Foreign Capitalism in Modern China

From the perspective of modern Chinese history, the formation of foreign capitalism in China and its control over the arteries of China's national economy were gradually completed from the Opium War (1840) to the 1930s. After the Opium War, foreign capitalist-imperialist forces took a series of aggressive measures.

In particular: through the war, the imperialist powers had forced China to sign numerous unequal treaties by which they had acquired various privileges in China; by virtue of various privileges, they exported commodities and plundered raw materials on a large scale to control China's market; and exported capital on a large scale and exercised comprehensive control over all important sectors of China's national economy such as finance, trade, industry, mining, transportation and some important light industries. They thereby directly exerted economic pressure on China's national industry and obstructed the development of her productive forces.

More than half of the foreign investment in China was used in commerce, import and export, transportation, banking and insurance, while industrial and mining industries accounted for a small proportion. By investing in China, imperialist countries jointly or separately began to control not only China's vital financial and economic arteries but also her political and military power. At the same time, they also competed among themselves with their own capital power.

They made the feudal landlord class as well as the comprador class the main props of their rule in China, created warlord scuffles, destroyed the rural economy, destroyed the national industry and commerce, and made China's economy increasingly colonized.