Abstract:Very little literature in either Chinese or English has discussed the Chinese Native Customs, much less offered a comprehensive view of the Native Customs tariff system. The thirty-year period during which the Chinese Maritime Customs controlled the Chinese Native Customs before it was abolished in 1931 actually tells us much more about the real nature of the Service. Amongst the newly-opened archives of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service at the Second Historical Archives of China in Nanjing (hereafter SHAC) are many files relating to this much-neglected history.These new sources allow us to begin to understand the history of the Service on the ground, and as a local actor in Chinese history.

The conventional way of approaching the Maritime Customs Service history is to regard it as an organisation run by expatriates for foreign traders, and to secure foreign loans. The roles of the CMCS, and particularly of the Inspector General, have therefore usually been discussed in the context of Sino-foreign relations. It is quite right to pay attention to this context; however, it is worth pointing out that the CMCS successfully, and much more quietly, extended its power into the Chinese interior through control of Native Customs.

Against this background, the situation of Tianjin has a unique place in the history of modern Chinese Maritime Customs and Native Customs. With the memories of the Second Opium War from 1856 to 1860, and the Tianjin-Christian tragedy in 1870, Tianjin also witnessed one of the most violent international incidents in 1900. As the frontline of the Boxer Uprising and the closest port of Beijing, Tianjin was the first place to be impacted during this turbulent period, and yet its Native Customs system was not handed over to the Chinese Maritime Customs until August 1902. With its networks of rivers and canals, as well as busy rail connections, Tianjin not only acted as the open window for Beijing, but also as a focal point for trade from all the directions of China, connected as it was to many different travelling routes.

In this paper, firstly I want to give an introduction to the relationship between the Maritime Customs and the Native Customs after 1900. In the section of Tianjin Native Customs, due to the limits of space of the paper, I will focus on two issues: the personnel involved, and the interaction between the Native Customs and other revenue collectorates of Chinese local officials.