S01E24 Foreigners in China: The Customs Department

Chinese Revolutions: A History Podcast

S01E24 Foreigners in China: The Customs Department

Today we're talking about the customs department instituted for China by foreign powers intervening in China. The customs department did much more than collect import-export taxes: foreigners working with the Chinese government sent scientific and sociological studies back to Europe, lighthouses established on the coast aided trade and navigation, and the example of modern bureaucracy showed what China could possibly be.

The Customs Department

Britain and other foreign powers active in China contributed to a modern customs department run along European lines. Because it was an external patch, it had to do extra work to support its own activities.

The customs department represented modern bureaucracy. Chinese who worked in it became intermediaries between foreign and Chinese businesses. They became a professional class that would mediate the importation of foreign ideas and technology into China.

Lighthouses and China's Borders

The customs department also established a system of lighthouses on the coast of China. This aided navigation and trade, but it also imparted European notions of borders to Qing management of their own frontiers.

Taiwan was ambiguously Chinese territory. The Qing invested more into clearly establishing their sovereignty over the island to beat out foreign powers trying to take it out of Chinese sovereignty.

Lighthouse keepers also happened to be very useful for collecting weather data to aid navigational planning. Tracking monsoons helped prevent shipping losses.

Upgrade of Qing Government and the Taiping Rebellion

Foreign intervention in China was mostly about advancing business, missionary, and political interests. The Chinese ability to deal with foreign interests on Chinese terms is what will make or break a Chinese revolution.

Although foreign intervention will help the Qing defeat the Taiping Rebellion, it was a loss for the Qing, being dependent on foreign help.

The Taiping Rebellion clarified the issue for other Chinese revolutionaries who would come in the following decades: the Qing Dynasty would have to go for China to fully improve.

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