"Indemnity" and "unequal treaty" belong to the special labels of the late Qing Dynasty. Because of its own backwardness in the times, the methods of integrating the late Qing Dynasty into world politics and trade were forced by the Western powers by force. Behind every concede, there is an unequal treaty signed.
From the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing in the middle of the 19th century to the official collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, for more than half a century, the qing dynasty signed major unequal treaties with various powers, and the principal and interest added up to hundreds of millions.
The Qing Dynasty withdrew from the stage of history, leaving behind how many reparations were not paid? Did the Republic of China continue to pay compensation after that? How are these old accounts finally handled?
First, how many unequal treaties were signed in the late Qing Dynasty
On the morning of August 29, 1842, on the British warship "Kang Huali" on the Yangtze River in Nanjing, the Generals of Guangzhou, Qi Ying and Zhapu, the deputy capital of Iribu, finally signed the Treaty of Nanking on behalf of the Qing government. The signing of this unequal treaty heralded the official opening of the semi-colonial and semi-feudal era.
Counting from the treaty of Nanking, the first unequal treaty signed with the great powers in modern society, until the Xinhai Revolution, how many unequal treaties did China sign and conclude with the great powers? There are many current claims.
The first is that from the beginning of the Opium War until the fall of the Qing Dynasty, China signed more than 500 unequal treaties with foreign countries. If the time span is extended from the Xinhai Revolution to 1949, there are 1182 unequal treaties signed with the great powers during the old China period!
According to the "Compilation of Old Testaments at Home and Abroad", some scholars have analyzed the treaties one by one, and the total number of unequal treaties in the true sense is between 300 and 400. If further compressed, there are more than 40 unequal treaties with greater impact. Among them, the amount of compensation exceeded 1 million taels of silver, and there were more than 10 copies.
Therefore, the main compensation of the late Qing government is the amount stipulated in these more than 10 treaties.
Specifically:
The Treaty of Nanking of 29 August 1842, with reparations to Britain of 21 million taels of silver;
The Renewal of the Treaty of Nanking on July 22, 1843, with reparations to Britain of 6.7 million taels of silver;
The Treaty of Tianjin of June 26, 1858, with reparations to Britain of 4 million taels of silver and indemnity to France of 2 million taels of silver;
Treaty of Peking of 24 October 1860, with reparations to Britain 13 million taels of silver and 8 million taels of silver to France;
Treaty of Ili of February 24, 1881, compensating Russia with 9 million taels of silver;
The Treaty of Maguan of April 7, 1895, compensating Japan with 200 million taels of silver;
The Treaty of Liaonan of November 8, 1895, compensating Japan with 30 million taels of silver;
The Treaty of Xinugu of September 7, 1901, compensating eight great powers for 450 million taels of silver;
The amount of compensation stipulated in the treaty is only the principal, and since the Qing government cannot pay the compensation in one lump sum, it will also generate high interest in the process of installment payment. Therefore, the final amount of compensation is much larger than the amount specified in the treaty.
Moreover, reparations are only one of them, and behind every unequal treaty, there are many interests such as land cession, concessions, tariffs, and government garrisons. The combined losses amounted to billions of taels of silver.
Before the signing of the Treaty of Maguan, the amount of compensation paid by the Qing government to Britain and France together exceeded 50 million taels of silver in principal alone. Before these reparations were completed, the Japanese opened their mouths and asked for two hundred million taels of silver at once. There was no money to pay, either to cut land, or to add concessions, or to cede the rights and interests of mining and railway construction to the great powers, or to borrow from the banks of the great powers.
In short, the Qing government tried everything it could, and in the end it did not pay off the money of the great powers. In the last few decades of the dynasty, the Qing government could not make ends meet every year, and the fiscal deficit became larger and larger.
Second, the deficit generated by "debt repayment"
Since 1840, the annual fiscal surplus of the Qing government has been decreasing. At its lowest, there were only 360,000 taels of silver left in the treasury each year. However, more embarrassment awaits.
After the outbreak of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Qing government's treasury was no longer able to absorb its expenditure. During the period from 1852 to 1863, the average annual income of the national treasury was only more than 9 million taels, which was only 70.4% of Daoguang's previous annual income. What is even more frightening is that the more than 9 million yuan is only a book figure rather than a real silver income, and the real money in the national treasury is only 480,000 taels.
On the one hand, to maintain the operation of a huge government agency, on the other hand, it also has to pay huge reparations every year, and the Qing government at this time really has nowhere to make money. The world is already in chaos, and we dare not oversell the peasants.
From 1861 onwards, an Englishman named Hurd came into charge of China's customs. The annual revenue generated by the Customs is subject to the payment of compensation to the Great Powers in proportion to the amount and in a fixed amount. By the time of the Sino-Japanese War, the actual fiscal deficit of the Qing government had reached 15 million taels, and by 1903, the annual revenue and expenditure deficit of the Qing government was as high as 30 million taels.
At that time, the "Xinugu Treaty" had been signed for two years, and of the 30 million yuan loss of the Qing government, 20 million yuan was looted by the eight powers every year.
Because before the signing of the treaty, according to a Chinese compensation report submitted by HURD to the eight countries that year, he believed that the annual amount of compensation could not exceed 20 million taels. At this time, Hurd had been in charge of China Customs for more than thirty years, and he was familiar with the financial situation of the Qing government.
However, with the signing of the "Xinugu Treaty", the great powers still forcibly took 450 million taels of silver, and the Qing government had no money, so it could only be collateralized by customs duties and salt taxes, and the principal and interest were added together to nearly 1 billion taels of silver. According to the provisions of the treaty, the Qing government officially began to repay from January 1, 1902, and was fully settled by December 31, 1940. Moreover, the annual amount of reimbursement is 21.21 million taels of silver.
In order to deal with this huge amount of money, the annual repayment is handled in Shanghai, and the five banks of HSBC, Dehua, Daosheng, Huili and Zhengjin are specifically responsible for collecting money. Later, Citibank in the United States also joined in.
At this time, the Qing government was already in a state of broken cans and broken. Every year, more than 20 million taels of silver were spent, and the Qing government distributed this money to the provinces and customs. As a result, various harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, such as land endowments, Ding Cao, grain donations, deed taxes, pawn taxes, customs duties, cents, and unified taxes, have increased, and the people have suffered unspeakably.
Even so, the Qing government still could not make up enough of the annual quota. Especially during that period, the global silver price fell, and the great powers insisted on "paying the market price of the repayment date". So by 1905, the Qing government had accumulated more than 8 million taels.
In order to pay the extra difference, the Qing government had to borrow another 1 million pounds from HSBC, with an annual interest rate of 5%, to be repaid in 20 years, with a total principal and interest of 1,525,000 pounds. In order to be able to borrow money smoothly, the Qing government mortgaged hsbc with tariffs and Shanxi tobacco and alcohol taxes, as well as gold.
Therefore, it is not difficult to see that this money has been rolling bigger and bigger on the eve of the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, and in any case, the Qing court is not able to pay it back. To borrow from the banks of the great powers again is to overdraw one's future.
In the end, the Qing Dynasty lost everything and had no future. This huge amount of indemnity has also become a confused account.
3. During the Republic of China period, the actual payment exceeded 500 million taels of silver
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, this confused account was completely inherited by the Republic of China government. However, in the nearly 40 years of payment process that followed, some special circumstances arose.
The first was that the reparations of Germany and Austria-Hungary stopped being paid. Originally, according to the respective divisions of the great powers, Germany received 196.6 million taels of silver, and Austria-Hungary received 8.73 million taels of silver. With the outbreak of World War I and China's participation in the Allies, reparations to Germany and Austria-Hungary naturally stopped.
On July 14, 1917, the Duan Qirui government officially declared war on Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and immediately announced the cessation of reparations. After the end of World War I, austria-hungary split into two countries, Austria and Hungary, and they also announced that they would abandon the reparations.
With the collapse of Tsarist Russia, China and the Soviet Union signed the "Agreement on the Outline of the Settlement of Outstanding Cases between China and the Soviet Union" in 1924, according to which the Soviet Union waived the demand for reparations.
In June 1925, the British Parliament officially passed the "Chinese Reparations Case", under which the total amount of refunds in the United Kingdom was 11.18 million pounds. The refund was later mainly used in the construction of railways, highways, telecommunications and other transportation undertakings.
In addition, the United States also refunded $12.545 million during this period, mainly for education, which led to a surge in the number of Chinese students studying in the United States, and from 1909 to 1929 alone, 1,031 students went to the United States through Tsinghua School.
The above-mentioned powers, whether they are hypocritical, have returned some of the money or used this money for China's education and development. Japan alone did not refund a penny.
Instead of refunds from Japan, the Government of the Republic of China has continued to pay compensation to Japan. Even when the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the Republic of China government continued to pay reparations to Japan until 1938.
Ironically, the Japanese took the money and used it for the war of aggression against China. Especially during the Wang Jingwei period, the money was also used to cultivate pro-Japanese elements.
On the whole, after the Republic of China government took over the bad debts left by the Qing government, it continued to pay 664 million taels of silver, and after deducting some refunds from britain and the United States, China paid a total of 576 million taels of silver to the powers.
Although the United States, Britain and other countries have used part of the reparations to develop Chinese education, it is essentially a kind of hidden aggression in terms of culture. And some Of the Chinese students trained through this money have indeed been committing "hypochondriasis" to some extent.
▲ The map of Shanghai in 1935 can clearly see the division between the public concession and the French concession
Therefore, whether there is a refund or not, and no matter how this money is disposed of afterwards, it will not change the fact that the imperialism of the great powers has nakedly invaded our country. On the other hand, this is also a manifestation of the weakness and incompetence of the Qing government and the Republic of China government, the wool is out of the sheep, and the huge financial pressure is undoubtedly on the shoulders of the Chinese people.
Text/Hsu Hirano
Resources:
1. "A Brief Discussion on the Finances of the Late Qing Dynasty", Liu Jia
2. "Investigation and Reflection on the Gold Clause in the Unequal Treaty of the Late Qing Dynasty", Cui Luchun
3. "The Ins and Outs of Unequal Treaties in Modern and Contemporary China", Gao Fang
4、《
With Gengzi reparations returned to the beginning and end", Xin'an