The External Debt Of Later Qing Dynasty And The Answer Of Finance

There was no debt pro-opium war in china, and then there were much more debts past-opium war. The transition and change from no debt to much more debts in later Qing dynasty was caused by political corruption, foreign invasion and domestic rebellions, Chinese modern external debt was characterized by backward, compelled and half-colony.Most of the debts are applied to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Zho Zhentang's punitive expedition to the west and the war between China and France. The debts before 1894 mainly included five times debts at the expense of 1894's war and three times war indemnity to Japanese. This is the start of Chinese debt turning to evil, because it is in company with much benefits and powers be losing, most duty of customs and salt being mortgaged, and the power of custom manage being stolen by British. The external debt which is caused by Eight Allied Army Invasion China in 1900 intensifies Chinese finance crisis, At the same time, it produces a great impact on modern China, makes Chinese colony heavier. In the circumstance of Qing dynasty centralization of finance system being broken up, the state apports most of debts to locality, and makes local finance worse than before. The local state's income is limited. They had no chance but to exploit more from people and loan from abroad, which made local debt spread unchecked. In company local military and polical external debt raising, industry debt appears. Railroad construction debt, mining industry debt and telecommunication debt have made a positive role on modern society of China.How to repay debt is an important part of financial action of later Qing dynasty. The state could answer through misappropriation before1894, because the debt is little and the time is short. It enlarged greatly after 1894, They had to repay more than 20 millions liang sliver every year. After there, the finance of later Qing becomes unbalance. The repaying money reached 40 millions liang sliver every year after 1900. Customs duty, tax of general merchandise and even land were being guaranteed to repay external debt.Modern China has been weak in the international society after opium war. Most external debts in this period are imposed by imperialism. This has determined the evil characteristic of modern china external debt. It greatly wrecked the state finance and economy. In order to surmount the difficulty, the state has adopt a series of measures to make up for, such as increasing feudal land tax, changing the way of water transport of grain to the capital, rectifying the tax of general merchandise, raising salt price, exorbitantly collecting taxes and levies, rectifying finance through dividing the taxes into nation and locality, practicing national budget andfinal state accounts and so on. All of those are positive to repayexternal debt and put the finance right. But most of amendments can't thoroughly resolve the problem of external debt and financial unbalance.Essentially, the backward feudal system has obstructed the development of modern China. Now that it is necessary that Qing dynasty should be overturned, and then, it is obvious that minor details amendment can't save it.