The Guangdong Model and Taxation in China

The Guangdong Model and Taxation in China

Formation, Development, and Characteristics of China's Modern Financial System

This book explores the formation, development, and characteristics of modern China's finance, focusing especially on Guangdong province as a case study to illustrate both the macro-level trends and the micro-level reality. The chronological range of this book is mainly from the late Qing period to the early Republican Era ending in 1937, when the full-scale Second Sino-Japanese War broke out. After the concept of modern finance was introduced to China for the first time in the late Qing period, the efforts to build modern finance continued in the Republican Era both nationally and locally. But this process was interrupted by the outbreak of the war against Japan in 1937 and, having been derailed, did not subsequently recover due to the subsequent civil war between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party. This interrupted process of financial modernization was resumed with Reform and Opening-up, launched in 1978. Therefore, in order to illustrate the structural transformation and persistent characteristics of China’s fiscal system, this book also includes discussions of the early Qing period and current Chinese finance.
  • Cover
  • Table of Contents
  • Abbreviations
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
    • The Modern Transformation of the Imperial Fiscal System: The Case of Provincial Finance in Guangdong
  • Part 1: New Tax Revenues in Guangdong during the Republican Era
    • 1. Fiscal Reform in the Late Qing
    • 2. Tobacco and Wine Taxes in Guangdong and Changes in the Financial Structure during Republican China
    • 3. Abolition of the Likin and the Paradox of Tax Reform: The Special Tax
    • 4. Special Taxes on Imported Rice
  • Part 2: State-led Industrialization and the State Monopoly
    • 5. Industrial Building: Provincial Entrepreneurs
    • 6. The Sugar Monopoly: From Local to National
  • Part 3: Reform of Tax Collection
    • 7. The Building of Public Administration and Taxation
    • 8. Regularization of the Tax-farming System
  • Part 4: The Transition of the Modern Chinese Tax Structure in a Global Context
    • 9. Transition of the Modern Chinese Financial Structure
    • 10. Afterword: Between Chinese Exceptionalism and Modern Fiscal State-building
  • Bibliography
  • Glossary
  • Index
  • List of Tables
    • Table 1.1 Total amount of revenue and expenditures in twenty-two provinces, 1908
    • Table 1.2 Comparison of historical materials in terms of the composition of Guangdong provincial finance
    • Table 1.3 Structure of tax revenue in Guangdong, 1908–1909 (unit: taels)
    • Table 1.4 Fiscal balance in Guangdong province, including national tax income and debt income, 1912, 1924, 1926, 1930–1937 (unit: in haoyang 10,000 yuan for 1912–1936, in Fabi 10,000 yuan for 1937)
    • Table 1.5 National revenue under the control of Guangdong province, fiscal years 1930–1935 (unit: haoyang 10,000 yuan, the fiscal weight in terms of % is in parentheses)
    • Table 1.6 Provincial revenue in Guangdong, excluding loans, fiscal years 1930–1936
    • Table 1.7 Breakdown of industrial and commercial taxes in Guangdong provincial revenue, 1930–1936
    • Table 2.1 Contracted amount of the likin for tobacco and wine in Guangzhou prefecture and Foshan district in the late Qing dynasty (unit: tael)
    • Table 2.2 Annual revenue and expenditures in Guangdong province, 1912–1941 (unit: 10,000 yuan, Guobi, National Currency)
    • Table 2.3 Revenue from the tobacco and wine taxes and their proportion of Guangdong provincial tax revenue, 1912–1932 (unit: yuan)
    • Table 2.4 Budget for tobacco and wine taxes in Guangdong province, 1930
    • Table 2.5 Revenue from the consolidated tax on cigarettes
    • Table 3.1 Special taxes in Guangdong until July 1936 (unit: haoyang yuan)
    • Table 3.2 Guangdong provincial budget and collected revenue, 1933 (unit: 10,000 haoyang yuan)
    • Table 3.3 Guangdong provincial tax revenue, excluding national tax revenue (unit: 10,000 haoyang yuan / (%))
    • Table 3.4 Monthly tax revenue in Guangdong province, estimated as of June 1936) (unit: haoyang yuan)
    • Table 3.5 Exports from Guangzhou, the Pearl River Delta, and Shanghai (unit: million Haikwan taels)
    • Table 3.6 Trade balance in Guangdong province, 1928–1937 (unit: 1,000 yuan)
    • Table 4.1 Rice production, rice consumption, and the rice shortage in Guangdong province, the 1930s (unit: picul)
    • Table 4.2 Import volume of foreign rice and entry volume of domestic rice to Guangdong province, 1930–1937 (unit: picul)
    • Table 4.3 Average price of domestic and imported rice in the Shanghai market, 1928–1937 (unit: picul, yuan)
    • Table 5.1 Sugar imports and smuggling in China, 1928–1935 (unit: 1,000 tons)
    • Table 5.2 Estimated volume of sugar smuggling in China, 1933–1936 (unit: 1,000 tons)
    • Table 5.3 Newly built state-run sugar factories in Guangdong (unit: ton)
    • Table 5.4 Value of sugar sold by the National Products Sales Department, June 1934–April 1935 (unit: 1,000 haoyang yuan)
    • Table 6.1 New and old sales quotas for major sugar districts in Guangdong (unit: picul)
    • Table 6.2 Quota based on the minimum consumption estimates and the highest bid sales quota for a license in seven sugar districts
    • Table 6.3 Trends in native sugar production in Guangdong
    • Table 8.1 List of files on tax contractors found among the documents of the Department of Finance, Guangdong Provincial Archives
    • Table 8.2 Monthly payments of Wanquan Company, September 1935–November 1935 (uniti: yuan, haoyang)
    • Table 8.3 Wanquan Company’s delayed payments and amount of added interest (unit: yuan, haoyang)
    • Table 9.1 Tax revenue of the imperial Qing, 1766 (unit: tael)
    • Table 9.2 Tax revenue budget of the central government, 1911 (unit: 10,000 taels)
    • Table 9.3 Tax revenue structure, Meiji government (unit: 1 million Japanese yen)
    • Table 9.4 National tax revenue of the Beiyang government, 1911–1925 (Unit: 1,000 yuan)
    • Table 9.5 Provincial tax revenue, 1915 and 1916 (unit: silver yuan)
    • Table 9.6 National tax revenue of the Nanjing Nationalist Government, 1928–1937 (unit: yuan, fabi)
    • Table 9.7 Tax structure and shares of national tax revenue, 1928–1937 (unit: %)
    • Table 9.8 Provincial tax revenue under the Nationalist government, 1933–1936 (unit: silver yuan)
    • Table 9.9 Tax revenue structure of the US federal government, 1880–1930
    • Table 9.10 Actual value per capita of production, expenditures, and taxes for seventy-two quarters, 1999–2016 (unit: RMB)