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BOOK REVIEWS
Pamela Atwell, British Mandarins and Chinese Reformers: the British Administration of Weihaiwei (1898-1930) and the Territory's Return to Chinese Rule, Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. 302 + xxiii pp. Appendices, Notes, Bibliography, Glossary (with Chinese characters), Index.
The year was 1898 and the sun was setting on the Ch'ing dynasty which had ruled the Chinese Empire since 1644. China's defeat by Japan in 1895 had revealed its weaknesses once more to the world. Foreign powers sought to take advantage of the vulnerability of the Ch'ing government to intensify their demands for territorial and economic concessions. The Powers rushed, or "scrambled", to attain their objectives before others could get to them first.
In one respect, the Powers had the support of Chinese officials, who, implementing traditional Chinese policy of using barbarians to control barbarians, sought to achieve a balance of power in China. By 1898, the Russians built a naval base at Port Arthur while the Germans established their presence over the province of Shantung. In April 1898, the Chinese government leased Weihaiwei to Britain. Weihaiwei, at the tip of the Kiaochow Peninsula in northern Shantung, was then occupied by the Japanese. It was hoped that, from this vantage, the British would be able to counter Russian and German strength in North China, and all of them would keep out the Japanese.
The British stayed at Weihaiwei until 1930, when it was returned to Chinese administration. During the interim, the Kaiser and the Tsar had collapsed and China had gone through the Boxers uprising, a series of reforms, a revolution that toppled the Ch'ing dynasty, a period of disunity and warlord rule, and, finally, the establishment of the National Government at Nanking led by Chiang Kai-shek in 1927. The rise of Chinese nationalism increased demand for rendition of all foreign concessions in China, including Weihaiwei.