淸末 中國에서의 國債償還運動 -『申報』 기사를 중심으로-

Abstract

Chinese National Debt Redemption Movement in Late Ch'ing--An Analysis of the Articles in the Shen Bao(『申報』) Kim, Jong Geon 〔Abstract〕 The national debt redemption movement of the late Ch'ing China started, as the anxiety that the imperialist powers would interfere in the state financial affair in the pretext of the Chinese financial weakness spread among the Chinese people. This movement initiated by merchant societies developed by earning ardent response from various groups of people belonging to different realms such as education, labor world, political world, women world, and etc. And it was also widely extended to every important cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou, Beijing etc. after it started in Tianjin. However, it could not overcome the fundamental problems because of its excessive patriotism and inflexible policy about how to collect donation and failed to attain its expected achievement. The national debt redemption movement was raised in Korea in 1907, and the Chinese redemption movement launched two years later, which was due to the Chinese merchants' consciousness of economic crisis, frustrations in gentry's petition movement for the establishment of national assembly, and other factors. Consequently officials like magistrates of local administrative districts and confucian scholars actively participated in this movement once it started, which was unlike that of Korea. However, as the Chinese national debt redemption movement was promoted in a strong political background like this, it got closely involved in the petition movement for the establishment of the national assembly and lost the dynamic for the movement itself. As for the method of collecting fund, economic methodology like allocating a fixed share to each region was adopted. So as fund collection was conducted very well, it was natural that this movement lose its dynamic and passion. This is sharply contrasted with the Korean national debt redemption movement, which was promoted by the civilians' voluntary participation in fund collection through the practice of thrift and saving. However, in spite of these some flaws and limits, Chinese national debt redemption movement which was developed from the late 19th century to the early 20th century was a patriotic movement, which was connected with the anti-imperialist movement like anti-foreign movement, anti-foreign debt movement, foreign product boycott movement, national rights' reclamation movement. This was literally a national movement, which all classes of people including officials, merchants, scholars and commoners participated in and was geographically performed in all the regions including large cities like Peijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, countrysides and nomadic region like Mongol. This movement made a certain degree of contribution to opening new era, which would be developed by the consequent Republican Revolution and New Culture Movement. (Kyoungpook National University, gbells@hanmail.net)