"Wanli Guanshan One Line Communication: The Construction and Application of China's International Communication Network in Modern Times (1870-1937)", by Xue Yiqun, published by Social Sciences Academic Publishing House in May 2022, 249 pages, 98.00 yuan
The modern telecommunications industry is an infrastructure, commercial profit, and a core industry related to the country's external security and internal stability, and it has never been an arena where victory and defeat are divided and black and white judgments are made. Every technological innovation and its popularization is an opportunity for the reorganization of the industry order. As far as the modern communication industry is concerned, the technological leap from mail ship to telegraph is the beginning of the formation of the international communication industry pattern; The technological iteration from cable telegraph to wireless telegraph is one example of this opportunity. Since the traditional Chinese postal delivery order was broken by Western technology and capital in the late Qing Dynasty, China is still dealing with Western-dominated international communication technology and industry rules. From the telegraph to the telephone, from wired to wireless, from analog to digital, from 2.5G to 4G to 5G, we are still on this road. The construction and application of China's international communication network in modern times has always been a theme with profound historical precipitation and strong practical significance, which deserves more attention to modern history scholars of telecommunications, communication, and Sino-foreign exchanges.
This book grasps the opportunity of the reorganization of the industry order under the technological iteration of the modern telecommunications industry, and through the discovery and sorting out of new historical materials, it shows readers some important influencing factors in the transformation of the industry pattern in China's international communication field. After China connected to the global telegraph network from the Shanghai Concession in the 1870s, the Dabei and Dadong companies had a long-term monopoly on the right to lay and operate underwater telegraph lines in China, and the agreement between the two foreign-funded companies and the Qing government became a constraint on the development of China's international communications. After World War I, radio technology arose and became widespread. Emerging technologies and the capital behind them are once again salivating over China and the East Asian markets to which it belongs, against the backdrop of a geopolitical redrawing of the geopolitical landscape. The Qing government no longer exists, but the Republic of China government is still in its infancy. What this book tries to show is how the national government grasps the opportunity of changes in the political landscape and technological iteration from the national level, and in an international environment surrounded by strong neighbors between Japan, Russia, Britain, and the United States, on the one hand, it deals with the established companies that have monopoly agreements on the line and telegraph, and on the other hand, it responds to the ambitions of the emerging wireless telegraph companies to expand the market, and tosses and turns between the great powers and capital, trying to find a way that can make "the good work for me", as well as the various compromises, setbacks and compromises.
This book presents some of the key aspects of this process from the following perspectives. The first chapter, "China's International Telecommunications in the 1870s and 1900s," introduces the monopoly of the Great Eastern and Great Northern Telegraph Companies on the operation of China's international telegraphs in the late Qing Dynasty, which can be described as the loss of telecommunications sovereignty and rights in modern times. This chapter describes not only the competition and cooperation between the two companies, but also how the Qing government dealt with them. Under the threat of the Boxer Rebellion, the two companies took the opportunity to enter into a loan contract with the Qing government, allowing them to continue to monopolize international communications until 1930, and the pattern of international communications in China established during this period formed the basis for future development. Chapter 2 describes how early missionaries and Qing government officials encoded Chinese after the introduction of telegraph infrastructure so that they could be adapted to Spanish-based telecode systems to send Chinese telegrams. Among them, Japan's use of the "New Telegram" to decipher China's telegram about the Korean mutiny, is the specific application and impact of the Chinese code system in diplomacy. In the third chapter, the author excavates a large number of archives of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, introducing the process of negotiations between China, Japan, and Russia over telecommunications rights and interests after the Russo-Japanese War, when Japan took over Russia's rights and interests in the three eastern provinces. Telecommunications rights and interests include laying, maintenance, operation, pricing, line fees, line fees, and other profit distribution links; The land line is connected to the water line, and the interests are intertwined; Telecommunications rights and interests are inextricably linked to railway land and land development. For their own interests, the Great North and Dadong Companies obstructed the direct connection between Japan and Russia, China, South Korea and Japan, and did not hesitate to introduce national forces to intervene, showing the increasingly complex content of "rights and interests" under the geopolitical pattern of the twentieth century, and the deep integration of capital and state in order to seek rights and interests. Chapter 4 describes the expansion of Western companies with radio technology in China. After Germany's defeat in World War I, Japan tried to replace Germany to take the lead in establishing an advantage, and in February 1918, Mitsui Yoko, with official Japanese background, took the lead in signing an agreement with the Beijing government's Admiralty in an attempt to monopolize China's wireless communications rights; In May 1919, the War Department signed a contract with the British Marconi Company to establish the China Radio Company; The Ministry of Communications, under the active mediation of Yip Gongxiu, signed a radio station contract with the United Telecommunications Company of the United States in January 1921. The three powers quarreled. This process reflects the lack of coordinated and consistent policies within the government during the Beijing government, and also shows the repeated attempts of major powers to compete for the rights and interests of telecommunications in China. After the establishment of the Nanjing National Government, it began to establish a nationwide wireless communication network and abolish unequal contracts, and Chapter 5 revolves around changes in government management mechanisms, communication agreements, and international relations. During the Beijing government, when the warlords were divided, the radio communication agreements signed between various localities and foreign countries became an obstacle to the Nanjing government's unified jurisdiction over transportation and communications. In addition to disputes between foreign companies in various regions over whether to have monopoly patents in China, there is also competition in the telecommunications business under the jurisdiction of various factions within the government. In 1928, the Ministry of Communications tried to unify the jurisdiction of domestic transportation and communications, and received the relevant business of the construction committee at a cost of 300,000 yuan, and then established Shanghai Zhenru International Radio, which was opened at the end of 1930. Although the Republic of China government sought independence in international communications, it had to adopt a pragmatic attitude under the changing diplomatic situation. In this chapter, the author uses materials such as records from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to reconstruct the Sino-Japanese negotiation process around the Mitsui radio contract, and shows how the communication agreement was used as a bargaining chip in the post-9/18 Sino-American, and Japanese diplomacy. The Republic of China government seems to be constantly subject to foreign companies that have mastered the ever-changing communication technology, enjoying the convenience of technology while constantly swallowing bitter fruits. At the end of 1930, a number of international telecommunications contracts were facing expiration, and the Nanjing government tried to use this opportunity to achieve the purpose of recovering telecommunications sovereignty. Therefore, in chapter 6, the author uses the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Nanjing National Government and the archives of the Danish Great North Company to introduce how the Nationalist Government negotiated with the Great North, Great East, and Pacific Commercial Waterline Company in the United States on the right to send and receive waterline telegraphs and the method of apportionment of reporting fees. In the process, the National Government's efforts to share the cost of reporting and the right to fight for personnel and management rights of telecommunications operations were reflected, in which middle-level bureaucrats with professional knowledge played a key role, but due to weak national strength, severe international situation, and inconsistent interests of various forces within the government, the negotiations did not achieve the ideal actual result of "power is exercised by me", and the recovery of telecommunications sovereignty became an empty slogan.
The history of telecommunications during this period is intertwined with domestic affairs, foreign affairs, military affairs, and finance, and its rich layers and profound connotations cannot be fully covered in one book. Through a large number of first-hand information, basically in historical chronological order, the author outlines for us the opportunities, issues and obstacles of negotiations between Chinese and Western companies in the context of scientific and technological iteration and international and domestic turbulence and changes in the background of scientific and technological iteration and international and domestic turbulent changes in the late Qing Dynasty, and guides the academic community to pay attention to some key time nodes and problems worthy of further study, so its pioneering contributions are worthy of recognition.
Work scene in the Qing Dynasty General Telephone Office
According to the material provided by the author in the article, there is still room for continued thinking and digging deeper at the following levels. The first is the concept of "sovereignty" and "interest rights" in telecommunications rights and interests. The Nanjing Nationalist government made the abolition of unequal treaties a foreign policy priority to justify its rule and to promote a tough revolutionary diplomacy; "Telecommunications sovereignty" is a manifestation of this policy. According to the characteristics of the telecommunications industry, Mr. Schavich pointed out the laying rights, patent rights, registration rights, wiring rights, telegraph sending and receiving rights, quotation agreement rights, etc. included in telecommunications rights. Judging from the negotiation process of Sino-foreign telecommunications agreements discussed in this article, the lack of guarantee for political and military communications and the endangerment of national security due to the state's inferior position in the construction, operation and pricing of the telecommunications industry are more often raised as a potential threat rather than specific damage. The section on the leakage of the code of the Renwu Mutiny seems to concretize this threat, but it is not difficult to find out after careful examination that the diplomatic code of the Qing government deciphered by the Japanese government was photographed and sent by Minister Li Shuchang from Japan to Beiyang Yamen, and was deciphered by the telecommunications bureau in Japan. Although the author's main purpose in this chapter is not at this level, we may further ask to what extent foreign companies operating in the telecommunications industry in China are acting as "spies" to cooperate with their own governments to intercept intelligence and expand their business in another country, and whether such actions violate relevant international telecommunication agreements. For more of the book, the damage caused by the loss of sovereignty is mainly in terms of fiscal revenue. According to an estimate by the Military Commission of the Nationalist Government in 1928, China's annual international telegraph bill could reach 25 million yuan (156 pages). The discussion of telecommunications sovereignty in this book mainly revolves around the fact that due to the control of foreign enterprises, a large number of profits from the operation of international telecommunications services fall into the hands of foreign-funded enterprises and cannot be collected by the government telecommunications department. Discerning the relationship between sovereignty and rights can bring to the fore the complex interests of domestic interest groups and their intricate relationships with foreign companies, and make the capital issues hidden behind nationalist discourse more clearly presented and sorted out.
Second, the right and interests of telecommunications fall into the hands of foreign companies, hindering the entry of the operating profits of the telecommunications industry into the domestic distribution and circulation links, which is a loss of rights and interests and has obvious harm to the national economy (p. 193). A more insidious hazard is the telecommunications debt attached to the telecommunications contract. For example, a Chinese government loan of £536,267 in the 1917 Sino-Danish Radio Contract By-Laws contract (p. 130); In 1921, the Ministry of Communications signed the Sino-US Radio Contract with the United States Telecommunications Company, which stipulated that the Ministry of Communications would issue $2,387,750 in bonds to the United States (p. 138); In 1929 and 1930, the Ministry of Communications issued two consecutive telecommunications bonds totaling 10 million yuan to repay the telecommunications loans of the Great North and Great Eastern Companies (pages 191 and 205), and finally had to be subscribed by the two companies; In 1932 and 1933, the Ministry of Communications borrowed money from the British return of the gen money and concluded purchase contracts with Marconi and Mackay (pp. 171, 175). The overall scale of telecommunications debt and its impact on government finances and economy at that time deserves further investigation, but whether it was arrears caused by the difficulty of paying high international bills, or had to borrow to purchase expensive and innovative advanced equipment, the Chinese government had to participate more and more deeply in the rules of the game of Western-dominated capital and financial markets because it had to keep up with the speed of progress in communications technology, seek fiscal revenue from the application of science and technology, and face national defense threats due to backward communication technology.
In the novel "Swordsman", Jin Yong once invented an extremely poisonous "Three Corpses Brain God Pill". Once this poison is taken, it will strike regularly every year, and the toxicity must be suppressed by the antidote, so it has become a means of mind control over subordinates by the undefeated in the East: scientific and technological innovation is not the case. Every once in a while, technological breakthroughs in the field of communications were achieved, and the Republic of China government managed to buy and import, from telegraph and radio to telephone, and so on. In pursuit of technological advancement, the government has been dragged into a new round of negotiations and borrowing. Although the weak national strength, internal divisions and international turmoil since the late Qing Dynasty have been an important background for the inability to achieve "self-control", the continuous updating of science and technology, and the continuous need for developing countries to catch up and be subject to the rules of Western capital and financial markets are also the direct reasons for the loss of rights and even sovereignty. Here, neutral technology and technological innovation, often with progressive significance, reflect a strange light, because the research and development of technology depends on capital, and the application of technology can bring profits. To some extent, it constantly promotes technological innovation, and even becomes the driving force for capital to achieve control. If we compare the military reparations of the late Qing government and the harm it caused to the national economy, it is not difficult to see a certain historical continuity in the seemingly new field of telecommunications. From this point of view, we can further echo telecommunications, communications and other modern fields, put the development of the telecommunications industry into the larger picture of China's modernization, and conduct in-depth thinking and questioning.