Neto and Giadán: The Last Two Spanish in the Qing Dynasty

Abstract

The present article examines the claim thatManuel Giadán Ruiz and Jose Antonio NetoGonzález, Copper foundry workers, formeremployees of Rio Tinto Company Limited inHuelva, against the Government of the Republicof China in 1912 for breach of contract of theImperial Copper Works. This enterprise wasowned by the Gansu Provincial Government.Through this claim we can observe the causes ofthe failure of the modernization attemptscarried out by the “Westernization Movement”in late Qing times; and also we can see thecauses of frustration of Xinhai Revolution andthe beginnings of the Republic of China. Inparticular, the “Neto and Giadan Claim” showshow the nascent Republic of China is unable toshake off the exploitation to which China wassubject by the colonial powers. In fact, throughthis case, we see how the Republic of China wasforced to yield to the economic claims of anyEuropean country, even to Spain, which at thattime lacked the coercive or military capacity toimpose its wishes on China. For the writing of thisarticle, we have used original documentationfrom The Archive of Administration, TheArchive of National History; The Archive ofHistorical Miner of Red River Fundation; TheArchive of Huelva Province; Archivo of HuelvaDiocesan, and The Archive Nerva Municipal. Wehave supplemented this documentation withthe Belgian Foreign Ministry Archive and thepersonal archives of Belgian “technicians” ledby "Belgian Mandarin" Paul Splingaerd and hisson Alphonse. They were the managers of theindustrialization process of Gansu Provincelaunched by the Taotai of Lanzhou Peng Yingjia.