Among China's many statistical materials, the statistics and reports of the Maritime Customs are excellent for their consistency and continuity. Without going into examples of the indivisibility of statistics from their administration, the statistics and the structural make-up of the Maritime Customs closely reflect historical regulations. Domestically, the authority of the central government was weak, and internationally, the nation was closely influenced by stronger nations, factors which could not fail to have an impact on the nation's maritime statistics. This paper will examine the position of the Maritime Customs in Chinese society and in China's international relations, and introduce some of the problems inherent in the statistics of the Maritime Customs.
The Maritime Customs collected taxes based on tax tables and inspections, and the transparency is excellent compared to previous periods when Chinese merchants or interpreters operated tax services. It was the tax services administered by British, American, and French consuls in Shanghai during the Taiping Rebellion which became pioneers among Western maritime customs agencies in taking the place of Chinese agencies. For that reason, research up to the present has regarded the completeness of the Maritime Customs organization as a step in the process of modernization and a guidepost for the penetration of Imperialist influence. Consonant with this line of argument was a belief that the Maritime Customs was a tax agency opposed to traditional China. In recent years, however, newer research has leaned toward placing more emphasis on the Chinese logic. In the first place, didn't the very term "Maritime Customs" mean a tax system introduced from foreign countries? This resembled the process in which the West's scientific system was introduced into Japan during the Meiji era (1868-1912), and many translated words had their original meanings erroneously changed as they became part of a new language. In the distant past, the Haikuan Maritime Customs constituted a Chinese administrative agency which, at its establishment, regulated exports by Chinese to the West. Later it regulated foreign vessels bringing trade to China, but it was always an agency in the Chinese government administration. This "Western Customs" agency has to be distinguished from the foreign-operated "Maritime Customs" agency which replaced, and usurped, it. However, this process cannot be simply ascribed to foreign influence. For example, in the Chinese interior, a structure named Changkuan (Native Customs) existed outside of the jurisdiction of the maritime customs services to collect taxes on distribution. When discussing Chinese economic activities, one should be aware that an economy existed separately from the Maritime Customs.
The Maritime Customs as an international agency
One of the distinctive features of the Maritime Customs organization was that foreigners continuously occupied the top position of Inspector General. However, it must be noted that the Inspector General's original role was limited to levying taxes and performing personnel functions for foreign officials. That means that he was a sort of foreign employee of the government. At one point, however, an Inspector General named Sir Robert Hart gained the confidence of the Qings and became one of their advisors. The basis of foreigners, especially Britons, holding the post of Inspector General was that in 1898, a period when Britain's trade with China by far surpassed that of any other country, Britain won agreement from the Quings that a Briton should hold the position. It was because the Maritime Customs system and trade relations became combined in this manner that China's trade suddenly became a political issue. In particular, as Japan's penetration of the Chinese market deepened, this issue became a focal point of the Maritime Customs issue. Japan found that even though its trade with China was growing, its staff members did not receive suitable treatment within the Maritime Customs -- in terms of numbers, for example -- and this became a source of dissatisfaction. As a result, there was a smoldering sense that Japanese goods underwent particularly severe inspections when they cleared customs.
It was particularly during the period of the First World War that Japan's share of China's foreign trade share became a problem. For example, Tadashi Negishi, prominent for his research on guilds in China, has developed the following argument. In 1924, Japan was the leading nation among China's trade partners with a 27 percent share of the total, while Britain's share amounted to no more than 14 percent. However, Britain would maintain its leading position if Hong Kong's share (23 percent) were included with its own. But since Hong Kong's trade includes some of Japan's trade with China, Japan probably occupies the leading position.
Thus Negishi's conclusion is that the Maritime Customs organization assisted the rise of Japanese nationals. Certainly the reality is that we cannot know the extent to which Maritime Customs officials were involved in transactions regarding countries other than their own. However, one should be aware that the Maritime Customs, which was originally a Chinese tax agency, was a focal point of international interests. This factor affected statistics through the evaluations of commodity values, which served as the basis for assessing taxes. There was often intense opposition to conducting price reevaluations needed to guarantee China's ad valorem 5 percent customs duties.
According to trade statistics published by the Maritime Customs, China suffered almost continuous trade deficits. For this reason, explaining rationally how China managed to balance its international payments has been a major issue. Estimates formulated to explain this situation soon appeared, starting with those compiled in 1904 by H.B. Morse, and followed thereafter by estimates by C.F. Remer and others. All of the studies suggested that much of the money to cover deficits was provided in the form of remittances sent by overseas Chinese. The usual means of estimating remittances has been to multiply the number of emigrants by a fixed amount, but this method presents unavoidable problems of probability. Along with the issue of remittances, another task which researchers have undertaken has been reexamining the amounts of the trade deficits themselves. This task has meant supplementing the Maritime Customs statistics in two respects. The first is calculating the amounts of transactions outside of the scope of Maritime Customs purview, such as overland trade and smuggling, and using the results to supplement Maritime Customs figures, and the second is making revisions to correct for deviations from true values in the statistics resulting from evaluations of commodity prices and currency fluctuations. Currency fluctuations in particular have posed a problem for the Statistics Project in regard to the handling of existing statistical figures. The statistical problems are more serious with regard to exports than to imports. This is because price checking on imports was quite strict. Prices of imported commodities priced in gold were directly converted into Haikuan Tael (silver) for the purpose of recording statistics, and therefore were not affected by fluctuations in the parity prices of gold and silver, so this type of problem can be judged to be small with regard to exports.
So what degree of revisions to export prices are necessary? For example, it is clear that the above-mentioned C.F. Remer undervalued China's freight exports by 5 percent for 1902-1928, 7.5 percent for 1929, and 10 percent for 1930. However, Cheng argued that focusing only on the low figures in Remer's estimates of exports would mean insufficient attention to other factors such as price rises and drops in the price of silver. In addition, Cheng also pointed out such problems as inadequate handling of figures for Taiwan and the Kwantung Leased Territory, and the manner in which figures for the amounts of exports from China and amounts of imports received in the countries of destination were simply matched without regard to discrepancies in the volumes of commodity transactions. For these reasons, Cheng has added the following revisions to the statistical figures. For exports, Cheng compiled estimates derived from the following: (1) comparative investigations of prices in Shanghai and reported commodity prices, (2) comparisons of China's export prices with other nations' import prices, (3) revisions to shipping prices from China, and (4) estimated overland trade. With regard to imports, he conducted estimates for general commodities, opium, and smuggled arms and totaled the results. The results can be seen in the table. The revised figures indicate that the trade deficit was small compared to the amounts previously estimated, and that fluctuations in the deficit were mild. The trade deficit shrank substantially in 1929 and 1930. These estimates suggest that we reconsider our previous understanding of China's balance of trade, and the manner in which we handle values of different commodities.
The problems with the Maritime Customs statistics can be divided into two types: those related to the limitations of the scope of the statistics, including overland trade and customary exchanges, and those related to the quality of the figures themselves. It is essential to maintain a balance between these problems and the work being conducted on other regions by the Statistics Project, and, above all, to manage the relationship between the remaining information. Nevertheless, it is necessary to at least deal with the problems of the Maritime Customs organization, and work to compensate for the limitations of the statistics.
Ryukoku University, Faculty of Economics
Okamoto Takashi, "Kaikan no seiritsu o megutte" [On the founding of the Maritime Customs], Toyo shi kenkyu 50-1, 1991.
Baba Kuwataro, Shina keizai chiri shi seido zenhen [China economic geography history], 1928
Negishi Tadashi, Shina tokubetsu kanzei kaigi no kenkyu [Research on China's special customs councils], 1926
South Manchuria Railway Co., ed., Shina kokusai shushi ronso [Collected treatises on China's international balance of payments], 1941.