. Huenemann, The Dragon and the Iron Horse: the Economics of Railroads in China, 1876-1937, Cambridge, MA, 1984. My Imperialismus und Modernisierung offers a somewhat more detailed overview and more references than can be given here.

12 Nathan A. Pelcovits, Old China Hands and the Foreign Office (New York, 1948). The 'new departure' implied a strong rejection of the views of 'treaty port society' described in R. Bickers, Britain in China: Community, Culture and Colonialism, 1900-1949 (Manchester/New York, 1999).

13 Grey to Jordan, 7.8.1906, 31.8.1906, PRO FO 371/35.

14 For an overview, see A. Feuerwerker, 'The Foreign Presence in China', in: Cambridge History of China, vol. 12, 128-207; J. Osterhammel, 'Semi­Colonialism and Informal Empire in Twentieth-Century China: towards a framework of analysis', in: W.J. Mommsen and J. Osterhammel (eds), Imperialism and After. Continuities and Discontinuities (London, 1986), 290-314.

15 Grey to Jordan, 31.8.1906, PRO FO 371/35 (my emphasis). The 'new depart­ure' must be seen in the context of a change of government, a general reap­praisal of foreign policy perspectives (A.J.P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe (1848-1918) (London, 1957), 427 ff., 438, 437 f.), and a change of diplomatic representatives in Beijing all happening simultaneously. A lim­ited 'new departure' in British policy can be found, at the same time, in India and Egypt as well: R. Hyam, Britain's Imperial Century, 1815-1915: a Study of Empire and Expansion (Basingstoke, 2nd ed.

16 Jordan to Campbell, 4.2.1909, PRO FO 350/5. The basic goals of British rail­way policy in China are described in: Memo Railways in China, 16.1.1908, PRO FO 371/418. See also Edwards, Diplomacy, and, for a colonial context, M. Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology and Ideology of Western Dominance (Ithaca, 1989), 222; H. Sieberg, Colonial Development. Die Grundlegung moderner Entwicklungspolitik durch Großbritannien, 1919-1949 (Stuttgart, 1985); M. Havinden and D. Meredith, Colonialism and Development: Britain and Its Tropical Colonies, 1850-1960 (London, 1993), 99-111. 'Ideology' is used here in the sense implied by M.H. Hunt's contri­bution to 'A Roundtable: Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations', in: Journal of American History 77 (1990).

17 Memo Railways in China, 16.1.1908, PRO FO 371/418.

18 Ibid. and Jordan to Campbell, 23.7.1908, 17.9.1908, 5.10.1908, PRO FO 350/5.

19 For a short summary of debates on this point within British officialdom, see Jordan to Campbell, 6.8.1908, PRO FO 350/5.

20 D.C.M. Platt, Finance, Trade and Politics in British Foreign Policy, 1815-1914 (Oxford, 1968), 299. Quotation: Jordan to Campbell, 23.7.1908, PRO FO 350/5.

21 Cain/Hopkins, British Imperialism, 23-46 (quotation 46).

22 Jordan to Campbell, 5.3.1908, PRO FO 350/5.

23 For the use of railways as strategic tools, see R. Robinson's introduction and conclusion in Davis and Wilburn, Railway Imperialism, esp. 1, 192. See also Edwards, Diplomacy, 69, 75, 125. Quotations: Jordan to Grey, 7.10.1909, FO 350/6; Robinson, Railway Imperialism, 4.

24 Taylor, Struggle, 438-41; Instructions for the new French minister in Beijing, E. Bapst, 3.3.1906, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (MAE) NS Chine 198; Brotel, Frankreich, 570-5; Jordan to Grey, 30.5.1907, PRO FO 371/231; Jordan to Campbell, 24.6.1908, 29.10.1908 (quotation), PRO FO 350/5.

25 J.G. Barlow, Sun Yat-sen and the French, 1900-1908 (Berkeley, 1979), 67 ff., 77 ff.; M.-C. Bergère, Sun Yat-sen (Paris, 1994), 199-215; J.K. Mulholland, ‘The French Connection that Failed: France and Sun Yat-Sen, 1900-1908', in: Journal of Asian Studies 31 (1972), 77-95, here 90 ff.

26 Beauvais to Pichon, 25.5.1908, MAE NS Chine 219. For more on the change of French strategy in South China in 1907/1908, see Petersson, Weltpolitik, 103-7.

27 Petersson, Imperialismus und Modernisierung, 233 ff.; Bourgeois to Pichon, 28.2.1907, 28.9.1907; Bourgeois to Bapst, 9.7.1907, MAE NS Chine 634.

28 Brotel, Frankreich, 553-8, 571-579; Edwards, Diplomacy, 115-22; King, Hongkong Bank, 388-94; Kurgan-Van Hentenryk, Leopold II, 616-63, 737-46; Lee, Railway Autonomy, 219-23; M. Meuleau, Des Pionniers en Extreme-Orient. Histoire de la Banque de l'Indochine, 1875-1975 (Paris, 1990), 225-8; Sun, Chinese Railways, 137-41; Bapst to Pichon, 20.3.1908, MAE NS Chine 200; Jordan to Campbell, 3.4.1909, 24.6.1909, PRO FO 350/5; Memo railway negotiations, 27.4.1908, MAE NS Chine 448.

29 Memo Hankeou Pekin, 20.12.1908, MAE NS Chine 200; Memo entreprises financières en Chine, Dec. 1908, MAE NS Chine 345; Girault, Diplomatie europeenne, 190 f., 193 f. This 'modernization' of French imperialism is completed with the 1908 reorientation and not, as R.S. Lee suggests in France and the Exploitation of China, 1885-1901: a Study in Economic Imperialism (Hongkong/Oxford/New York, 1989), 267-74, with Delcasse's rejection in 1899 of the most contradictory aspects of the strategies pursued by his predecessor Hanotaux.

30 Mumm to Bülow, 29.7.1905, Auswärtiges Amt, Politisches Archiv, Bonn/Berlin) AA China 1/55; military report no. 84, 20.12.1905, AA China 1/57c. Mumm's further reflections on the political situation in East Asia are to be found in a private letter to Chancellor Bulow (3.6.1905, AA China 22/15). See also a report by military attache v. Claer (27.9.1904, AA China 22/13). For the new departure in German China policy, see also Ratenhof, Chinapolitik, 169-227; Stingl, Der Ferne Osten, 383-431.

31 Mumm to Bulow, 8.1.1906, AA China 1/58; 10.2.1906, AA China 1/59; 13.4.1905, AA China 22/14; 14.8.1905, AA China 22/15.

32 Memo v. Brandt, 13.2.1906, AA China 1/57c.

33 This policy was based on strategic considerations which seemed to imply, for a time, the conclusion of a triple alliance consisting of Germany, China and the USA. The exploitation of China was somehow supposed to be compati­ble with an alliance. For this, see Stingl, Der Ferne Osten, 614 ff.

34 See, for example, Buri to Bülow, 14.12.1907, AA China 4/16; Rex to Bulow, 8.11.1909, AA China 1/70.

35 The 'gun question' was the reason why Germany did not join Britain and the US in protests against the dismissal of Yuan Shikai in January 1909: Petersson, Imperialismus und Modernisierung, 249 f.

36 O. Franke, 'Die deutsch-chinesische Hochschule in Tsingtau, ihre Vorgeschichte, ihre Einrichtung und ihre Aufgaben', in: O. Franke, Ostasiatische Neubildungen. Beiträge zum Verständnis der politischen und kulturellen Entwicklungsvorgänge im Fernen Osten (Hamburg, 1911), 200-17; F. Kreissler, L'action culturelle allemande en Chine. De la fin du XIXe siecle ä la Seconde Guerre mondiale (Paris, 1989), 65, 127-71; K. Mühlhahn, Herrschaft und Widerstand in der 'Musterkolonie' Kiautschou. Interaktion zwischen China und Deutschland, 1897-1914 (Munich, 2000), 236-55; Stingl, Der Ferne Osten, 601-9.

37 Rex to Bülow, 25.3.1909, AA China 4/19; Rex to Bülow, 4.4.1907, 9.4.1907, 16.4.1907, AA China 4/3; 21.5.1907, 3.6.1909, AA China 4/20; Jordan to Campbell, 17.4.1907, PRO FO 350/4; Jordan to Grey, 1.6.1907, PRO FO 371/313; 1.1.1910, PRO FO 371/866.

38 Stingl, Der Ferne Osten, 611.

39 Knipping to Bethmann Hollweg, 15.11.1910; Rex to Bethmann Hollweg, 28.11.1910, AA China 1/74; Barth, Hochfinanz, 300, 405-8.

40 Barth, Hochfinanz, 153 ff, 290 f.

41 Girault, Diplomatie europeenne, 177-94; Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 148-60; Osterhammel, China, 223.

42 On railway diplomacy, see the works listed in note 11 above.

43 Hou, Foreign Investment, 24 f., 29. For John Jordan, railways were 'a positive obsession': Jordan to Campbell, 6.8.1908, PRO FO 350/5.

44 Quoted in R.A. Dayer, Finance and Empire: Sir Charles Addis, 1861-1945 (London, 1988), 53. The terms of these agreements are analyzed in King, Hongkong Bank, 345-51 and Osterhammel, China, 214-21. All important agree­ments are printed in J.V.A. MacMurray, Treaties and Agreements with and Concerning China, 1894-1919, 2 vols. (New York, 1921). The lines concerned were three concessions dating from the 1898 scramble (Guangzhou-Hongkong, British; Tianjin-Pukou, British-German; Shanghai-Ningbo, British); the already operating line Beijing-Hankow (Belgian-French) repurchased by the Chinese government with a foreign loan; finally the lines Guangzhou-Hankow and Hankow-Chengdu (Huguang-railways) for which no concession agreement existed.

45 Jordan to Grey, 26.3.1909, PRO FO 371/636.

46 Hou, Foreign Investment, 31-49; King, Hongkong Bank, 434; Lee, Railway Autonomy, 208 f.; Mommsen, 'Finanzimperialismus', 89, 91, 99; Osterhammel, China, 207-26.

47 Robinson, 'Conclusion', 175. For the term 'civilized anti-foreignism', see Lee, Railway Autonomy.

48 Sun, Chinese Railways, 90.

49 On the other hand, there remained imperialist privileges, such as the stipu­lation to employ engineers of a certain nationality. And the railway loans were parts of strategies of imperial expansion, even after many of the imperi­alist teeth had been drawn. King, Hongkong Bank, 434; Hou, Foreign Investment, 31-49; Osterhammel, China, 207-26.

50 Luxburg to Bethmann Hollweg, 1.5.1911, AA China 4/26. For the context, see Jordan to Grey, 10.3.1911, 13.4.1911, 20.4.1911; Addis to FO, 19.4.1911; Addis to Grey, 19.4.1911, PRO FO 371/1080; Luxburg to Bethmann Hollweg,

8.4.1911, AA China 4/26.

51 Jordan to Grey, 10.5.1911, PRO FO 371/1080; Jordan to Campbell, 24.5.1911,

24.7.1911, PRO FO 350/7. For the loan agreement and related documents, see MacMurray, Treaties, 866-99.

52 Jordan to Grey, 22.5.1911, PRO FO 371/1080; Jordan to Campbell,

22.4.1911, 15.5.1911, PRO FO 350/7; Jordan to Grey, 18.9.1911, PRO FO 371/1081. The perception of risk and importance of timing are also stressed by J.H. Fincher, Chinese Democracy: the Self-Government Movement in Local, Provincial, and National Politics, 1905-1914 (London/Canberra, 1981), 116.

53 For a more detailed account of the disintegration of co-operative financial imperialism in China, see my Imperialismus und Modernisierung, ch. 8.

54 For the weakness of the 'collaborators', see Sun, Chinese Railways, 113-19; S.A.M. Adshead, Province and Politics in Late Imperial China: Viceregal Government in Szechwan, 1898-1911 (London/Malmo, 1984), 84. For evi­dence from the German side, see Rex to Bethmann Hollweg, 25.10.1910, AA China 1/73; 3.2.1910, 4.2.1910, AA China 4/23; 7.1.1911, AA China 1/74; 7.1.1911; Luxburg to Bethmann Hollweg, 26.5.1911, AA China 4/26. As to the extent of the modernization programme, see D.R. Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1914 (New York, 1988); King, Hongkong Bank, 382, 251-6; Mommsen, 'Finanzimperialismus', 91, 99.

55 The aversion of Chinese Reformers across the political spectrum to capital­ism is described by Chi Wen-Shun, Ideological Conflicts in Modern China: Democracy and Authoritarianism (New Brunswick, 2nd ed. 1992), 293 f., 325 and J.E. Schrecker, The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective (New York, 1991), 124.

56 PJ. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, 'Afterword: the Theory and Practice of British Imperialism', in: R.E. Dumett (ed.), Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: the New Debate on Empire (London/New York, 1999), 196-220, here 204 f.

57 Sir Eyre Crowe explicitly says so in his famous 1907 memorandum: Britain, he argued, had to pursue a policy '[that] is so directed as to harmonize with the general desires and ideals common to all mankind and... is closely identified with the primary and vital interests of a majority, or as many as possible, of the other nations': British Documents on the Origins of the War 1898-1914, ed. by G.P. Gooch and H. Temperley (reprint: New York, 1967), vol. 3, 357-420, here 402 f.

58 Of course, a socially dominant position of gentlemanly capitalism is the background to explaining this attitude. Quotation: J. Sachs, 'Global Capitalism: Making It Work', in: The Economist, 12.9.1998, 21-5.

59 Just a sample: L. Woolf, Imperialism and Civilisation (London, 1928), 13 f., 65 ff.; G. Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary History (Harmondsworth, 1967); I. Clark, Globalization and Fragmentation: International Relations in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 1997), 12 ff.