Dissertation
The Money deluge: the great credit expansion and the state-society relations in Manchuria, 1905 to 1932
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Spring 2022
DOI: 10.17077/etd.006363
Abstract
This dissertation provides the first archival research into the Government Bank of the Three Eastern Province (GBTEP), the major regional Chinese government bank in Manchuria. It studies the history from its establishment in 1905 by the Qing Dynasty and its merger into the Central Bank of Manchou by the Japanese colonial government in 1932. Using financial data and debt cases from the Liaoning Provincial Archive, this dissertation challenges the conventional narrative of warlordism that characterized the Manchurian government as corruptive and ineffective, incapable of defending its sovereignty against foreign imperialism, especially in the economic sphere. This dissertation shows that the government in Fengtian City created a bank that can compete with foreign banks that were considered more “modern” than their Manchurian counterpart. The development of the government bank and the promulgation of state banknotes as a continuous process of state-building. At the center of the process was the expansion of banknotes circulation via credits offered by the government bank. The government was able to create a monetary-fiscal system that helped it navigated the political and economic crisis during this period. Especially, since 1921, state banknotes were able to eliminate all domestic competitors and unify the currency in the Fengtian province. The Global Great Depression of 1929 pushed the government to further intervene into the credit markets by expanding credits at the village level, resulting in further deepening of state infrastructure in local society in the region. However, the financial network established by GBTEP also facilitated Japan’s consolidation of its colonial rule after 1932.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The Money deluge: the great credit expansion and the state-society relations in Manchuria, 1905 to 1932
- Creators
- Aiqi Liu
- Contributors
- Shuang Chen (Advisor)Alyssa Park (Committee Member)Colin Gordon (Committee Member)Matthew Zachary Noellert (Committee Member)Stephen Vlastos (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- History
- Date degree season
- Spring 2022
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.006363
- Number of pages
- ix, 276 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2022 Aiqi Liu
- Language
- English
- Description illustrations
- map, graphs, tables
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 264-276).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
- My dissertation examines the creation and distribution of modern money in China. Specifically, it tracks the history of the largest regional public bank in China, the Governmental Bank of the Three Eastern Provinces, and the ways it implemented the first large-scale circulation of fiat money—state-issued currency not backed by any commodities—and helped proliferate credit to rural areas in Manchuria. Departing from previous histories of global finance that focus on the financial metropolis, I argue that Manchuria, a rural periphery in northeastern China, was the birthplace of China’s modern monetary revolution: the transition from free banking to state monopoly. The competition among governments and banks of China, Russia, and Japan compelled the Manchurian government to redefine money that served as the new fundamental lever of state power. It also reveals the dark consequences of this process: Japan’s failure to gain control of the financial market in Manchuria led it to seize the territory outright in 1931 and the subsequent start of the war in Asia. The project illuminates the evolution of money and state-building at a critical historical moment in twentieth-century China and the unknown origins of the Pacific War.
- Academic Unit
- History
- Record Identifier
- 9984270953902771
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