Professional Banking Managers And The Transformation Of Modern China Financial System

China witnessed the transformation of modern banking system in the 1920s, when local banks became a competing force to the previous dominating players in the Chinese financial market, namely, the traditional Chinese private banks and foreign banks,since their coming into existence in the late 19th century.As one of them, the China & South Sea Bank Limited was established in 1921 in Shanghai as a commercial bank. It was founded by Huang Yizhu(Oei Ik Tjoe) who was an overseas Chinese from Indonesia. As a well capitalized bank coming with high reputation and credibility, the bank became one of the few Chinese owned banks to gain public confidence and its banknotes were widely circulated within China. Hu Bijiang(1881-1938), who was the general manager since the bank’s establishment and later a director, has always been recognized as a leading figure of the China & South Sea Bank Limited. During 1921-1938, Hu Bijiang played a significant role in the operating and management of the bank, with his great talent, social network and working styles having a huge impact on it.The research is focusing on the period of 1921 to 1937, for the bank’s most characteristic years. A study of certain key issues regarding the development of the China & South China Sea Bank Limited, namely the bank capital and structure planning, the right of issuing banknotes, cooperations between the China & South China Sea Bank Limited and other Chinese banks, problems, solutions in face of both outer and inner crisis, is reported here. The research aims to find out to what extend Hu Bijiang was the leading figure in the China & South China Sea Bank Limited, and how his thoughts and management skills has an impact on the bank. The forth part of the thesis comes to a conclusion that Hu Bijiang operated and managed the bank on the principle of deliberation and stability, and attached great importance to investment into domestic industry and commerce.Previously unpublished archives are used to support the main points and the method of case study is applied. Business reports, regulations, telegraphs, letters as well as meeting minutes revealed a lot about the operation and management of the bank and Hu Bijiang’s management theory. Different from most other professional bankers in his time, Hu Bijiang learned about banking knowlege from a traditional Chinese private bank instead of top universities overseas.However, he had an insight into the reality of Chinese financial m·arket and political environment, great talent for banking as well as good social networking. Consequently, Hu Bijiang is recognized as a successful professional banker in modern China who made the China & South China Sea Bank Limited what it was in its most prosperous days.