The foreign establishment in early republican China had many facets: territory, people, rights established by treaty or unilaterally asserted, armed force, diplomacy, religion, commerce, journalism, freebooting adventure, racial attitudes. This chapter describes briefly the dimensions of each of the principal guises in which the foreigner impinged upon the polity, economy, society and mind of China. In the absence of modern financial institutions in China, the early foreign merchant houses undertook to provide for themselves many of the auxiliary services such as banking, foreign exchange and insurance essential to their import-export businesses. However, by the second decade of the twentieth century, 12 foreign banks were operating in China. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, 85 to 90 per cent of China's foreign trade by value was carried in foreign flag vessels. The foreign presence was highly visible in three departments of the central government: the Maritime Customs Service, the Post Office and the Salt Administration.