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Abstract
In 1897, German imperial navy invaded Kiaochow Bay (in Chinese Pīnyīn known as Jiāozhōu). After signing a convention with Chinese imperial government, the territory was leased to imperial Germany for 99 years. German governors provided the territory with modern and efficient infrastructures and the protectorate became the highest expression of German national pride in Asia. However, the authorities also implemented a controversial social system, mainly based on segregation of the local population and pursued an economic project aiming to the exploitation of the natural resources of the territory. In November 1914, Kiaochow was occupied by Japanese forces and article 156 of the Treaty of Versailles confirmed the acquisition of the territory in favor of Japan. This essay examines the events related to the German occupation using primary sources written by diplomats and citizens who lived in the protectorate and highlights the consequences of that important experience for modern China.
Notes on contributor
Orazio Coco received the Ph.D. in History of Europe from Sapienza University of Rome. The author has lived in the Far East for over twenty years and has taught at the City University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong (European Studies). His main research interest focuses on study of the Sino-European political and economic relations. Orazio's work has been published in Italy and in leading international journals including ‘Journal of Modern Italian Studies', ‘The Chinese Journal of Global Governance' and ‘The International History Review’.
Correction Statement
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Notes
1 North-east, about 500 km from Beijing.
2 Ludwig Wilhelm Schrameier, Kiautschou seine Entwicklung und Bedeutung (Berlin: Verlag von Karl Curtius, 1915), 9.
3 George Edwin Rines, Richthofen, Ferdinand, Baron von, in Encyclopedia Americana; Hans Dietrich Schultz, “Ferdinand von Richthofen: The True Founder of Modern Geography?” Die Erde, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, 138, no. 4(2007): 333–52; J. Fei and Q. Pei, “Ferdinand von Richthofen’s Loess Research in China Progress,” Physical Geography, 43, no. 1 (2019): 144–56.
4 Ferdinand von Richthofen published a detailed account of the seven trips in different locations in China explaining the potential of the mining industry in China. F. Von Richthofen. 1877. China, Berlin. German government used the research to identify the best location for a colony in Asia. See also, Hans Weicker, Kiautschou. Das deutsche Schutzgebiet in Ost Asien (Berlin: Verlagsbuchhandlung Alfred Schall, 1908), 31; Schrameier, Kiautschou seine Entwicklung und Bedeutung, 9; D. D. Feng, The Diplomatic Relations between China and Germany since 1898 (Shanghai: The Commercial Press Ltd., 1936), 29.
5 The final stretch of the Trans-Siberian Railway was under construction in Manchuria. The China Eastern Railway, owned by Russia, managed that section of railroad. It was established after the Li-Lobanoff agreement with China (1896).
6 Richthofen, F. (1877). China, 262.
7 About the Life of Wilhelm II, John Röhl, Kaiser Wilhelm II: Concise Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
8 Feng, The Diplomatic Relations between China and Germany Since 1898, 12.
9 The Russian fleet obtained permission by the Chinese imperial authorities to stay during the winter off the coasts of Shandong. The port of Vladivostok was blocked by ice in winter.
10 About Bishop Johannes Baptise Anzer and the Gesellschaft des Göttlichen Wortes, also see Lanxin Xiang, The Origin of the Boxer War (London: Routledge, 2003), 52. Biography of Johann Baptist von Anzer is also in Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon.
11 Two priests of the Christian congregation of Bishop Anzer (fathers Franz Nies and Richard Henle) were assaulted and killed by Chinese assailants at the residence of missionary Georg Stenz. Their assassination is dated November 4, 1897.
12 Feng, The Diplomatic Relations between China and Germany Since 1898, 19.
13 The word tael was used in China as a unit of weight, also called “Chinese ounce”, and as a reference monetary unit of the Empire. The Chinese word liǎng yín zi (两 银子) identified the silver tael and the monetary system worked through the combination of units expressed in silver and copper.
14 The Treaty in English version can be consulted in John MacMurray, Treaties and Agreements with and China (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1921).
15 Schrameier, Kiautschou seine Entwicklung und Bedeutung, 24.
16 Ibid., 67; Hans Weicher (1908), 98.
17 Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, Erinnerungen (Leipzig: K.F. Koehler, 1919).
18 John Schrecker, Imperialism and Chinese Nationalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 22.
19 Schrecker, Imperialism and Chinese Nationalism, 65.
20 Z. Tang, Kang Youwei zhenglunjii (The political writings of Kang Youwei) (Beijing, 1981).
21 Feng, The Diplomatic Relations between China and Germany Since 1898, 71.
22 Schrameier, Kiautschou seine Entwicklung und Bedeutung, 22.
23 Tornster Warner, Der Aufbau der Kolonialstadt Tsingtau in Hinz Hans-Martin and Lind Christoph (eds.), Tsingtao, Ein Kapitel deutscher Kolonialgeschichte in China 1897–1914 (Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museum, 1994), 84.
24 Schrameier, Kiautschou seine Entwicklung und Bedeutung, 40–3.
25 About Ta Pau Tau, Schrameier, Kiautschou seine Entwicklung und Bedeutung, 60–3; George Steinmetz, The Devil’s Handwriting (University of Chicago press, 2007), 442–50; P. Demgenski, “Dabaodao: The Planning, Development, and Transformation of a Chinese (German) Neighbourhood,” Planning Perspectives, 34, no. 2 (2019): 311–33.
26 Ludwig Wilhelm Schrameier, Aus Kiautschou Verwaltung (Verlag von Gustav Fischer, 1914), 26–30.
27 Schrameier, Aus Kiautschou Verwaltung, 54–5.
28 John King Fairbank and Denis Crispin Twitchett, The Cambridge History of China vol. XII, ed. John Fairbank (Cambridge University Press, 1978), 145.
29 Chinese building could not be built in Qingdao without observing the Chineseordnung and the general regulation on public health. Regulation allowed construction of residential buildings only with certain characteristics and architectural style. To inspect the adherence to regulation, a dedicated corps of police was created. See also, P. Demgenski, “Dabaodao: The Planning, Development, and Transformation of a Chinese (German) Neighbourhood,” 317.
30 The question of extraterritoriality defined the experience of semi-colonization in China. Extraterritoriality was granted to all citizens of the foreign powers, resident in international concessions and was applied till 1943. It allowed foreign nationals to be protected under national jurisdiction also in Chinese territory. Also see, H. S. Quigley, “Extraterritoriality in China,” The American Journal of International Law, 20, no. 1 (Jan. 1926): 46–68; William Tung, China and the Foreign Powers: The Impact and Reaction to the Unequal Treaties (New York: Oceana Publ. Dobbs Ferry, 1970); Dong Wang, China Unequal Treaties (London: Lexington Books, 2005).
31 Schrecker, Imperialism and Chinese Nationalism, 62.
32 Franz Kronecker, Fünfzehn Jahre Kiautschou. Eine Kolonialmedizinische Studie (Berlin, 1913), 11.
33 For instance, the discriminatory Chinese labour measures implemented by the American government in 1882 under the ‘Chinese Exclusion Act’.
34 Gollwitzer H. Die Gelbe Gefahr. Geschichte eines Schlagwortes (Goettingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1962).
35 Ching Leo T. Becoming “Japanese”: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Liao B. and Wang D. Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule, 1895-1945: history, culture, memory. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).
36 Lawton L. Empires of the Far East. A study of Japan and her colonial possessions, of China and Manchuria and of the political questions of Eastern Asia and the Pacific (London: Grant Richards, 1912), 174.
37 Schrameier, Aus Kiautschou Verwaltung, 63–71.
38 Several stations of the former Shantung Railway are today preserved as cultural heritage by the Shandong authorities.
39 Klaus Muehlhahn, “Deutsche Vorposten im Hinterland. Die infrastrukturelle Durchdringung der Provinz Shandong,” in Ein Kapitel deutscher Kolonialgeschichte in China 1897–1914, eds. Hinz Hans Martin e Christoph Lind, Tsingtau (Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museum), 146–58.
40 Schrecker, Imperialism and Chinese Nationalism; Xiang, The Origin of the Boxer War.
41 The uprising was anticipated by months of intense violence and demonstrations against foreigners and Christianity in the northern territories and near the capital Beijing. Chester Tan, The Boxer Catastrophe (New York: Columbia University, 1955); Victor Purcell, The Boxer Uprising: A Background Study (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1963); Joseph Esherick, The Origin of the Boxer Uprising (University of California Press, 1988).
42 Diplomatic Archive of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China Series P-86, folder 414, report to the Minister Tittoni sent by the Embassy in Berlin dated 23.1.1908 (my own translation).
43 Tsung-li Yamen declaration dated February 11, 1898 addressed to Sir Claude MacDonald, recognized exclusive privileges in trading goods to Great Britain on the territories along Yang-tze river (the document is in John MacMurray, Treaties and Agreements with and China Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1921).
44 Feng, The Diplomatic Relations between China and Germany Since 1898, 85.
45 Schrecker, Imperialism and Chinese Nationalism, 225.
46 William Kirby, Germany and Republican China (Stanford University, 1984), 13.
47 Amendment of the custom treaty dated 1.12.1905, in MacMurray, Treaties and Agreements with and China. Also see, Schrameier, Aus Kiautschou Verwaltung, 88.
48 Kirby, Germany and Republican China, 16.
49 Klaus Mühlhahn, “German Colonialism and Chinese Nationalism in Qingdao (1897–1914),” in Twentieth Century Colonialism and China, eds. Goodman Bryna and Goodman David (New York: Routledge, 2012), 40.
50 Sterling Seagrave, Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China (New York: Vintage Books, 1992).
51 Schrecker, Imperialism and Chinese Nationalism, 87.
52 F. W. Mohr, Die Deutsche Kolonial Gesetzgebung (Leipzig: Köhler, 1903), 415–22.
53 Feng, The Diplomatic Relations between China and Germany Since 1898, 215 ss.
54 Mühlhahn, “German Colonialism and Chinese Nationalism in Qingdao 1897–1914,” 51.
55 Lyon Sharman, Sun Yat-Sen, His Life and Its Meaning: A Critical Biography (New York: The John Day Company, 1934).
56 Mühlhahn, “German Colonialism and Chinese Nationalism in Qingdao 1897–1914,” 52.
57 Ibidem, 52.
58 Schrameier, Aus Kiautschou Verwaltung, 92.
59 Also see, Bruce Elleman, Wilson and China: A Revised History of the Shandong Question (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2002); Tung, China and the Foreign Powers, 155.
60 Kirby, Germany and Republican China, 16.
61 Believing that the Chinese army was too weak to join a war against foreign powers, a scheme was devised with the Allies to establish a Chinese Labour Corps. About 200,000 Chinese were sent to support European armies during the war.
62 N. Griffin, “Britain’s Chinese Labor Corps in World War I,” Military Affairs, 40, no. 3 (1976): 102–8; M. Summerskill, China on the Western Front: Britain’s Chinese Workforce in the First World War (London, 1982).
63 The Protocol is the final act of the Boxers uprising. On September 7, 1901, Chinese representatives and those of eleven foreign powers convened at the Spanish delegation to sign the Protocol, which, inter alia, granted indemnities to foreign powers up to 460,674,472 taels, equivalent to about £ 67,500,000, amount estimated equal to about three times the gross domestic product of China.
64 Feng, The Diplomatic Relations between China and Germany Since 1898, 187.
65 The Versailles treaty was signed on June 28, 1919. The Chinese delegation headed by Lu Tseng-tsiang and Chengting Thomas Wang did not sign the treaty due to what was decided about the Shandong Question
(Article 156 Germany renounces, in favor of Japan, all Her rights, title and privileges, especially those relating to the territory of Kiaochow, railways, mines and submarine cables, which she acquired in virtue of the treaty concluded with China on March 6, 1898, and all other arrangements related to the Province of Shantung).
66 About the Wŭsì Yùndòng, Tsi C. Wang, Youth Movement in China (New York: New Republic, 1928); Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960).
67 Elleman, Wilson and China: A Revised History of the Shandong Question.
68 The Washington Conference in 1921 was convened with the main objective of discussing arms restraint in the world. China gained the return of the Shandong province under its sovereignty, in exchange for the full adoption of the open market policy in international trade. On December 1, 1921, China signed a bilateral agreement with Japan, sponsored by Great Britain and the United States, few months before the Treaty of the Nine Powers (Washington, 6 February 1922).
69 Wood G. Zhao, The Shantung Question: A Study in Diplomacy and World Politics (New York: Fleming Revell Company, 1922), 13.
70 Feng, The Diplomatic Relations between China and Germany Since 1898, 187.
71 At least eighteen nations, including thirteen European were granted concessions in China by signing unequal treaties that favored colonial expansion in China. “John King Fairbank and Denis Crispin Twitchett,” The Cambridge History of China, XII (1978): 129 indicate in total the number of about 100 treaties with territorial and economic benefits until 1917 (the exact number is not yet defined). Also see, Dong Wang, China Unequal Treaties; William Tung, China and the Foreign Powers: The Impact and Reaction to the Unequal Treaties; Orazio Coco, Colonialismo Europeo in Estremo Oriente. L’esperienza delle concessioni territoriali in Cina, Rome, Nuova Cultura.
72 Hans Weicher (1908), 226.
73 Mühlhahn, “German Colonialism and Chinese Nationalism in Qingdao 1897–1914,” 53.
74 Hou Chi-ming, Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China, 1840–1937 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1965); Samuel Ho, Pacific Affairs, 50, no. 3 (1977): 460–6; Hou Chi-ming, The Journal of Economic History, XXIII, no. 3 (September 1963): 277–97, also in Michael Dillon, ed., Key Papers on Chinese Economic History Up to 1949 (Global Oriental, 2008), 16 and 119 ss.
75 Expression used by Sun Yat-sen, The Three Principles of the People (Taipei: China Publishing Company), Second lecture (1923), 8 (Frank W. Price’s English translation).
76 Xiang, The Origin of the Boxer War, 76.
77 Mühlhahn, “German Colonialism and Chinese Nationalism in Qingdao 1897–1914,” 54.