Shanghai International Settlement Research Articles

Slum clearance in a ‘semi-colony’: coercion and restraint in policing practices in 1930s Shanghai

Abstract Slum clearances expose hostility between municipal authorities and residents fighting to claim urban space. In colonial contexts, these processes created conflicts between rulers and the ruled. Focusing on the ‘semi-colonial’ Shanghai International Settlement, this article examines interactions between the Shanghai Municipal Police (SMP) and slum-dwellers amid an evolving crisis of urban governance in the 1930s. This case-study, grounded in Shanghai’s complex socio-political climate, reveals how ordinary Chinese residents negotiated with the authorities and points to the frailties of semi-colonial governance, showing how the SMP deployed coercion only when it was unavoidable in slum clearances.

Re-cloistered Feminine Space: Chinese Women’s Prison in Shanghai, 1888–1912

Abstract This article examines China’s first women’s prison in the context of diplomatic disputes, legal reforms, and gender order at the turn of the twentieth century. It shows that the custody of female offenders in the Shanghai International Settlement became a battleground in which the interests and perceptions of late imperial China and the Western authorities clashed. Under pressure from the Western authorities, the first Chinese women’s prison was established in 1907, even prior to the formal introduction of custodial sentences into China’s criminal code. Notably, the Chinese officials did not embrace prison as a more benevolent punitive institution; rather, they saw it more as a tool to consolidate its judicial sovereignty and preserve gender norms. For Chinese women, the prison, functioning as a re-cloistered feminine space, further entrenched the confinement of their bodies, thereby perpetuating rather than changing orthodox values of female chastity. This article questions the universal modernity of European penalties by pointing out that the introduction of imprisonment as a supposedly more civilized and humane form of punishment may have placed Chinese women at a greater disadvantage.

Promoting standardisation in modern China: British and American engineers’ organisations, local Chinese engineers, and their transnational networks, 1901–41

Abstract Standardisation is a product of the second wave of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and North America. This article examines how Western standardisation practices were introduced, transmitted, and promoted in China during the first half of the twentieth century. In particular, it looks at the critical role played by British, American, and local Chinese engineers in the transmission process. The topics covered in the present article have seldom been considered, and this article tries to fill the gap in scholarship. It analyses the shifting patterns of various standardisation efforts that are closely related to the governance of both cities and the wider nation. Work examined includes that of the Engineering Society of China, led by British engineers, which initiated standardisation in the Shanghai International Settlement in the early twentieth century; that of the Association of Chinese and American Engineers, founded by engineers of China and the USA, which, after World War I, began to implement the standardisation of railway infrastructure, with the cooperation of the Ministry of Transportation of the Beijing government; and efforts in the 1930s under the Nanjing government to establish an ‘engineering’ or ‘technocratic’ state, which included the execution of national schemes for the development of industrial standardisation. From the period of World War I until the 1930s, the orientation and practices of American standardisation strategies dominated China; then, due to the worsening situation of the Chinese–Japanese War, ideological tendencies and national strategies for standardisation began to diverge.

Dog Shows and Kennel Clubs in Shanghai: British Sport, Sportsmanship and the Changing Concept of Pets in China, 1887–1937

As in many colonial settings, it was the British who initiated dog shows as a sport at the Shanghai International Settlement in 1887. The main purpose behind this development was to increase the understanding and interest of Shanghai residents in dogs, and to spread scientific and refined methods of dog breeding. In this context, the overall aim was to promote the trade of purebred dogs within China. Through dog shows, some upper-middle class Chinese gradually began to consider dogs as pets rather than livestock, and conspicuous consumption of dog-related products and services was in vogue, accompanied by the emergence of dog restaurants, dog hospitals, and dog schools in Shanghai. The popularity of pet dogs and the rise of the pet economy in modern Shanghai was the result of multiple factors such as the elevated status of dogs in the city, the popularity of British sports represented by dog shows in Shanghai, and the general acceptance of western pet views and values among the Chinese elite. It was also a fusion of Chinese and Western cultural exchanges, and the epitome of Shanghai’s modernization process.

Environmental Practices in a Colonial Context: The Mitigation of Soot Pollution in the Shanghai International Settlement, 1863–1943

Environmental Practices in a Colonial Context: The Mitigation of Soot Pollution in the Shanghai International Settlement, 1863–1943

1920-30년대 상해 공공조계 행정 체계의 변화

The Mixed Court and Extra-Settlement Road in Shanghai International Settlement show us that there was no strict restriction or limitation of influence of the administration of International Settlement, since it could easily bypass physical boundary of the settlement, or even limitation for settlement administration. However, this system faced critical challenge from 1925, when foreign police of the International Settlement fired upon Chinese protesters.BR The Shanghai Chamber of Commerce almost immediately addressed their 13 demands, including unconditional and complete return of the Shanghai Mixed Court, though western ambassadors at pekin legation quarter did not agreed this. nevertheless, in Shanghai, the Shanghai Municipal Council tried to make common interest between westerners and prominent Chinese. BR At last from 1927, the Shanghai Mixed Court was abolished, and the Shanghai Provisional Court replaced it. The new court maitained many previous regulations and customs, and the influence of the police of the International Settlement still could not be ignored. However, Chinese people in and around the Settlement continued to demand their representation in settlement administration, and therefore, the present administrative system had no other way but to change itself.BR The construction of extra-settlement roads and administration of the SMC upon extra-settlement road areas were still continued in 1920s. SMC sent its police to maintain order in those areas, and took special taxes for supplying water or electricity. But the Chinese local government in Chapei area strengthened its influences in the same areas, by sending their own police forces and supplying their own city infrastructure. The Shanghai Chamber of Commerce, including in their 13 demands, requested to complete ban of constructing new extra-settlement road and return already built extra-settlement road. SMC tried to maintain status quo to defend their own interest, but they actually had no any counter-measure.BR Finally in July 1931 the SMC and the Shanghai local government made an provisional agreement that the local government take full right to police the areas and supply city infrastructure, while the SMC could send their police. Nevertheless, with the Japanese consul’s disagree, this agreement never accepted, and the whole matter was delayed until the Sino-Japanese war started.BR In result, after the May Thirtieth Movement, the existing administrative system of the Shanghai International Settlement was inevitably transformed into totally different form. It had to accept the Chinese representation in the SMC, while abandoned its influences in the Mixed Court and in the extra-settlement road areas.

Novel Spaces

Novel Spaces

The Battle of Shanghai: How China Lost its Defense to Japan

This article on the Second Battle of Shanghai explains what caused a Chinese defeat in the face of Imperial Japan in 1937. The study of the battle is to examine how it is the Chinese lost while having greater manpower, the advantage of defense, and the backing of most of the West. The battle at Shanghai would unfold in front of the Shanghai International Settlement, allowing Western powers to witness the conflict unfold in front of their cameras and reporters. Despite this, this battle is mostly overlooked by most Western studies of the Second World War. This study examines how the lack of unity, poor leadership, inferior arms, and the lack of a long-term defensive plan undercut any advantages the Chinese held over the Japanese. This battle is the first major clash during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and arguably the first major battle of the Second World War.

Beloemigranty i krizis samo­ oborony Shanhaya 20-h gg. XX v.

This article is dedicated to the analysis of background and process of formation of the Russian Unit in Shanghai Volunteer Corps, Shanghai International Settlement. In 1922, before the arrival of Siberian Flotilla in Shanghai, the process of forming a Russian Unit in SVC has already begun. However, only in 1927 the Russians were officially included in SVC. The sources from Shanghai Municipal Archive are used in this article.

Be Pious and Patriotic: A Comparison of Chinese Christian and Muslim Teaching on Just War in the Early Stage of the Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1941

ABSTRACT This article will reconstruct how Chinese Christians and Muslims, as civilians, sought a sense of justice in the midst of war through their religious discourses in their magazines, The True Light Review and Yue Hua. It will firstly analyse the particular situation that Christianity and Islam in China faced in 1930s and will compare their characteristics in terms of hermeneutics of their respective sacred texts and the strategy of linking up social circumstance and religious thought. It will study how Yue Hua understood the Japanese aggression through the lens of the Islamic revival movement, focusing particularly on how it argued that Japanese pan-Asianism was not an option for the Islamic revival movement in China. With regard to The True Light Review, it will analyse how the Baptist pacifist position changed during the war and how the writers in the semi-occupied Shanghai International Settlement interpreted their religious teaching to understand the war of resistance as a just war. It will argue that linking literary creativity with deep spiritual piety and solidarity for compatriots is the key to differentiating the use of religious discourse as a mere political tool from religious political discourse.

Isabella Jackson. Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China’s Global City.

In Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China’s Global City, Isabella Jackson provides a comprehensive and careful history of the Shanghai Municipal Council, the government of the Shanghai International Settlement from 1863 to 1943. Created by British gunboat diplomacy in the First Opium War, this colonial concession operated as an autonomous local government elected by the taxpayers who owned property there. These businessmen stamped this concession government with their laissez faire economic philosophy. Their night watchman state featured low taxes, focused on infrastructure and policing, and kept regulations and assistance to the poor to a minimum. The one element of this local government that was not minimal was its prison, reportedly the largest in the world with more than 6,500 prisoners (120). Jackson briefly connects her analysis of this colonial outpost to debates over colonialism and globalization, but her main interest lies not in theorizing, but in offering a detailed institutional history of this local government. She examines each dimension of this municipal government, with chapters devoted to taxes, personnel, police, public health, and welfare. The analysis is based on a rich array of primary sources from the Shanghai Municipal Archives, newspapers, and memoirs in both English and Chinese. Jackson places this history in the larger context of the British Empire, tracing the connections to the other treaty ports in China, Hong Kong, India, and London.

Социально-экономическое положение российских эмигрантов в Шанхае в 1922–1925 годах

The article focuses on the problem of social and economic status of Russian émigrés in Shanghai in 1922–1925, in particular from the arrival of the Siberian flotilla to the beginning of the May Thirtieth Movement. Based on previously unexplored official records from the Shanghai Municipal Archive (SMA), Shanghai Municipal Police Files (SMPF) and the detailed research of the press, the author manages to significantly supplement the portrait of Russian émigrés’ life during the above period. The wider source base of this research, as compared those that are available for an earlier period of 1917–1922, allows us to describe the social and economic status of the émigrés in more precise terms. Statistical information from the Municipal Council of the Shanghai International Settlement evidences a high unemployment rate among the émigrés (according to the police records, it reached 71,4 % among employable men). Obviously, the humanitarian aid from the government and city communities could not satisfy needs of the unemployed. 1) At the end of 1924, Shanghai press reported the case when the Russians were sleeping in the houses without roof near the Chapei railway; 2) Shanghai was able to provide free food only for 2280 Russian refugees. However, according to statistics dated October 9, 1923 and February 1, 1924, the number of unemployed men and women reached 3 500. This means that not all Russians in Shanghai were provided with a minimum of food. As compared to 1917–1922, problems of women and street kids also persisted but due to public support child begging stopped although problems of women continued to exist until the communists came to power in Shanghai. “Russian prostitution” even became part of the Shanghai’s historical memory. A special problem during the period of 1922–1925 was poor sanitation in areas where Russian cadets lived as a result of harsh living conditions and low social and economic status (this situation was not recorded in the anniversary editions of Khabarovsky and Siberian Cadet Corps).

Jiro Ikushima's "Shanghai International Settlement" Depicted as a Scar: Hardboiled Detective Fiction as an Alternative Form of Postwar Literature

Jiro Ikushima's "Shanghai International Settlement" Depicted as a Scar: Hardboiled Detective Fiction as an Alternative Form of Postwar Literature

위생이냐, 이윤이냐 : 근대 상하이 도시위생과 상수도

This paper is intended to analyze water supply, which is an essential facility to construct a urban sanitation system, focusing on Shanghai Waterworks Company of modern Shanghai International Settlement.<BR> In particular, this study is focused on urban sanitation characteristics of modern Shanghai, paying attention to a collision and a compromise between public interest and private interest that were caused, since the management of water supply for the public was entrusted to Shanghai Waterworks Company by Shanghai Municipal Council. <BR> The free water supply, conducted as part of cholera prevention in the 1930s, is a representative case of a collision between improvement of sanitation and increase of profit that were the two typical purposes of Shanghai Waterworks Company and Shanghai Municipal Council. The Chinese government asked for the free water supply for the poor, but Shanghai Waterworks Company dawdled and hesitated, worrying if it might negatively affect their business.<BR> But once an infectious disease spreads in a slum, safety of the whole international settlement cannot be guaranteed. In the end, Shanghai Waterworks Company decided to supply free clean water to the slum. Of course, it was only provided to a specific slum temporarily while the cholera prevailed.

Shanghai YWCA’s Cooperation with the ILO for Resolving Labor Issues in the Shanghai International Settlement: YWCA’s Struggle for Self-reform in China during the Interwar Period

Shanghai YWCA’s Cooperation with the ILO for Resolving Labor Issues in the Shanghai International Settlement: YWCA’s Struggle for Self-reform in China during the Interwar Period

Seeking Justice in the Midst of War: The Experience of War for Chinese Christians as Revealed in The True Light Review, 1937–1941

This paper aims to offer a critique of the traditional just war theory and pacifist claims through analysing how Chinese Christians as civilians sought a sense of justice in the midst of war through the medium of a Christian periodical. During 1937 to 1941, The True Light Review was edited and published in the isolated Shanghai International Settlement. Through a dialogue with the debate of the Niebuhr brothers on just war, I argue that the literary discourses in The True Light Review are a kind of ‘realistic ethic’ used to seek an understanding of justice in the midst of war and violence. They show us that, from a world Christianity perspective, the traditional just war and pacifism dichotomy has its limitation. They lead us to propose a new understanding of Christian justice in war.

Something Extraordinary Keeps Happening: J. G. Ballard's Enclave World

AbstractThis essay considers a late novel sequence by the British speculative fiction writer J. G. Ballard (1930–2009). Although Ballard is often celebrated as a great iconoclast, there is arguably no postwar novelist with a more recognizable style. The essay analyzes Cocaine Nights (1996), Super-Cannes (2000), Millennium People (2003), and Kingdom Come (2006) as a programmatic fictional project. It identifies five key formal and thematic elements of the late sequence, paying particular attention to the question of setting. In Ballard's late fictions, the gated enclave figures as a privileged spatial agent within the diegesis; the central quality of these enclaves is that they are at once ordinary and extraordinary—set off from any shared social fabric and representative of general psychic and material qualities. Methodologically, the essay begins with critical description, following the grain of Ballard's late novels to show how their plots, themes, and characters relate to their settings. The essay then explores Ballard's autocritical explanation of his mature fiction as a belated response to his childhood in the extraterritorial International Settlement of Shanghai, drawing on his autobiographies as well as new research in his personal manuscripts, now collected at the British Library. Any full exploration of the late novels' autocritical energies must go beyond the project of critical description, which by itself produces a historically flat and argumentatively recursive account of Ballard's extraordinary literary accomplishment.

An East–West confrontation in the North-China Herald during the Nationalist Revolution: a case study of Shao Futang’s letters to the editor

ABSTRACT In the Republican period, Shao Futang, secretary to the general manager of the International Dispensary of Shanghai (Wuzhou yaofang), wrote numerous letters to the editor that were published under the initials F. D. Z. in the English-language newspapers of Shanghai, such as the North-China Herald and the China Press. He wrote frequently to these newspapers out of dissatisfaction with the total indifference shown by Chinese residents of the Shanghai International Settlement to what foreigners said about China in these newspapers. The North-China Herald and other newspapers also had Chinese readers and thus needed to hear from those like Shao who could represent the voice of the Chinese people. When anti-imperialism and abrogation of unequal treaties were first proposed in 1924, Shao for the first time voiced his opinion in these newspapers. He defended Chinese patriotism by pointing out that it was not “anti-foreignism.” When the Nationalist Revolution broke out in 1926, an increasingly strong sense of nationalism emerged in the published letters he wrote. He denounced Western readers’ disparagement of the Nationalist Revolution, expressed the desire of the Chinese people for the abrogation of the unequal treaties, and appealed to the Municipal Council of the Shanghai International Settlement to make necessary changes and give political rights to the Chinese people.

Policing the British Empire on the Bund: The Origin of the Sikh Police Unit in Shanghai

Red-turbaned Sikh policemen have long been viewed as symbols of the cosmopolitan feature of modern Shanghai. However, the origin of the Sikh police unit in the Shanghai Municipal Police has not been seriously investigated. This article argues that the circulation of police officers, policing knowledge, and information in the British colonial network and the circulation of the idea of taking Hong Kong as the reference point amongst Shanghailanders from the 1850s to the 1880s played important role in the establishment of the Sikh police force in the International Settlement of Shanghai. Furthermore, by highlighting the translocal connections and interactions amongst British colonies and settlements, this study tries to break the metropole-colony binary in imperial history studies.

A xiameni Gulangyu Közös Koncesszió története a 19–20. századi kínai–külföldi nyelvi és kulturális interakció tükrében

The aim of the present study is to introduce the history of the joint concessionterritory located on the island of Gulangyu 鼓浪屿 from the perspective ofSino-Foreign linguistic and cultural interaction. I also discuss the way in whichit was related to the broader linguistic and cultural interaction processes of theSouth China Sea region between the First Opium War and World War II.Apart from the Shanghai International Settlement, the Gulangyu JointConcession was the only jointly administered foreign concession area in themodern history of China. Although it was officially established in 1903, foreign presence was decisive in the island’s history since the First Opium Warand the subsequent opening of Xiamen as a treaty port. Foreign missionariesarriving at Xiamen put much effort into translating Christian religious textsinto the local Minnan (Hokkien) dialect and to create a transcription schemefor it, which led to the formation of the peh-oe-ji romanization method. Thiswas in fact a continuation of a linguistic interaction process initiated onSoutheast Asian colonies, as the first contacts between foreign missionariesand Hokkien-speaking overseas Chinese communities took place there. Inthe second half of the 19th century, Xiamen became a starting point of Chinese mass emigration to Southeast Asia, which in turn led to a large numberof returning overseas Chinese in the early 20th century. The second part ofthe history of the Joint Concession, lasting from the first decades of the 20thcentury until its occupation by Japan, was characterized by the growing influence of returning overseas Chinese and their investment into the culturaland educational development of the island.