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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Bickers, Robert Title: Changing British attitudes to China and the Chinese, 1928-1931 General rights The copyright of this thesis rests with the author, unless otherwise identified in the body of the thesis, and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. It is permitted to use and duplicate this work only for personal and non- commercial research, study or criticism/review. You must obtain prior written consent from the author for any other use. It is not permitted to supply the whole or part of this thesis to any other person or to post the same on any website or other online location without the prior written consent of the author. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to it having been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. 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Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms.html Take down policy Explore Bristol Research is a digital archive and the intention is that deposited content should not be removed. However, if you believe that this version of the work breaches copyright law please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: • Your contact details • Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL • An outline of the nature of the complaint On receipt of your message the Open Access Team will immediately investigate your claim, make an initial judgement of the validity of the claim and, where appropriate, withdraw the item in question from public view. Changing British Attitudes to China and the Chinese, 1928- 193 1 Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosphy Robert A. Bickers School of Oriental and African Studies University of London 1992 \J 2 Abstract This study examines the context and nature of British attitudes to China and the Chinese in the period 1928 to 1931, between the initial consolidation of the Nationalist Revolution in China and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. The relationship between official and popular levels of this discourse provides the dominant theme of this work. It is argued that these years saw the start of a major long-term shift in British attitudes prompted by the Nationalist Revolution and by changes in Britain's official policy towards China. A wide range of official, institutional, and private primary and secondary material relating to Sino-British relations and to British treaty port life in China is examined in order to identify the sources, nature, and influence of British attitudes. The introduction surveys the existing literature on "attitudes" and "images" and outlines the limitations of traditionally textually-based approaches. Part one examines metropolitan and treaty port sources of British attitudes and their articulation and relates these to the structure and mores of British society in China, its socialisation of new arrivals, and its relations with the Chinese as hosts, competitors, colleagues, customers and employees. It shows the extent to which hostile and suspicious attitudes towards the Chinese pervaded British popular culture, diplomacy and treaty port society. Part two describes the nature and limitations of British attempts at social and institutional reform in the three main sectors of British society: the structures of treaty port life, businesses and missions. Although British residents accepted the need for reform, in practice they were insular and conservative. Furthermore, successful changes were introduced with the intention of protecting the British presence in China rather than changing its character. This work concludes, however, that genuine attempts were made in this period by influential individuals to alter the character of British treaty port life, and treaty port attitudes, and that the long-term repercussions of these efforts underlie improvements in Sino-British cultural relations since 1928. This study is a contribution to the social history of the foreign communities in China, the history of Sino-British relations and the social history of British attitudes to China and the Chinese. 3 Acknowledgments Those who have helped me in practical or supportive terms over the last four years are too numerous to mention. Long live the professions of Archivist and Librarian. Individual debts of gratitude should, however, go to Charles dOrban, for his bibliographical and practical help, to Rosemary Seton, archivist at the School of Oriental and African Studies, to Mr R. Glyn Davies, for help with material relating to BAT and for showing me his transcripts of his family papers, to Charlotte Havilland, archivist at John Swire and Sons, to Dr. David Steeds, for enabling me to look at Miles Lampsons' diaries, temporarily in his possession, to Professor C. Martin Wilbur, for sending me his notes of interviews with Lampson and Owen O'Malley, and to Dr. J.W. Scott, for allowing me to read his family papers. Special thanks should go to my supervisor, Professor T.H. Barrett, for his guidance, and to Maryjayne Hillman and Joy Hemmings-Lewis for theirs, and to the following, who have all read and commented on different parts of this work with much patience and insight: Dr. Sinharajah Tammita Delgoda, Dr. Frank Dikötter, Jane Duckett, Jessica Harrison-Hall, George Hood, Jennifer Summit, and especially Dr. R.G. Tiedemann and Susan Whitfield. Thanks to the following for their support, or interest, or for sharing their own enthusiasms and knowledge: Ekavi Athanassopoulo, Chiara Betta, Gus Casely-Hayford, Edmund Fung, Peter Hibberd, Maisie Meyer, Peter Robins, Helen Wang, Wang Tao and Zhang Shunhong. To the following I give inarticulate thanks for their important support at different times and in different and complementary forms: Ray Hills and Carol Murphy, Susan Whitfield, Patricia, Bill, and Evelyn Bickers, Adam Brookes, Lisa Clothier, Jessica Harrison-Hall, Stephen Lloyd and Charles Bickers. All know why. To my parents Bob and Joan, unrequitable gratitude for patience, respite, succour, belief and the computers. I ti-ust, finally, it would not be too languidly insolent of me to dedicate this work to them. 4 Contents Abstract p.2 Acknowledgments P.3 List of Contents P.4 List of Illustrations p.5 List of Abbreviations p.6 Note on the romanization of Chinese names p.7 Introduction "A message from some Chinese friends" p.8 Part one The structure, formation and articulation of British attitudes Chapter two Chinese Characteristics and treaty port society: an armour of false facts? p.29 Chapter three British society in China in 1928 - "An Empire of men, and tenth rate men at that." p.78 Part two Changing British attitudes, 1928-1931 Chapter four British diplomats, Chinese nationalism and treaty port society. p.!25 Chapter five British businesses and revolutionary nationalism: bayonets into shares. p.173 Chapter six British protestant missions and Chinese nationalism: "to serve and not to rule." n208 Conclusion p.246 Bibliography p.256 5 List of Illustrations Figure 1: Anti-British propaganda, Sichuan province, 1926, North China Daily News, China in Chaos (Shanghai, 1927), p.47. p. 11. Figure 2: Frontispiece, Punch, (volume 172, 1927). p.37 Figure 3: Cover illustration from Edgar Wallace, The Governor of Chi-Foo (London, 1929). p.56 Figure 4: 'Waiguo huotui" [foreign ham], from Shanghai suyu tushuo [Illustrated explanations of Shanghai colloquialisms] (Suzhou, 1948), p.204. p.89 Figure 5: "Sapajou' cartoon, North China Herald, 20/8/27, p.315. p.166 Figure 6: The caricatured consequences of the activities of British traders, anti-British propaganda by Huang Wennong, 1927, Zhongguo manhua shi (Beijing, 1986), p.62. p.181 Figure 7: Anti-missionary propaganda, Sichuan province, 1926, North China Daily News, China in Chaos (Shanghai, 1927), p.47. p.220 6 List of Abbreviations used in text and in footnotes ADM Admiralty records APC Asiatic Petroleum Company BAT British American Tobacco, Company, Ltd. BCCJ Journal of the British Chamber of Commerce, Shanghai BMCT British Municipal Council Tientsin BMS Baptist Mission Society BOE Bank of England BS Butterfield and Swire BT Board of Trade records ccc Church of Christ in China CilvI China Inland Mission CET China Express and Telegraph CMC Chinese Maritime Customs CMSNCo China Merchants Steam Navigation Company CNCo China Navigation Company