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2 episodes with yet china
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance
Building resiliency, in part by decoupling the US economy from China's, is essential to our long-term security. China is doing the same thing. Yet China's export business is booming, and it dominates trade with other emerging markets. Is a communist nation beating us at capitalism?
Lets discuss an intriguing story in global trade - North Korea, the notoriously secretive nation, still finding ways to move goods in and out, to the tune of a billion US dollars in 2022. North Korea has earned the nickname "the hermit kingdom" due to its isolationism and secrecy. Yet some trade does flow across its borders. Data from the UN Comtrade database shows North Korea imported and exported about a billion dollars worth of goods last year. That might sound like a lot, but it's far less than 5 years ago. In fact, North Korean trade has been on a dramatic decline. Back in 2015, they exported 2.8 billion dollars worth of goods. By 2017, sliced by more than half - down to 1.7 billion. Last year? A mere 192 million dollars in exports. Their imports tell a similar story - 3 and a half billion in 2015, now down to 903 million. It seems global sanctions on the nation, even before the pandemic, started isolating them from world trade. China now clearly dominates as North Korea's main trade partner. In 2015, China already represented 85% of North Korean import trade. That figure now stands at an astonishing 99% - proof the pandemic sealed the so-called hermit kingdom off even further.Yet China fuels the majority of North Korea's exports too, buying nearly 70% of their outbound goods. Still a handful of European nations maintain trade ties - notably Poland and the Netherlands. Just last year Poland imported 10 million dollars worth of North Korean plastics, machinery and steel. The Dutch bought 8 million in nickel and airplane parts. Of course those numbers pale compared to China's vast trade footprint with Pyongyang. The pandemic has slammed borders shut and slowed global trade to a crawl for most countries. But isolationist North Korea was already retreating from the world stage - so the disruption to their economy may cut even deeper. As sanctions continue and Covid impacts linger, it remains to be seen how North Korea will respond and reshape their place in global trade and diplomacy going forward. More isolationism? Or renewed engagement? That's the big question looming over the hermit kingdom.To help support this brand new news agency,Thanks For Listening Everyone! To Help Support this podcast use any of the links belowPay Pal DonationTo Order My ServicesAmazon Associates LinkGovernment Grants Home PageAtheoz Podcast Home PageCommission Earned For Past Podcast Episodes
China's leaders have claimed that the country will contribute to one third of global economic growth in 2023. They also boast that China is more stable than many other countries, which are experiencing problems related to high inflation and bank failures. Yet China faces economic pressures which seem to be holding back a strong rebound following the lifting of Zero-Covid restrictions. In this podcast, Zuri Lintetsky from the Eurasia Group Foundation in Washington DC discusses the political and economic outlook for China with Duncan Bartlett, Research Associate at the SOAS China Institute.
Last time we spoke about the modernization efforts of Big Brother and Little Brother, aka China and Japan. Both nations went about the process of modernization in vastly different ways. Japan began its Meiji restoration, an incredible hyper modernization process done to thwart colonization by western powers. Yet China was hampered by hardline conservatives like Empress Dowager Cixi who sought instead to restore the Qing Dynasty's symbolic grandeur over technological innovations such as railways. China's greatest leaders like Zuo Zongtang, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang did all they could to usher in some form of modernization. Li Hongzhang emerged as the champion of modernization efforts for China, but he kept butting heads with stubborn conservatives wishing instead to reclaim the Qing's former symbolic glory.. It would not only be the conservatives in China he would have to face, for the Empire of the Rising Sun was growing, and forcing China into the shade. #37 This episode is China & Japan & the Hermit Kingdom Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. In the early 1860's, before Emperor Meiji took to the throne, the Japanese sought to establish diplomatic relations with China. The Japanese regarded China as an enormous nation that could provide markets for their merchants, but more importantly, China could cooperate with Japan in the face of Western challenges. Who better to help thwart off the west, than Big Brother? In October of 1870, the Japanese official Date Munenari went to Tianjin to meet Li Hongzhang to see if they could open formal diplomatic relations. Li Hongzhang believed in the value of establishing relations with Japan and the importance for China to modernize and self-strengthen. Li Hongzhang admired Japan for preventing westerners from invading their nation and limiting the activities of westerners within her borders. The meeting was a cordial one, both sides saw common interest in working together to resist the west. In 1871 on September 13th, Li Hongzhang and Date Munenari signed the Friendship and Trade Treaty, the first diplomatic document between China and Japan in modern history. Li Hongzhang agreed that the two nations would not launch aggression against another and that if either nation were involved in a conflict with an outside power the other would come to their assistance. It sounded a lot like Pan-Asia unity was atleast on its way, but before the treaty could be ratified the Japanese tried to eliminate the clause to provide assistance and added a new clause, that Japan would be given most favored nation, thus giving Japan the same rights that the western nations had forced upon China, yes it was an unequal treaty clause. As you can imagine Li Hongzhang was greatly annoyed by this and delayed the ratification to try and get the Japanese to back down. By May of 1873 the Japanese yielded, accepting the mutual assistance clause and abandoned the most favored nation clause. Leaders of China and Japan than expressed that their nations shared common culture and were a common race “Tongwen, Tongzu - Dobun, Doshu” and thus they shared an interest in working together to respond to the threat of the west. When this treaty was signed, the Iwakura mission had not yet returned to Japan, but Emperor Meiji had assigned Japans foreign minister, Soejima Taneoimi to go to China to learn about her position on the issue of the Ryukyus and Taiwan. Japan had interests in them and knew this would lead to conflict with the Qing. Soejima was an expert on the Chinese classics and skilled at Chinese poetry. Thus when he went over and the Chinese hosts began to make it clear Japan was in a supplicant relationship with China because she held the Chinese emperor, Soejima used his knowledge to wedge Japan into a special position. He came to Tianjin and met with Li Hongzhang. Famously when they met, Li Hongzhang was in traditional clothing, while Soejima was in western attire and Li criticized him for this. Soejima then went to Beijing and waited several days trying to get an audience with high level Qing officials. The Qing were greatly angered by Japanese attempt to get most favored nation status in the treaty. Thus they were really trying to hammer in that Japan was the supplicant to China. Soejima was upset at the condescension with which he was treated. He quoted the Duke of Zhou stating to the Qing “If you treat [foreigners] as barbarians, they will be just that, but if you treat them as true gentlemen, they will indeed become true gentlemen.” Soejima was the first Japanese person in modern times to meet the Qing emperor. Prince Gong greeted him and told Soejima he would not have to kowtow before the emperor. The kowtow issue had actually been resolved because Western diplomats had made too many problems of it, by proxy Japan would not have to either. The Qing made an effort to show respect to Soejima by seeing him before other foreign diplomats and allowed him to bow just 3 times. Soejima was wine and dined by Li Hongzhang in Tianjin later, it was extremely cordial and there was goodwill between the men. Soejima's experience in China had him returning to Japan confident that China would not stop Japan from expanding her trading activities in the Ryukyus and China. Japan then prepared a legation staff to China and established a formal diplomatic office in Beijing with Mori Arinori as the ambassador. Li Hongzhang advocated that Beijing should establish a legation in Japan, arguing that if China had had a legation there they could have prevented Japan from attacking Taiwan in 1874. China's legation staff would arrive in Tokyo in december of 1877, again slow to the mark. Li Hongzhang was cautious about Japanese intentions now and in 1876 met with Mori Arinori. They shared concerns over Russian advances and Li Hongzhang suggested to Mori Arinori that their nations should cooperate on matters in Korea. Japan was focusing efforts to strengthen its northern island against possible Russian threats. They viewed Sakhalin, Manchuria and Korea to be regions of national security concern. While Japan worried about Russia encroaching on Hokkaido from the sea, China worried about Russia encroaching on its northeast region. Although the trans-siberian railway only began construction in 1891 their efforts to settle people across Siberia in preparation for its construction began much earlier. The Qing had not allowed non Manchu people to reside in their homeland of Manchuria since conquering the Ming dynasty centuries before. To strengthen resistance against Russia, in 1878 the Qing changed their immigration policy to allow and even encourage non-Manchu to come to Manchuria. Within a few years many migrants came from various parts of China to settle in Manchuria. Japan likewise was sending settlers to develop Hokkaido, but unlike Japan, the Qing had no real development plans to modernize manchuria. Soon after Hokkaido began being developed the Japanese next move was to gain control over the Ryukyu islands south of Japan's 4 main islands. This would be the first real tension between Japan and China. From 1862 to the mid 1870s Japan had concentrated on defense and thus things revolved around her 4 main islands. After the mid 1870s however, Japan gained in strength and began to expand their defensive perimeter. The Ryukyu, in Chinese “the Liuqui Kingdom” was led by indigenous peoples who oversaw the small islands stretching between Kyushu and Taiwan. The Ryukyu kingdom tried to fight for its independence by showing good will to both China and Japan and this brought Qing and Tokugawa presence. The Ryukyu kingdom maintained Chinese and Japanese emissaries who came regularly, but never at the same time. The Ryukyu kingdom paid tribute to China and traded with her, thus was influenced heavily by her. However culturally the Ryukyu were closer to Japan and Satsuma domain in particular had a large influence on her. From 1871 to 1874, Japan used a shipwreck incident involving some Ryukyu fisherman off the coast of Taiwan to strengthen her rights to govern the Ryukyu islands. In 1871 Ryukyu fisherman in 4 small boats got stuck in a typhoon sinking 1, shipwrecking 2 and 1 remained afloat. The survivors made their way ashore on Taiwan where 44 of them were killed by Taiwanese aboriginals. 12 fisherman survived and escaped aboard their last boat back to the Ryukyus. At this time Taiwan was under the control of Fujian province and the Japanese government demanded China compensate the fisherman. This inherently was also the Japanese government claiming the Ryukyu islands to belong to them. For two years the issue went unresolved and in 1874 Japan launched a punitive expedition led by Saigo Tsugumichi, the brother to the famous last Samurai Saigo Takamori. If you are interested in the story of Saigo by the way over at the Pacific War channel I have an episode dedicated to the Satsuma Rebellion, what inspired the film the Last Samurai, though that movie is sort of a mix between the Boshin War and the Satsuma rebellion, still good movie just not historically accurate. Well the Qing officials explained to the Japanese that the Taiwanese were not technically under Qing control and that the Ryukyu islands were actually under Qing jurisdiction. The Japanese expeditionary forces remained on Taiwan, intentionally to intimidate China. Soejima and the official Okubo Toshimichi went to China to discuss the issue and under pressure the Qing officials agreed to pay compensation to Japan for the Ryukyu sailors, but later stated they were unaware the payment would also provide Japan with support for her claim over the Ryukyu islands. Li Hongzhang was livid over this betrayal and stated that while the Europeans were at least honest in their negotiations, the Japanese were duplicitous. By the mid 1870's the Japanese and Chinese militaries both increased their presence in the Ryukyus. Then in 1879 during the process of abolishing the old feudal domains to replace them with prefectures, Japan officially recognized the Ryukyu islands as the prefecture we know today as Okinawa. Japan followed this up by ordering Okinawa to stop sending tribute to China. Now Li Hongzhang had supported relations with Japan, even with their incursions in Taiwan in 1874 and their swindle of treaty deals, but in 1880 China refused Japan's official proposal concerning the Ryukyus. China however did not follow this up militarily. The problems between China and Japan would only worsen and it would be Korea stuck in the middle. Japan's interests in Korea were both for security and economic. Of all the territories near Japan, Korea was the most significant strategic area. She was in the vortex of Russia, China and Japan. Korea had also been the crux of two military clashes between Japan and China in 661-663 and 1592-1598. Alongside that Korea had been the staging area for the failed Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274-1281. The German military adviser to Japan, Major Jacob Meckle stated that Korea was “a dagger thrust at the heart of Japan” and this had a profound effect on Japanese strategists. Japan was concerned other nations, like Russia, would use Korea as a base from which to attack Japan. Yet if Japan could establish a military presence on the peninsula, well that would prevent this from ever occurring. Historically Japan had dealt with Korea, better called the Joseon dynasty through the Tsushima islands and Pusan island. Both Korea and Japan took up isolationist policies and much like Nagisaki acted as Japan's open port for so long, Korea kept Pusan as its open port. During the Sakoku period, Japan gave the Tsushima domain the responsibility of dealing with Korea. There had always been limited trade between the two nations, but things certainly changed after Japan kicked off its Meiji restoration. Japan had looked to nations like Britain as an example of how to build a strong economy. This led Japanese officials to seek a relationship like Britain had when it came to economic activity. To manufacture products, sell it to its colonies and build up its own economy. Their idea for this was to import soybeans and wheat from Korea and sell Korea industrial products. Initially Japan's only major export was raw silk, so they decided to try exporting silk textiles. In late 1869 a Japanese representative from Tsushima was sent to Pusan to announce Japan was to have a new emperor, standard stuff. What was not standard however was in the letter sent to the Koreans the term for the Japanese emperor used the Ko character rather than Taikun. The Ko character was used to refer to the Qing emperor, implying the Joseon Dynasty's emperor was inferior. By using the Ko character for the Japanese emperor, Japan was trying to establish the same relationship. And so the Korean officials refused to receive the new representative and his mission as a result. The Koreans wanted to remain in the sinocentric world as tributaries to the Qing. This fiasco led to the legendary Seikanron debates, in which Saigo Takamori argued Japan should perform a punitive expedition against Korea, again if you want to hear more about that hilarious tale check out my Satsuma Rebellion episode on the Pacific War channel. Long story short, the Japanese leadership knew they were not yet strong enough to embark on such a venture so they blocked Saigo's motion. Now Japan did not simply give up on the Korean situation, they kept trying to send envoys to force Korea to recognize the equality between Japan and China. In the meantime in 1875, the steam gunboat Un'yo under the command of Inoue Yoshika was dispatched to survey the Korean coastal water. On the morning of September the 20th, Inoue put ashore a party on the island of Ganghwa to request water and provisions and here came a major conflict. Ganghwa had quite recently been the place of two major conflicts, a French expedition against Korea occurred in 1871 and an American expedition the same year. Thus the men manning the fortifications at Ganghwa were trigger happy with fresh memories of what foreign ships could do to them. When the Japanese came ashore, the Korean shore batteries fired upon the Un'yo. The Japanese as you might imagine were really pissed off and they quickly dispatched 32 men, 10 marines, 19 sailors and 3 officers to attack Yeongjong fort. The men landed near the eastern gate of the fortress and immediately white coated Joseon defenders began firing their antiquated matchlocks and some arrows down upon the Japanese. A Japanese sailor was wounded by a matchlock ball and another was hit in the groin by an arrow. The Japanese pressed their attack climbing over a wall to open the gates as their marines rushed into the fort. The Un'yo fired its 6.3 in and 5.5 in deck guns to support the assault. The Koreans tried to flee through their western gate only to run into 6 Japanese sailors who ambushed them. Kawamura Kwanshu, a Japanese officer present had this to say "they clambered down the steep bank on the south-eastern side, and in hopes of escaping to the opposite island … they stripped off their clothes and plunged into the sea. Unfortunately, the tide was high and too deep to wade across. Many of them hesitated and we fired on them without mercy ― 24 Koreans were killed on the rocks and many more drowned trying to swim to safety. Only six or seven were seen making it safely ashore on the distant island.” The commander of the fort, Yi Min-dok managed to escape as the Japanese plundered the fort which Kawamura tells us " We took 36 bronze cannons and a drum nearly 6 feet in diameter. In addition to this there were four drums three feet in diameter. Their trumpets were very like toy trumpets used by children in Japan. Their bows also were very like the Japanese. Their arrows were exactly like those in Japan. The swords were numerous, but they must have been bought in Japan. The guns were all matchlocks. Among the booty was a French book on gunnery translated into Chinese." Many Koreans were captured and they were forced to carry the plunder to the Un'yo as the Rising Sun flag was raised over the fort. The Japanese held the island awaiting a challenge from Korea, but none came. The next day the Un'yo returned to Japan leaving Yeongjong in ruins. The entire ordeal turned into an implicit threat to Korea, if they refused to recognize Japan's claim and open up relations Japan would use its military might. Within Japan, the Korea incidents had gone hand in hand with the Satsuma rebellion of 1877 to push the Japanese public to support military action in Korea. The Meiji leadership were under pressure, but they hoped to avoid conflict by resolving such problems through diplomacy. Li Hongzhang perceived that if Japan were to invade Korea, this might provoke Russia to respond and thus China also wanted to resolve such issues through diplomacy. The Qing dynasty officially held suzerainty over the Joseon Dynasty, thus they held the right to approve Korea's foreign policy decisions but not to interfere with her domestic affairs. For centuries China held this right, but did not exercise it. Then in 1875, Mori Arinori was sent to Beijing seeking Qing support to open trade between Japan and Korea. Mori Arinori met with the Qing office for general management of affairs concerning the various countries, what a mouthful, known as the Zongli Yamen. The Zongli Yamen officials stated while Korea was a Chinese dependency, China still could not interfere with her domestic affairs and thus could not demand she open up trade with Japan. So the next year Mori Arinori met with Li Hongzhang over the issue and both men sought a peaceful agreement. Mori Arinori advocated for Korea to be treated under international law as a sovereign state. Now Ito Hirobumi the rising political leader of Japan during this time believed progress could not be made opening Korea up by working with the Qing. He urged his colleagues that Japan should work with Korea directly instead. Korea at this time was going through some major changes as well. The young Emperor Gojong turned 21 years old in 1873 and replaced his father Yi Ha-eung who was the Heungseon Daewongun, basically a regent ruling the dynasty. His father was a conservative with a very simple foreign policy it went like this according to the American Historian Bruce Cummings “no treaties, no trade, no catholics, no west and no Japan”. Yes the Daewongun liked his isolationist policy and he was not wrong about doing so. By keeping Korea as bottled up as possible he was able to keep the western powers arguably out for quite some time. However the problem with this was while keeping the west out you were also hindering chances at modernization and an industrial revolution. Korea was known as the Hermit Kingdom and while she tried her best to keep the world out, the world eventually would come crashing in. When Gojong came into power in 1873, unlike his father he was much more willing to consider opening up and working with the Japanese. Now alongside Gojong was his wife, the famous Empress Myeongseong, also called Empress Min. She was born to the Yeoheung Min Clan in 1851. They were a noble clan who historically held high positions in the Joseon dynasty. She lost her father at age 7 and was raised by her mother and other Min relatives. When Gojong turned 15, his father sought a wife for him. He wanted someone with no close relatives so she could not harbor much political ambitions, but came from a noble lineage. He rejected many, until he found the orphaned Min who was beautiful and of ordinary level of education. She was married to Gojong and after Daewongun realized the empress had political ambitions. Daewongun had this to say of her “she was a woman of great determination and poise”, despite this he paid little mind to her and things moved on. Empress Min would quickly ruffle feathers so to speak. She showed herself to be very assertive and ambitious. She did not toss lavish parties for the nobles nor participated in the normal extravagant lifestyle, you know wine and dining, tea parties with the princes and princesses all that jazz you see in the Crown. No instead she spent a lot of her time self educating, reading books reserved for men. She studied history, science, politics, the works. By the age of 20 she began trying to play an active role in politics in spite of the Daewongun and other officials trying to stop her. She then bore child prematurely who died 4 days after birth. This prompted the Daewongun to state publicly that she was unable to bear a healthy male child, which became quite a public scandal. Queen Min even suspected her father in law had slipped her ginseng to cause her pregnancy issues. Daewongun proceeded to push his son to conceive a child through a concubine called Yi Gwi-in and she soon gave birth to Prince Wanhwa. Daewongun quickly tossed the title of crown prince upon the child and it looked like the jig was up for Empress Min. However Empress Min secretly began to form a powerful faction against the Daewongun. The faction included high officials, scholars, members of the Min Clan and they made a move to remove the Daewongun from power. Empress Min's adoptive older brother, Min Seung-Ho along with the Joseon court scholar Choe Ik-Hyeon formally impeached the Daewongun arguing that Gojong, then age 22 should rule in his own right. The royal council agreed to this and Daewongun was forced to retire. The second he was out of the picture, Empress Min banished Yi Gwi-in and her child to a village outside the capital and stripped them of royal titles. The child also died on january 12th of 1880. Now Empress Min had control over the Joseon court and quickly appointed trusted family members in high court positions to assert her dominant role as Queen consort. So yeah she was a firebrand of a woman, a very interesting character, I do apologize my knowledge of Korean history is limited, but I do recommend if you are into Korean tv series there are quite a few on her like Empress Myeongseong from 2001. Now just a few months after the Un'yo incident, Japan sent an emissary to Korea to push a treaty. It was the exact same type of situation Japan faced when Commodore Matthew Perry's blackships, gunboat diplomacy. King Gojong signed what became known as the Ganghwa Treaty: this opened up 3 Korean ports to Japan, one at Pusan right away, one Wonsan in 1880 and another at Inchon and 1883. The treaty was an unequal treaty, very much in the same light as the ones forced upon Japan by western nations. The treaty had ended the Joseon dynasties tributary status under the Qing dynasty now she was an independent state. The Chinese were now suspecting Japan sought a presence on the peninsula and Li Hongzhang openly expressed fears that Japan might develop territorial ambitions on the mainland. The Chinese and Japanese continued talks about cooperation against the West, especially Russia, but they were also now quite wary of another. Now Korea was not idle during all of this and her officials sought a way to secure her. King Gojong sent a mission to Japan headed by Kim Hong-jip. Kim Hong-jip was presented a plan by a Chinese diplomat named Huang Zunxian there called “a strategy for Korea”. It warned that if Korea was threatened by an empire like Russia, Korea should maintain friendly relations with Japan, China and seek an alliance with the United States to counterweight Russia. Kim reported this to King Gojong who was impressed with the plan. Then in 1880 following the Chinese advice King Gojong established diplomatic ties with the US. Negotiations began between all the nations in Tianjin and the Treaty of Peace, Amity, Commerce and navigation was signed by Korea and the US. However during the negotiations, issues rose up. The Chinese insisted that Korea was not independent and still a dependency of China. America firmly opposed such a thing, stating the new treaty should build upon the Treaty of Ganghwa which stipulated Korea as an independent state. A compromise was made between China and the US stipulating that Korea held a special status as a tributary state of China. Now as of 1879, China had given Li Hongzhang responsibility for relations with Korea. Li Hongzhang urged Korean officials to adopt China's self-strengthening program to do the same for their nation in response to foreign threats. Korea after all had just opened herself to the world and now would pursue modernization under a doctrine known as tongdo sogi “eastern wars and western machines”. To modernize Korea would incorporate western technology while trying to preserve her culture, it was much alike to the Meiji restoration. In 1881 Korea established the T'ongni kimu amun “office for extraordinary affairs” modeled on the Qing administrative structures. That same year a mission was sent to Japan to see their modernized factories, military, and education system. Korea then hired a Japanese military attache, Lt Horimoto Reizo to help create a modern army for Korea. This led to the Pyolgigun “special skills force”, where around 100 men of Korea's aristocracy were given Japanese military training. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Trouble was brewing between the Qing dynasty and the Empire of the Rising Sun. It seemed the Hermit Kingdom of Korea was a continuous source of conflict for the two empires, and perhaps might drag them into a war that would change the balance of power in Asia forever
Located just 100 miles off the coast of mainland China, the nation of Taiwan sits in the so-called 'first island chain' - a group of US-friendly territories deemed crucial to American foreign policy.Yet China's president Xi Jinping maintains that Chinese reunification with Taiwan must be fulfilled. He's not ruled out the possible use of military force - and neither has US president Joe Biden. Tensions have grown even in the last few weeks, so to what extent can tensions over Taiwan be compared to those between Russia and Ukraine?In this episode, James Rogers from History Hit's Warfare podcast is joined by Samir Puri, Senior Fellow in Urban Security and Hybrid Warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies based in Singapore, to take a deep dive into the history between China & Taiwan and answer the question: could Taiwan really become China's Ukraine?Produced by Sophie Gee and Aidan Lonergan. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.
Located just 100 miles off the coast of mainland China, the nation of Taiwan sits in the so-called 'first island chain' - a group of US-friendly territories deemed crucial to American foreign policy.Yet China's president Xi Jinping maintains that Chinese reunification with Taiwan must be fulfilled. He's not ruled out the possible use of military force - and neither has US president Joe Biden. Tensions have grown even in the last few weeks, so to what extent can tensions over Taiwan be compared to those between Russia and Ukraine?In this episode James is joined by Samir Puri, Senior Fellow in Urban Security and Hybrid Warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies based in Singapore, to take a deep dive into the history between China & Taiwan and answer the question: could Taiwan really become China's Ukraine?For more Warfare content, subscribe to our Warfare Wednesday newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In 2015, Beijing won the bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. Since then, COVID-19, deteriorating relations with the West, allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang and a resulting diplomatic boycott put a damper on the Games. Yet China plowed forward, promising to put on a spectacular show while keeping out COVID-19, through the use of tight, non-negotiable safety measures. Today, we're talking to The National's Adrienne Arsenault from inside the rigid operation created to keep Beijing's 21 million residents safe from COVID-19 — and to keep the world's athletes, journalists and Winter Olympics' staff fenced in.
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 (Cornell UP, 2020) focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history. Austin Dean is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has appeared in Modern China and the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He is on twitter @thelicentiate. Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, tentatively titled Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies
The topic: Journalists serve as critical intermediaries between American and Chinese societies, reporting and interpreting events for audiences in both countries. Yet China has become an increasingly difficult place for American journalists as Chinese authorities have denied visas, placed restrictions on activities, and leveled criticism at Western media coverage of China. In turn, Chinese journalists have been forced to leave the United States. How do American journalists on the China beat cope with such challenges? How can outsiders gain information about such charged stories as the expanding detention camps in Xinjiang? Our guest: Austin Ramzy is a Hong Kong-based reporter for The New York Times, focusing on coverage of the city as well as regional and breaking news. He previously covered major events around Asia from Taipei and Beijing. He has covered the 2015 election in Myanmar, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and mass protest movements in Hong Kong and Taiwan, where he was based in 2014. Previously, Austin reported for Time magazine (2003-2013) from both Hong Kong and Beijing. Major assignments includes the Beijing Olympics, the Wenchuan earthquake, and China's response to the 2007-08 financial crisis. Complete episode transcript: tinyurl.com/5yc6p6z6. The series: David Skidmore and Kyle Munson produced this podcast series in conjunction with Skidmore's Spring 2021 U.S.-China international relations course at Drake University. Your hosts: David Skidmore is a Professor of Political Science at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he has taught since 1989. Skidmore's teaching and research focuses on U.S. foreign policy and U.S.-China relations. During the 1996-97 academic year, he taught at the Johns Hopkins-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China. He also served as a Fulbright Scholar based at the University of Hong Kong in 2010-2011. He is past Director of the Principal Financial Group Center for Global Citizenship (2002-2017) and the Nelson Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs (2012-2017), both at Drake University. Skidmore is author, co-author or editor of six books including a monograph titled The Unilateralist Temptation in American Foreign Policy (Routledge, 2011), and has published numerous articles or chapters in various academic journals and books. His most recent research focuses on China's Belt and Road Initiative. His editorial writing has appeared in Fortune, U.S. News and World Report, Salon, The Conversation, the Diplomat, Global Times and the Des Moines Register. Kyle Munson is a journalist, writer, podcaster, and content strategist who currently works in content marketing and financial services. He previously spent 24 years with The Des Moines Register/Gannett in a variety of roles, including eight years as columnist. In 2017 he was awarded a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to report on U.S.-China relations early in the Trump administration as Amb. Terry Branstad began his tenure in Beijing. That resulted in the project “Iowa in the Heart of China.” Munson also reported on Chinese President Xi Jinping's 2012 visit to Iowa. He has volunteered and served as a board member with Iowa Sister States, a nonprofit dedicated to citizen diplomacy. He currently chairs the board of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/uschina/message
How illegal pangolin trafficking is encouraging criminal activity in AsiaPangolins have been around for over 80 million years. Yet China’s demand is pushing them to the edge of extinction…How are these pangolins being trafficked from their natural habitats in Africa and Asia into China? We interview journalists from Myanmar, Nepal, and Indonesia: they explain why this trafficking is damaging the social fabric of their countries. Guests:Jiaming Xu, Chinese Investigative JournalistTin Htet Paing, Myanmar NowKunda Dixit, Nepali TimesSonia Awale, Nepali TimesWahyu Dhyatmika, Tempo JakartaCredits:Executive Producer and Host: Marcy Trent LongProducer: Bonnie AuAssistant Producer: Amber HouSound Engineer: Chris WoodINTRO/OUTRO Music: Alex MauboussinSubscribe for the latest episodes and review us on listennotes!Transcripts in Mandarin and English at chinadialogue and chinadialogueocean.
For nearly 200 years, China has looked to the west as the source of the most modern and cutting-edge technologies. From the Self-Strengthening Movement in the 19th century to the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) and Made in China 2025, Chinese leaders have consistently sought to foster homegrown technologies and scientific discovery that can compete on a global stage. In 2015, Dr. Tu Youyou became China’s first Nobel Laureate in science after her breakthrough in malaria treatments that has saved millions of lives. Yet China still has numerous technological challenges; from the lackluster performance of its chipmakers to protecting air quality. How has China’s uneven emergence as a technological player shaped the Sino-American relationship? Nancy Liu and Lawrence Sullivan, the authors of the Historical Dictionary of Science and Technology in Modern China, addressed this question in a discussion with National Committee President Stephen Orlins on November 8, 2017, in New York. Nancy Liu is the recipient of a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular pharmacology from Stony Brook State University. She is a cancer research scientist on the faculty of the College of Staten Island in the Department of Biology and the medical technology program. She previously worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Zuckerman Research Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering. With a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan where he studied with Professors Richard Solomon, Michel Oksenberg, and Harriet Mills, Lawrence R. Sullivan is an emeritus professor, Adelphi University. He also taught at Wellesley College, Brown University, Miami University, Ohio, and the University of Michigan. The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (www.ncuscr.org) is the leading nonprofit nonpartisan organization that encourages understanding of China and the United States among citizens of both countries.
Over the last decade, China has emerged as one of the largest suppliers of international development finance, with a large and growing overseas development budget. Yet China does not release detailed information about the “where, what, how, and to whom” of its development aid. This presents an obstacle for policy makers, practitioners, and analysts who seek to understand the distribution and impact of Chinese development finance. Since 2013, AidData has led an ambitious effort to develop an open source data collection methodology called Tracking Underreported Financial Flows (TUFF), and maintain a publicly available database of Chinese development projects around the world. AidData has also teamed up with a group of economists and political scientists from leading universities around the world to conduct cutting-edge research with this database, examining differences and similarities in the levels, priorities, and consequences of Chinese and American development finance. On March 13, Dr. Brad Parks, executive director of AidData and a faculty member at the College of William and Mary, discussed the organization’s work with the National Committee in New York City. Drawing on advanced techniques that include using nighttime light and deforestation data from high-resolution satellite imagery, Dr. Parks presented new findings on the intended economic development impacts and the unintended environmental impacts of Chinese development projects. Brad Parks is AidData’s executive director and a research faculty member at the College of William and Mary’s Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations. His research focuses on the cross-national and sub-national distribution and impact of international development finance, and the design and implementation of policy and institutional reforms in low-income and middle-income countries. His publications include Greening Aid?, Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance (Oxford University Press, 2008) and A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy (MIT Press, 2006). He is currently involved in several empirical studies of the upstream motivations for, and downstream effects of, Chinese development finance. His research in this area has been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Development Studies, China Economic Quarterly, and the National Interest. From 2005 to 2010, Dr. Parks was part of the initial team that set up the U.S. Government's Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). As acting director of Threshold Programs at the MCC, he oversaw the implementation of a $35 million anti-corruption and judicial reform project in Indonesia and a $21 million customs and tax reform project in the Philippines. Dr. Parks holds a Ph.D. in international relations and an M.Sc. in development management from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Over the last decade, China has emerged as one of the largest suppliers of international development finance, with a large and growing overseas development budget. Yet China does not release detailed information about the “where, what, how, and to whom” of its development aid. This presents an obstacle for policy makers, practitioners, and analysts who seek to understand the distribution and impact of Chinese development finance. Since 2013, AidData has led an ambitious effort to develop an open source data collection methodology called Tracking Underreported Financial Flows (TUFF), and maintain a publicly available database of Chinese development projects around the world. AidData has also teamed up with a group of economists and political scientists from leading universities around the world to conduct cutting-edge research with this database, examining differences and similarities in the levels, priorities, and consequences of Chinese and American development finance. On March 13, Dr. Brad Parks, executive director of AidData and a faculty member at the College of William and Mary, discussed the organization’s work with the National Committee in New York City. Drawing on advanced techniques that include using nighttime light and deforestation data from high-resolution satellite imagery, Dr. Parks presented new findings on the intended economic development impacts and the unintended environmental impacts of Chinese development projects. Brad Parks is AidData’s executive director and a research faculty member at the College of William and Mary’s Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations. His research focuses on the cross-national and sub-national distribution and impact of international development finance, and the design and implementation of policy and institutional reforms in low-income and middle-income countries. His publications include Greening Aid?, Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance (Oxford University Press, 2008) and A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy (MIT Press, 2006). He is currently involved in several empirical studies of the upstream motivations for, and downstream effects of, Chinese development finance. His research in this area has been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Development Studies, China Economic Quarterly, and the National Interest. From 2005 to 2010, Dr. Parks was part of the initial team that set up the U.S. Government's Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). As acting director of Threshold Programs at the MCC, he oversaw the implementation of a $35 million anti-corruption and judicial reform project in Indonesia and a $21 million customs and tax reform project in the Philippines. Dr. Parks holds a Ph.D. in international relations and an M.Sc. in development management from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
China is one of the oldest and richest civilisations in human history, traditionally occupying a central position in world affairs. Yet China descended into a century of decline after the First Opium War, a period of chaos that saw the demise of the Qing dynasty and the descent of the post-dynastic nationalist republic into civil war. This lecture documents China's century of decline and evaluates the forces that shattered the old dynastic order and plunged the country into political chaos. Copyright 2013 Benjamin Habib / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
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