PT Journal
AU Novotny, L
TI Great Britain and Railway Loans in China in Years 1907-1908. About the British Influence in the Middle Kingdom before 1914
SO Historica Olomucensia
PY 2015
BP 127
EP 141
VL 49
IS 2
DI 10.5507/ho.2015.032
DE Great Britain; China; railway; loans; powers
AB In 1907-1908 Great Britain made contracts for three important railways, for which it was necessary to assure funding of their construction - Kowloon-Cantoon, a loan agreement signed on 7 March 1907, Tientsin-Pukow (where Britain shared success with Germany), signed on 13 January 1908), and Shanghai-Ningpo, an agreement signed on 6 March 1908. However, all of them were licenses from 1898, which might be realized only after few years of protracted negotiations. After the end of Russo-Japanese war in 1905, London perceived that the existing policy of dominance in a relation to the Middle Kingdom could not continue and time for a change came. It might be generally stated that the atmosphere after the year 1905 played on the behalf of Chinese interests and on the contrary, it forced Great Britain to concessions which could be observed in concrete articles of agreements about railway loans. The construction of railways in China and its funding belonged to the fundamental socio-economic and political topics in the country in the first decade of the 20th century. British railway policy interconnected financial, business and political interests and the period after the Russo-Japanese war may be termed such as the golden age of a railway construction in the Middle Kingdom, though external conditions for its realization were changed.
ER