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The Chinese Maritime Customs Service was a Chinese governmental tax collection agency and information service from its founding in 1854 until it split in 1949 into services operating in the Republic of China on Taiwan, and in the People's Republic of China. From its foundation in 1854 until the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, the agency was known as the Imperial Maritime Customs Service.[1] From the late Qing period to World War II, it was the most powerful bureaucratic body in China.
From 1757 to the signing of the Treaty of Nanking by the Chinese and British governments in 1842, all foreign trade in China operated through the Canton System, a monopoly centered in the Southern Chinese port of Canton (now Guangzhou). The treaty abolished the monopoly and opened the ports of Shanghai, Amoy (Xiamen), Ningpo (Ningbo) and Foochow (Fuzhou) to international trade, creating the need for a mechanism to collect customs duties in these additional ports.[2][3] The Customs Service had significant political regulatory power.
The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and the increase of foreign concessions in China, led to the foreign powers having conflicts over nationalities' representation in the Customs Service. Britain and Russia had disputes over the number of British or Russian employees hired into the Imperial Maritime Customs Service, which historian Matzuzato connects to the Great Game.[4]
From the late Qing period until the Second Sino-Japanese War, it was the most powerful bureaucratic body in China.[5]:51
Formally a bureau of the Qing government, the Customs Service was managed by officers appointed by the foreign imperial powers but largely staffed by Chinese functionaries.[5]:51 It was established by foreign consuls in Shanghai in 1854 to collect maritime trade taxes that were going unpaid due to the inability of Chinese officials to collect them during the Taiping Rebellion. Its responsibilities soon grew to include domestic customs administration, postal administration, harbour and waterway management, weather reporting, and anti-smuggling operations. It mapped, lit, and policed the China coast and the Yangtze. It conducted loan negotiations, currency reform, and financial and economic management. The Service published monthly Returns of Trade, a regular series of Aids to Navigation and reports on weather and medical matters. It also represented China at over twenty world fairs and exhibition, ran some educational establishments, and conducted some diplomatic activities. Britons dominated the foreign staff of the Customs, but there were large numbers of German, U.S., French, and later Japanese staff amongst others. Promotion of Chinese nationals into senior positions started in 1929.[6]
The funds that the Customs Service remitted were Beijing's largest and steadiest source of revenue.[5]:51 In addition, foreign trade expanded rapidly because international trade was regulated and predictable. Foreign governments benefited because there was a mechanism to collect revenues to repay the loans that they had imposed on or granted to China. By 1900, there were 20,000 people working in forty main Customs Houses across China and many more subsidiary stations.[7] Revenues collected by the Customs Service were also used to repay loans and the reparations extracted from China by the foreign powers after the Boxer Rebellion.[5]:41
As academic John Alekna summarises, the Customs Bureau was essentially "a customs bureau, a finance ministry, and a colonial office for the international imperialist regime, all rolled into one."[5]:51
The agency's first Inspector-General (IG), Horatio Nelson Lay (李泰國), was dismissed in 1863 following a dispute with the Imperial court to be replaced by Sir Robert Hart (赫德), by far the most well known IG, who served until his death in 1911. Hart oversaw the development of the Service and its activities to its fullest form. Among his many contributions were the establishment of the Tongwen Guan or School of Combined Learning, which produced numerous translations of works on international law, science, world history, and current events; the postal service; and the Northern Navy. Hart established China's central statistical office in the Maritime Service in Shanghai and the Statistical Secretariat (1873–1950) and following the Boxer Uprising, set up Customs College to provide educated Chinese staff for the Service.[8] Hart was succeeded by Sir Francis Aglen (安格联, 1869–1932) and then by his own nephew, Sir Frederick Maze (梅乐和, 1871–1959), who served from 1929 to 1943. In January 1950 the last foreign Inspector-General, American Lester Knox Little (李度), resigned and the responsibilities of the Service were divided between what eventually became the Customs General Administration of the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of China Directorate General of Customs on Taiwan. It was the only bureaucratic agency of the Chinese government to operate continuously as an integrated entity from 1854 to 1950.[9]
Amongst the many well-known figures who worked for the Customs in China were Willard Straight, botanist Augustine Henry; Johan Wilhelm Normann Munthe, Norwegian; Samuel Cornell Plant who was the First Senior River Inspector from 1915 and for whom the Plant Memorial was raised in his honour; G.R.G. Worcester (1890–1969), River Inspector from 1914 to 1948, and author of seven published books on the Yangzi River; novelist and journalists Bertram Lenox Simpson (known as Putnam Weale) and J.O.P. Bland; and historian H.B. Morse. Medical Officers attached to the Customs included John Dudgeon, in Beijing, James Watson at Newchwang and Patrick Manson at Takow and Amoy. The Hong Kong Chinese businessman and political leader Robert Hotung served as a Customs clerk for two years (1878–1880).
A number of early Sinologists emerged from the Service, including linguist Thomas Francis Wade, Edward Charles Bowra, and Charles Henry Brewitt-Taylor.
Even higher level 'indoor staff' sometimes had difficulties in the nineteenth century, as the value of their salaries varied with the price of silver, and the extra year's pay every seven years which Hart had negotiated for them in place of a pension did not always allow for having an adequate saving for retirement. Family travel costs were at their expense, so not everyone took their due of foreign leave of two years on half pay after the first seven years, and subsequently every ten years. They were subject to all the usual hazards of life in China from illness and civil disruption to difficulties in providing for the education of their children, which often involved family separation, although to some extent this was compensated by the strong esprit de corps. A network of friends was sustained across changes of post by letter-writing, quite frequently by the duty of their wives.
Sir Robert Hart was sometimes a sympathetic boss, but he insisted on high standards of efficiency and honesty, and, for those aspiring to the highest rank of Commissioner, a thorough knowledge of written and spoken Chinese. His most likely young men spent a year or more in Beijing learning Chinese under his supervision, which also allowed him to evaluate other characteristics that would enable them to act sensibly and rapidly in crisis situations demanding immediate response without referral back to him. The compensations included a short working day, which meant the later afternoon could be spent exercising and socializing, going to the races, playing tennis, taking part in amateur dramatics or musical performances, and later enjoy dinner parties, which might include 'absurd games', or a musical interlude.[10]
Records of individual senior and junior staff in the Chinese Maritime Customs are preserved in the School of Oriental and African Studies, London (SOAS). Archives and Special Collections
Russia was eager to extend its influence in Manchuria... However, these ambitions were complicated, and occasionally thwarted, by Great Game rivalries between Britain and Russia in Asia. [...] Thus, when in 1880 the Russian minister in China began to press Customs I.G. Robert Hart to employ more Russians, Hart was obviously alarmed.