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‘A Question of Principle with Political Implications’ – Investigating Collaboration in the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, 1945–19461

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2009

BENJAMIN GEOFFREY WHITE
BENJAMIN GEOFFREY WHITE*
Affiliation:
St Cross College, University of Oxford
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Abstract

In the winter of 1945, the multinational Chinese Maritime Customs Service opened an inquiry into the cooperation of hundreds of its own employees with Japanese occupation forces in China. This was, as far as the historical record allows us to say, the most thorough investigation undertaken in China into collaboration during World War Two. This paper represents the first historical analysis of the Customs ‘Staff Investigation Committee.’ It argues that the investigation represented a new direction for the Customs Service in China. The investigation's underpinning rationale was that Customs staff, Chinese and foreign, served the Kuomintang government before any other notion of Chinese or Service interests—a dramatic change in direction for an organisation that had been emblematic of treaty-port China. The investigation thus offers historians an insight into the understudied final years of the Customs Service, into the late Republican government's efforts to deal with the legacy of imperialism, and into the extent and rationale of collaboration in Nationalist China.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , May 2010 , pp. 517 - 546
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

2 See Eastman, L.Seeds of Destruction (Stanford, 1984)Google Scholar, and Pepper, S.Civil War in China (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999)Google Scholar; cf. Westad, O.A.Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946–1950 (Stanford, 2003)Google Scholar.

3 For example, the post-1945 period is almost completely ignored in Donna Brunero's recent history of the Customs: Brunero, D. Britain's Imperial Cornerstone in China: The Chinese Maritime Customs Service, (Routledge, 2006), pp. 156–158.

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5 By Chinese historians in particular. The consensus has become more nuanced since in 1955 Hu Sheng described the Customs as having ‘sucked the blood of the Chinese people’. But even China's modern authority on the organisation, Chen Shi Qi, has equated the Service with ‘the rule of imperialism.’ Hu, S.Imperialism and Chinese Politics (Beijing Foreign Languages Press, 1955), p. 66Google Scholar; Chen, S.Q.Zhongguo jindai haiguan shi, [A History of China's Modern Customs] (Renmin Daxue Chubanshe, 2003) p. 860Google Scholar.

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10 Ibid.

11 As a British commissioner wrote to Inspector General Little in March 1945, ‘not many Chinese Commissioners have shown marked ability . . . when in charge of ports, while practical administration of this kind is generally a task in which foreigners show to better advantage.’ Second Historical Archives of China, Nanjing (henceforth, ‘SHAC’), 679(6)/1239, annexes to Little to Chang Fu-Yun, 10th November 1945.

12 Ibid.

13 For a brief overview, sympathetic to Maze, of Customs’ activities during the war, see Brunero (2006), Britain's Imperial Cornerstone in China, pp. 153–7.

14 A handful of British lighthouse keepers were kept on for some months before internment. Public Record Office—Foreign Office General Correspondence, Political, Kew (henceforth, ‘PRO’), FO371, F5134/115/10 4th April 1946.

15 The Chungking period is dealt with in detail in Bickers, R. ‘The Chinese Maritime Customs at War, 1941–1945’, in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 36, No. 2 (June 2000), pp. 295–311. (June 2008).

16 Chang (1987), Reformer of the Chinese Customs, p. 147.

17 He resigned after quarrelling with T.V. Soong in 1932. Ibid, p. 138.

18 Young, A.China's Wartime Finance and Inflation, 1937–1945 (Harvard, 1965), pp. 34–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Note also that the Kuomintang in 1928 had begun to promote Americans in the Customs with a view to counter-balancing British dominance of the senior ranks. See Chang (1987), Reformer of the Chinese Customs, p. 137.

19 SHAC, 679(1)/31743, Little to Muling, 22nd September 1945.

20 SHAC, 679(1)/32826, Little to Yu Wen-Tsan, 30th October 1945.

21 Ibid.

22 PRO, FO371, F1439/115/10 26th January 1946.

23 Ibid.

24 SHAC, 679(1)/32756, Little to Chang Fu-Yun, 3rd October 1946.

25 When it came to collaboration, as in other areas, the Customs applied different standards to Chinese and foreign employees. During the war, the Chungking Service had issued a deadline of 31st December 1943, by when senior Chinese employees were expected to have made their way to Kuomintang-controlled China (lower-ranking Chinese were reprieved, and so subsequently not investigated). Such a burden was not imposed on foreign staff, for whom such a journey was assumed to be impossible. Ultimately, the generous framework adopted by the committee towards both groups meant that the conclusions of the Investigation betrayed little of these distinctions. See SHAC, 679(1)/32826, Staff Investigation Committee to Little, 13th November 1945.

26 SHAC, 679(1)/31743, comments attached to Muling (‘on behalf of Russian staff’) to Little, 8th September 1945; Little to Muling, 22nd September 1945.

27 Ibid., enclosure to Muling to Little, 10th September 1945.

28 Ibid., Maze to Little, 27th August 1945; Little to Muling, 22nd September 1945. Autumn 1945 found Maze retired in South Africa, from where he continued to deny that he had ever issued such instructions.

29 Ibid., Basto to Little 7th December 1945; 679(1)/11276, Jordan to Little, 8th November 1945.

30 SHAC, 679(9)/2154, 19th December 1945, Staff Investigation Committee to Little.

31 As the Committee noted, the focus on coercion meant that their verdict was more generous than the assumptions held by the war-time Chungking Customs towards their estranged colleagues. For example, H.J. de Garcia made his way from occupied Guangzhou to Chungking in 1942, only to be refused employment—presumably for not getting there quickly enough. He then went back to the Bogus Service in Guangzhou. The Staff Investigation Committee reinstated him in February 1946. Ibid.

32 SHAC, 679(1)/32826, Little to Yu Wen-Tsan, 30th October 1945.

33 SHAC, 679(9)/2154, Staff Investigation Committee to Little, 19th December 1945.

34 SHAC, 679(3)/473, minutes of interrogation concerning Mr Y.H.J. Cloarec, 26th November 1945 and 4th December 1945.

35 SHAC, 679(9)/2154, Staff Investigation Committee to Little, 19th December 1945.

36 Ibid. Japanese and employees taken on by the Bogus Service itself were not considered for reinstatement. Others were rejected on policy grounds. Bishan Singh, an Indian watchman, was effectively black-listed because during the war he had served with Subhas Chandra Bose's anti-colonial, Japanese-allied Indian National Army. Italian employees fell under a wartime Kuomintang ruling that enemy nationals could not be employed in the state. Despite the Italians’ protests, and the sympathies of Little, the edict was not lifted in time to allow the re-employment of most of these men—several of whom had been interned by the Japanese following the collapse of Mussolini's government in September 1943.

37 SHAC, 679(1)/11898, Mr E.J. Ohrnberger's Career, 30th January 1946; 679(1)/11276 Mr K.E. Jordan's Career, 31st January 1946.

38 PRO, FO371, F15242/15242/10, 29th October 1948.

39 SHAC, 679(3)/473, Minutes of interrogation concerning Mr. Y.H.J Cloarec, 26th November 1945.

40 Henriot, C. ‘Shanghai Industries under Japanese Occupation’ in Yeh, W.H. & Henriot, C. (eds.) In the Shadow of the Rising Sun (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 26–35Google Scholar.

41 Henriot (2004), ‘Shanghai Industries’, p. 37; Wakeman, F.R. ‘Shanghai Smuggling’ in Yeh, W.H. & Henriot, C. (eds.) In the Shadow of the Rising Sun (Cambridge, 2004) p. 119Google Scholar.

42 SHAC, 679(1)/32745, Little to Minister of Finance, 17th July 1945.

43 See SHAC, 679(1)/11898, Mr E.J. Ohrnberger's Career, 30th January 1946; 679(1)/10703, Mr D.A. Carlos's Career, 31st July 1942; SHAC, 679(9)/2151, ‘Statement by K.E. Jordan’, 6th December 1941; SHAC, 679(9)/2154, ‘Minutes of interrogation concerning Mr C.G.C. Asker, 26th November 1945.

44 Bickers, R.Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai (Penguin, 2003), pp. 313–317Google Scholar.

45 For example, see SHAC, 679(9)/2154, Asker statement, 21st September 1945; Clifford, N. ‘Sir Frederick Maze and the Chinese Maritime Customs, 1937—1941’ in Journal of Modern History (Vol.37, No.1, 1965).

46 Chang (1987), Reformer of the Chinese Customs, pp. 108–110; see also Wright (1936), Origin and Development, pp. 83–84.

47 Endicott, S.L. Diplomacy and Enterprise: British China Policy 1933–1937 (Manchester, 1975), p. 7; Atkins, M. Informal Empire in Crisis—British Diplomacy and the Customs Succession, 1927–9 (Cornell, 1995), pp. 24–28.

48 Ladds, C. ‘Empire Careers: the Foreign Staff of the Chinese Customs Service, 1854–1940’ (Ph.D dissertation, Bristol University), pp. 48–50, 70.

49 Clifford (1965), ‘Sir Frederick Maze’, p. 28.

50 SHAC, 679(9)/2151, ‘Statement by K.E. Jordan’, 22nd October, 1945.

51 SHAC, 679(1)/11276, Jordan to Little, 13th February 1947.

52 SHAC, 679(9)/2154, Asker statement, 21st September 1945.

53 SHAC, 679(1)/10604, Myers to Ting, 3rd December 1945.

54 Ibid. Basto to Little, 7th December 1945 [my emphasis].

55 Both Chang Fu-Yun and Deputy Inspector General Ting Kuei-Tang wrote that it was the Director General who proposed to Little that the investigation should take place; after the initial suggestion, however, Chang dropped into the background. Chang (1987), Reformer of the Customs, p. 148; SHAC 679(1)/32826, Ting to Little, 20th November 1945.

56 SHAC, 679(1)/32826, Little to Yu Wen-Tsan, 30th October 1945.

57 Ibid. Ting to Little, 20th November 1945.

58 For example, see SHAC, 679(1)/11276, Little to Jordan, 19th December 1946.

59 Young (1965), China's Wartime Finance, p. 49. On this, Little wrote in 1948, ‘if the government had deliberately set out to destroy the Customs Service, it could scarcely have chosen a better instrument than the Treasury Law.’ SHAC, 679(1)/32759, Little to Chang, 17th December 1948.

60 Ibid.

61 White, B. (2007), ‘Collaboration, racial politics and the re-building of the Chinese Maritime Customs after World War Two’ (M.Phil. dissertation, University of Oxford), pp. 33–36; King, F.The History of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation—Volume XIV: The Hong Kong in the Period of Development and Nationalism, 1941–1984 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 172–174Google Scholar; Bickers (2008), ‘The Chinese Maritime Customs at War’, pp. 295–311.

62 White (2007), ‘Collaboration, racial politics,’ pp. 28–33; Department of State, United States of America Foreign Relations of the United States (United States Government Printing Office, 1932 onward) (henceforth, ‘FRUS’), 1943, China: 693.002/1174, 19th August 1943; SHAC, 679(1)/32756, see appendix to Little to Chang Fu-Yun, 3rd October 1946.

63 SHAC, 679(1)/28983, Little to O.K. Yui, 2nd February 1947.

64 SHAC, 679(3)/473, Égal to Neprud, 28th November 1945.

65 SHAC, 679(1)/32826, Little to Ting, 11th December 1945.

66 Pepper (1999), Civil War in China, pp. 13–16.

67 Bergère, M.C. ‘The purge in Shanghai, 1945–46: the Sarly affair and the end of the French concession’ in Yeh, W.H. (ed.) Wartime Shanghai (Routledge 1998), pp. 157–178.

68 SHAC, 679(3)/473, Égal to Neprud, 28th November 1945.

69 Pepper (1999), Civil War in China, pp. 13–16.

70 Boyle, J.H.China and Japan at War 1937–1945: The Politics of Collaboration (Stanford, 1972), pp. 331–335Google Scholar. As far as the current state of research allows us to say, no other organ of the Republican government undertook such a thorough self-examination as the Customs.

71 SHAC, 679(1)/1059, ‘Marine Department Rehabilitation Plan,’ 22nd January 1944; SHAC, 679(1)/32756, see appendix to Little to Chang Fu-Yun, 3rd October 1946.

72 SHAC, 679(1)/1059, Little to Coast Inspector's Office, December 1943.

73 FRUS, 1943, China: 693.002/1174, 11th June 1943.

74 Wakeman, ‘Shanghai Smuggling’, p. 134.

75 Chang (1987), Reformer of the Customs, pp. 148–9.

76 SHAC, 679(9)/45, Ting to Chang, 8th October 1945.

77 Chen, S.Q. (ed.) Zhongguo haiguan yu Zhongguo jindai she shui [China's Modern Society and the Chinese Customs] (Xiamen Daxue Chubanshe, 2005)i, pp. 859–60; Wenhuibao [Newspaper], June 7th 1946, p. 3.

78 PRO, FO371, F 15242/15242/10, 13th October 1948.

79 SHAC, 679/31486, Little to Foster-Hall, 9th April 1946.

80 Wenhuibao, 7th June 1946, p. 3; see also SHAC, 679(6)/3284 Little to Ting, 14th November 1945.

81 SHAC, 679(1)/32756, Little to Chang Fu-Yun, 3rd October 1946.

82 Brunero (2006), Britain's Imperial Cornerstone, pp. 1348.

83 Ibid., p. 153.

84 Clifford (1965), ‘Sir Frederick Maze’, p. 27; New York Times, 29th July 1941, p. 4.

85 Young, A.China and the Helping Hand, 1937–1945 (Harvard, 1963), p. 87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 SHAC, 679(9)/2154, ‘Minutes of interrogation concerning Mr S. Toscani’, 26th November 1945.

87 Clifford, N., Retreat from China: British Policy in the Far East 1937–41 (Longmans, 1967), pp. 57–61Google Scholar.

88 SHAC, 679(1)/31743, Little to Asker, 13th October 1945.

89 ‘To many foreigners in China and even to some persons in their governments, the fighting seemed an episode that could sooner or later be compromised, with things going on somewhat as before. . . . Some British officials criticized China's stiff position on the Customs and also my advice against ‘appeasement.’ Young (1963), The Helping Hand, p. 88.

90 Clifford (1965), ‘Sir Frederick Maze’, pp. 33.

91 SHAC, 679(1)/11276, Little to Jordan, 19th December 1946.

92 Wright (1936), The Chinese Customs Service, p. 4.

93 PRO, FO371, F4284/341/10, 17th July 1945 and F4554/341/10, 1945 (no exact date); SHAC, 679(1)/32756, Little to Chang Fu-Yun, 3rd October 1946.

94 SHAC, 679(6)/1239, Little to Chang Fu-Yun 12th October 1945.

95 FRUS 1947: Vol. XII: The Far East: China: 893.243/4–1147, 11th April 1947; 893 Mission/7–747, 7th July 1947; PRO, FO371: F2633/341/10, 2nd May 1945.

96 SHAC, 679(1)/32759, Little to Chang Fu-Yun, 22nd September 1948; PRO, FO371, F8396/115/10, 6th June 1946.

97 Wenhuibao, 6th June 1946, p. 3; and 7th June p. 3.

98 PRO, FO371: F15242/15242/10, 13th October 1948.

99 See PRO, FO371, FC1181/14, 31st October 1949. Little left Taiwan in January 1950, returning in an advisory capacity later that year: see also Bickers (2008), ‘The Chinese Maritime Customs at War’, pp. 295–311.

100 PRO, FO371, FC1181/14, 27th November 1949.

101 Ibid. 20th December 1949.

102 Ex-commissioner W. Myers was still an advisor to the Customs of the People's Republic in mid-1950. PRO, FO371, FC1181/26, 29th May 1950.

103 PRO, FO371, FC1181/14, Little to Myers, December 7th 1949.

104 In 1950, the British Foreign Office reported that a conference on Customs reform had taken place in mainland China, at which one item on the agenda had been ‘reform of the thoughts of customs officials after the liberation.’ PRO, FO371, FC 1181/15, ‘Customs Administration Conference at Canton’ 19th January 1950.

105 See, among others, Mitter, R.The Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance and Collaboration in Modern China, (Berkeley, 2000)Google Scholar; Coble, P.Chinese Capitalists in Japan's New Order (Berkeley, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brook, T.Collaboration—Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China (Harvard, 2005)Google Scholar.

106 On collaboration among Shanghai's foreign community, see Wasserstein, B. Secret War in Shanghai (Profile, 1998), pp. 157–194.