The 1931 Flood Relief Loan And The Cotton & Wheat Loan

The Flood Relief Loan in 1931 and the Cotton & Wheat Loan in 1933 were differentfrom ordinary loans in nature and were closely related to international situation in theFar East at the time. The rights and wrongs of these two loans have always arouseddisputes among scholars in China.On the basis of relevant historical materials and records as well as research results byother scholars, this paper firstly gives a detailed analysis of the background of thesetwo loans, including domestic background of both the U.S. and China andinternational situation in the Far East. By so doing, the concrete process of initiatingthese two loans is reproduced.Then, this paper gives full analysis of the economic value of the two loans and theirdomestic impact as well as impact on the triangular relations among China, the UnitedStates and Japan. On the basis of this analysis, this paper tries to give the two loans asubjective evaluation: the attempt of the Nanking Nationalist Government to isolateand check Japan through forging closer economic relations with the United States inthe hope of getting political and economic support from the United States hasbasically failed.Finally, this paper tries to reveal lessons that we can draw from these two loans interms of national interest, public opinion and so on.