100 Imperial Chinese Government 1911 Hukuang Railway Gold Bond
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:16325801 |
100 5% Hukuang Railways Sinking Fund Gold Loan of 1911 Bond. Uncancelled. Several coupons. It is important to stress that these bonds have been bought in recent years and pretty much taken off the collector market. As a result prices have risen rather dramatically. Several more rows of coupons not shown. Excellent Condition. New article relating to this Chinese item: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-29/trump-s-new-trade-war-weapon-might-just-be-antique-china-debt Imperi...al Chinese Government Hukuang Railways bonds are well-nigh ubiquitous in the marketplace. They were issued in 1911 by a consortium of banks in London, Berlin, Paris and New York, with serial numbers running into the six digits, of which hundreds if not thousands appear to have survived. A few bear New York State adhesive revenue stamps; shown here is a New York issue 100 bond with Secured Debt $1 and Investments $1 stamps paying New York's Investments tax in 1917 and 1918; this secured for the bondholder exemption from that state's onerous personal property tax. Coupon bonds of this era are generally large and spectacularAmerican bonds typically measure about 10 by 15 inchesbut this one sets new standards on both scores. It is huge, some 16 by 22 inches as shown. Its design and execution by security printers Waterlow & Sons of London are equally impressive, featuring the facsimile seals and signatures of China's Minister of Posts and Communications and its Minister in Washington. Alongside is the countersignature of a representative of the New York banks J. P. Morgan & Co., Kuhn Loeb & Co., the First National Bank of the City of New York, and the National City Bank of New York. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and to my eye these Hukuang Railways bonds are among the most attractive pieces ever to bear stamps. Similar bonds issued in London, Berlin and Paris by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Deutsch-Asiatische Bank, and Banque de L'Indo-Chine, respectively, show the signatures of their representatives and of the Chinese Ministers to Great Britain, Germany and France. Only the relatively few stamped bonds are philatelically interesting, but all are historically important. Surprising Historical Significance There is strong evidence that the controversial financing of the Hukuang Railway was the tipping point that sparked China's revolution of 1911, which overthrew three millennia of dynastic rule and led to formation of the Chinese Republic the following year. No less qualified an observer than Sir John Newell Jordan, British Minister to Peking from 1906 until 1920, wrote with the benefit of hindsight at the end of his tenure that "the Hukuang Railway Agreement ... was the proximate cause of the downfall of the Dynasty." (Woodhouse, 2004). The reader can be excused for finding it improbable that the terms of a railroad loan could trigger a revolution. The explanation is a tale worth telling. Invasion via Funding By 1911, nationalists had long protested the extent of foreign control of China's railroads. As summarized by Goetzmann and Ukhov (2005), By most accounts the competition among the great powers to secure railway concessions during this period through a combination of political diplomacy and the financial might of their capital markets was, in some ways, the high point of the age of Imperialism. At least it was characterized as such by contemporary commentators such as Lenin, who used the division of China into spheres of influence by foreign capitalists as the example of Capitalist Imperialism par excellence. ... Virtually of China's railways constructed after 1895 were financed by foreign debt issues underwritten by European-led investment banking syndicates which obtained right of way, property concessions and promises of repayment from the Chinese Imperial government. Under the control of the bankers who financed the loans, Chinese railways were constructed, owned and operated by managers designated by the financi
