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2 The Canton Customs Crisis
- University Press of Florida
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2 The Canton Customs Crisis In late 1923 a crisis broke out in South China that provided the treaty powers with an opportunity for a classic demonstration of naval power in support of the so-called unequal treaty system. The Pearl River Delta including the city of Canton was the area of prime concern of the Asiatic Fleet’s South China Patrol. The patrol’s responsibilities also extended along the South China coasts of Fukien and Kwangtung provinces and the three tributaries of the Pearl River: the West, the North, and the East rivers. To watch these waterways, the South China Patrol in the early 1920s usually included at most but three gunboats: the old former Spanish gunboat Pampanga and two more modern seagoing gunboats such as Helena, Asheville, or Sacramento. These American ships, however, were seriously handicapped by their deep drafts, which prevented them from moving freely through the intricate waterways of the delta and its tributaries. As reported by Admiral Joseph Strauss, then Commander in Chief Asiatic Fleet, this awkward situation was alleviated by an agreement between the American naval forces and the British and the Japanese “so that all threatened points can be covered and the interests of all nationals protected .” Indeed, the Asiatic Fleet Regulations in 1921 specified: “They [the Yangtze and South China patrols] will also render such assistance to other nations at peace with our government as may in the judgment of the Patrol Commander be advisable and proper. They will cultivate friendly relations with the civil population and authorities and with military and naval authorities so as to possess full information of assistance necessary when danger arises from uncertain conditions existing in China.”1 Canton in 1923 was the seat of an unstable regime headed by the well-known revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, who refused to recognize the legitimacy of the government in Peking. Sun himself was without a significant military power base and enjoyed stormy relations with local warlord General Chen Chiung-ming and mercenary armies from the neighboring provinces of Kwangsi and Yunnan. In 1923, however, he entered a collaborative relationship with the Soviet Union, which provided him with advisers and military assistance designed to invigorate his regime and the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party.2 Moved perhaps by his new Communist advisers as well as its own financial need, Sun’s regime intimated in late 1923 that it contemplated seizing the Canton Maritime Customs, with a view to securing for itself customs revenues that were not pledged to pay off China’s foreign debts.3 Such an action by Canton would have been a severe blow to the system of unequal treaties and thus disturbing to the Chinese political order. The Customs Service was a foreign-staffed administration, headed by a British inspector general, that supervised collection of the conventional tariff, the most lucrative of China’s modern taxes. Sun claimed that Canton should receive a share of the customs revenues in proportion to the money collected in South China. If this revenue were turned over to Peking, he argued, the northern government would use it to support Canton’s enemies. To China’s 24 / Part I. The U.S. Navy and Contending Warlords foreign creditors, however, a challenge to the Maritime Customs at Canton threatened the entire system, since it surely would be followed by similar challenges from other regional regimes, as well as by claims against the other major foreign-operated Chinese tax administration, the Salt Gabelle. Ministers of the diplomatic corps in Peking promptly responded to Sun Yat-sen’s supposed threat by claiming that division of the conventional tariff revenues, after payments on foreign debts had been made, was a domestic issue upon which they had no power to advise. But they also warned Canton that they were prepared to “take such forcible means as they may deem fit” to protect the customs administration. To back up these strong words, the ministers recommended that the powers assemble “some kind of naval demonstration at Canton.” Edward Bell, the American chargé d’affaires, after consulting with the legation’s military and naval attachés, advised that the two gunboats already at Canton should be reinforced by four destroyers from the Asiatic Fleet.4 Commander South China Patrol in the gunboat Asheville at Canton was the levelheaded Commander J. O. Richardson. Many years later Richardson became a hero in the Navy when, as Commander in Chief United States Fleet, he dared to criticize President Franklin D. Roosevelt for keeping the...