Research On Tariff Modernization In Late Qing Dynasty And Its Fiscal Impact

At present,under the international background of economic integration and economic globalization,trade protectionism or unilateral trade protectionism under the banner of free trade and other anti-globalization phenomena still exist.Among them,tariff is an important form of national trade policy.As we all know,a country’s tariff and trade policy is not only related to national revenue,but also closely related to national security and national interests.Because of this,the tariff has become an unavoidable topic,many scholars on tariff adjustment and its impact launched a heated discussion.Based on this,it is necessary to review the history of the present,from a historical perspective to comb the evolution of the late Qing customs and its impact on finance,in order to provide some reference and thinking for today’s tariff reform in China.Looking at Chinese history,until the Opium War,China’s tariff system was relatively stable.However,with the progress of the western Industrial revolution and the expansion of capitalism,the Great powers led by Britain opened the door of China by force,and China’s tariff was the first to be impacted and gradually evolved into modernization.The tariff modernization of the late Qing Dynasty has very distinct characteristics,including the passive loss of tariffs under the invasion of the foreign powers,and the active change of the government and people of vision.The author takes the four major wars in the late Qing Dynasty as the main line to describe the changes in tariff content,including the adjustment of goods tax rate,the range of tax reduction and exemption,as well as ship money,and analyzes the impact of the changes in tariff content on tariff sovereignty on this basis.Then it expounds how to call for tariff reform and put forward relevant countermeasures and suggestions after seeing the harm of tariff loss in the Qing government and people of all social strata.As a part of finance,tariff modernization of the late Qing Dynasty had a great impact on the national finance,including both favorable and unfavorable aspects.The adjustment of tariff content made the tariff revenue increase rapidly and promoted the financial structure of the late Qing Dynasty to change from agricultural tax structure to commercial tax structure.The author uses the method of theoretical analysis and empirical test to analyze the reasons for the increase of tariff revenue in the late Qing Dynasty and finds that the increase of tariff revenue mainly depends on the increase of import volume.However,the change of tariff sovereignty led to the loss of fiscal sovereignty and the confusion of fiscal distribution,which made the national fiscal income beyond its means and the central Ministry of Household was unable to cope with it.Therefore,the late Qing government promoted a series of fiscal reforms,but finally failed to achieve them.Based on the study of tariff and finance in the late Qing Dynasty,the following enlightenment is obtained: control tariff sovereignty,enhance comprehensive national strength;Strengthen tariff policy research to ensure steady growth of fiscal revenue;Respect national sovereignty,adhere to reciprocal trade,etc.