Public Finance

Abstract

At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Qing dynasty entered a phase of social and economic decline. By 1850, mounting crises had exploded in a devastating series of rebellions (best known for the Taiping Rebellion, 1850–1864). Until 1880, up to a quarter of the population had perished, although the numbers are debated. The civil wars revealed the bankruptcy of the dogma of fixed tax quotas that had governed China’s fiscal thought since the Ming dynasty (see the chapter by von Glahn and Lamouroux in Volume 1). New commercial taxes, most prominently foreign customs and lijin 釐金 (literally “one-thousandth”) trade tariffs, soon exceeded agricultural taxes and increased state revenue. Fiscal recovery was short-lived, however, as the double defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and the Boxer Rebellion (1900–1901) once again threw Qing finances into turmoil. Servicing the war loans and indemnities while simultaneously promoting costly “New Policy” (xinzheng 新政) reforms (1901–1911), the imperial government gradually lost control of the provinces and was unable to check the nationalist awakening of its citizenry. This led to the 1911 Revolution and, eventually, national disintegration during the warlord era.

Biographical Note

Elisabeth Kaske (SFB 1199, Leipzig University, Germany)

Elisabeth Kaske has joined Leipzig University as professor of modern Chinese society and culture in April 2017, after studying and teaching in Berlin, Beijing, Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Boston, Vienna, Pittsburgh, Taipei, and Princeton. As a historian of late Qing and early Republican China she is interested in China’s rugged path towards modernization. Her studies include the history of German-Chinese military exchange and technology transfer, the emergence of new concepts of language and education, the sale of rank and public office by the late imperial state, and the fiscal regime of the Qing dynasty. After having long focused on bureaucratic elites, she has recently become fascinated with how new professional elites, particularly engineers, imagined the nation and their own role in it.