The Late Qing Dynasty Financial History Of Thought

With the intensification of reform and the change of economic situation, the limitations of the current fiscal system become prominent, which has threaten to the development of society and economic in China. China made decision to reform fiscal system on a large scale from the year 2008. How to put forward socialism fiscal theory with Chinese characteristics according the principle of scientific development has become the focus and the most difficult problem in the field of financial research. It is time to review fiscal thoughts in the late Ch'ing period(1840-1912). By exploring the hidden objective law of the development of fiscal theory in the late Ch'ing period, China can draw many historical experiences and lessons, which may endow China with some important inspiration and revelation to reform the current fiscal system properly.In order to explore the law of the development of fiscal theory in developing country, the thesis makes a study of fiscal thoughts in the late Ch'ing period from six aspects, including thoughts of financial principle, thoughts of revenue, thoughts of customs duty, thoughts of foreign debt, thoughts of fiscal expenditure and thoughts of financial management .In each of the six areas mentioned above, this thesis makes a systematic study and a carefully worked-out by diversified means including the combination of historical description and theoretical analysis, the integration of empirical analysis and normative analysis, the unity of theory and practice, comparison and other research methods of related discipline.Through research of varied fiscal thoughts in the late Ch'ing period in those six areas, this paper outlines the general picture of those financial ideas, draws the basic clue of the development of fiscal theories and improves the systematicness of those thoughts. At the end of research, this article arrives at the conclusion that the history of financial thoughts in the late Ch'ing period is the history of confrontation and integration between traditional financial thoughts and modern fiscal ideas. Along with the declining of traditional fiscal thoughts derived from the feudal self-sufficient economic and the feudal authoritarian rule, China approached continuously towards modern fiscal theory at the directions of market-oriented, democratization and rule of law by the ingenious link of succession of Chinese tradition economic thoughts and absorption from the Western economic theory. In sort, those fiscal thoughts in the late Ch'ing period began the modern transformation of financial theory in China and pointed the direction, path and methods to construct socialism fiscal theory with Chinese characteristics today.Besides the innovation in the research methods, the innovation of this thesis is mainly reflected in the following areas: First, the subject is unique because this paper is the first attempt to study the fiscal thoughts in the late Ch'ing period systematically and comprehensively. Second, the style is unparalleled. This paper studies those enormous fiscal thoughts according to subject instead of according to figure, which provides a new pattern to do research on fiscal thoughts in the late Ch'ing period. Third, historical materials are unmatched. Different from other research, this paper is not only concerned about the relevant historical data of representative figures and forerunners, but also pay attention to explore related historical materials of non-representative characters, non-well-known historical figures and conservative person. Those varied historical materials play important role in outlining the general picture of the financial theory in the late Ch'ing period. Fourth, this paper does some fresh research, including study on thoughts of financial principle, thoughts of fiscal expenditure and thoughts of financial management. These work expand research field and widen research fellow's outlook. Finally, this paper draws some original conclusion. Among them, the most important conclusion is that different tracks of historical evolution of fiscal ideas in six areas mentioned above have three common orientations. Market-oriented, democratization and rule of law not only reveal the law of development of fiscal theory in the late Ch'ing period, but also endow China with some important inspiration and clues to reform the current fiscal system.