Directory_and_Chronicle_1933 — Page 434

376

CHINA.

land. Tibet which is also practically a dependency of China and whose actual status is still an outstanding question between Great Britain and China —has an area of 643,734 square miles and a population of over 6,000,000. Down to 1910 it was ruled by the Dalai Lama, but subject to the Government of Peking, which maintains a Resident at Lhassa. In consequence, however, of the Dalai Lama's refusal to comply with the demands of Peking, a Chinese military expedition was dispatched to Lhassa, and he fled to India, where he remained for over a year. Meanwhile, the great revolution broke out in China. The Tibetans seized the opportunity to proclaim their independence, and again a military expedition was sent to Tibet, but more conciliatory methods nad to be adopted. The Chinese troops were withdrawn and the Dalai Lama re- turned to the Tibetan Capital. The tripartite conference at Simla in 1914 to determine the status of Tibet and delimit the boundaries ended in failure, no agreement being arrived at. The Dalai Lama visited Peking in 1921 and was received in audience by President Hsu Shih-chang.

FOREIGN TRADE

The whole foreign trade of China for 1931. as measured by value, was 2,343 million Haikwan taels; and the following table gives data for the comparison of the value figures of the three years 1929 to 1931 :---

1929

Million

1930

Million

1931

Million

Hk. Tls.

Hk. Tls.

Hk. Tls.

Net Imports Exports

1,266

1,310

1,434

1,015

895

909

Total

2,281

2,205

2,343

Excess of Imports

231

415

525

Converted into terms of U.S. gold dollars at the equivalent of the Haikwan tae average sight exchange on New York for the years concerned (G. $0.64 in 1929, G. $0.46 in 1930, and G. $0.34 in 1931), foreign imports have declined from 810 million gold dollars in 1929 to 603 million gold dollars in 1930 and to 488 million gold dollars in 1931; but the silver figures given in the above table, representing as they do the cost to this country at the ports of arrival and despatch, are of course the true criterion of the value of China's international traffic in merchandise and the only means of assessing her so-called balance of trade in visible imports and exports. Although reference has just been made to the value of imports as expressed in U.S. gold dollars (this currency being taken as the unit of comparision as so many other countries abandoned the gold standard in the year under review), no really reliable indication of the volume of the foreign trade can be deduced from the Value tables in these days of fluctuating exchanges and depressed commodity prices. However, both the volume and the value of the world's international trade indisputably began to decline towards the end of 1929, continuing throughout 1930 and 1931 as the depression spread throughout the world; and, as a matter of interest, it may be recorded here that the decline in world trade between 1929 and 1930 has been definitely computed at 20 per cent. and that, the figures for 1931 not yet being available, it has been estimated authoritatively that the aggregate value of world trade for 1931 was altogether abont 40 per cent. below the aggregate for 1929, which happens to tally exactly with the 40 per cent. decrease shown in China's foreign import trade as expressed above in terms of gold. The decrease in the whole value of China's foreign trade since 1929, in terms of gold at the exchange rates quoted above, works out at 45 per cent Considering her special handicap in the shape of the extremely low purchasing power of silver during the last two years,

it would appear that this country has not done so badly in the matter of her foreign trade during a time of such exceptional depression throughout the markets of the world.