Currency Reform in Late Ch'ing China, 1887-1912

The development of a modern Chinese monetary system, to a great extent, followed a similar path as the modernization of other areas of Chinese society, such as politics, military, economy, and education. They all encountered many similar obstacles. Limited by the iedological and institutional barriers of a traditional culture, yet responding to an urgent necessity, the course of all late 19th and early 20th century reform programs travelled no easy course and reached no satisfactory conclusions. This was equally true for the process of monetary modernization. The silver dollar, the Western medium of exchange, was first introduced into China in the sixteenth century. The silver dollar, comparatively simple and convenient to use, became popular and circulated in some trade ports after the eighteenth century. Because the Chinese premodern regime did not usually interfere with the daily life of its subjects, foreign currency slowly entered into Chinese markets as a medium of exchange, complicating the traditional monetary conditions.