Italy's Encounters with Modern China

Imperial Dreams, Strategic Ambitions

M. Marinelli, G. Andornino, M. Marinelli, G. Andornino

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137290922
• eBook ISBN: 9781137290939
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Developed by an international team of historians, sociologists, political scientists and economists, this collection is the most comprehensive reader of the history of Sino-Italian relations currently available in the English language.

1

PROJECTING ITALIANITÀ ON THE CHINESE SPACE: THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE “ARISTOCRATIC” CONCESSION IN TIANJIN (1901–1947)

Maurizio Marinelli

Over one hundred years ago, from September 25 to 27, 1910, a Conference of “Orientalist-Geographers” was held to commemorate the “apostle and geographer of China,” Jesuit Father Matteo Ricci (1552–1610). This event took place three hundred years after his death, in his native town, Macerata.¹ On that occasion, two of the invited speakers, Mr. E. A. Perogio and Mr. L. Sborlino, chose as the focus of their speeches “Italians and Governance in China” and “The Italian Concession in Tientsin,” respectively. At this juncture, nearly 50 years had passed since the complex and problematic creation of the newly unified Italian state, while, significantly, only nine years had elapsed since the official acquisition from the Qing government of the territory destined to become the Yizujie (Italian Concession), known today as Yishi fengqingqu (Italian-style scenic neighborhood). The cession of this small plot of land was the outcome of the Italian military participation in the Eight-Power Allied Expeditionary Force’s repression of the Boxers’ uprising,² which had led to the forced signature, by the Qing government, of the “Final Protocol for the Settlement of the Disturbances of 1900” (Xinchou Treaty, dated September 7, 1901).

Italy received an allotment of 5.91 percent of the Boxers’ indemnity (26,617,005 haiguan taels, equal to 99,713,769 gold lire).³ The country also received extraterritoriality privileges in the Legation Quarter in Beijing. But the most important practical achievement was the cession, in perpetuity, of a small area of 447,647 square meters on the northern bank of the Haihe (Hai River) in Tianjin, situated at 38° 56’ latitude north and 117° 58’ longitude east, on which to develop an Italian Concession. The Italian area was set between the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian Concessions, the left bank of the Haihe, the Beijing-Mukden (today’s Shenyang) railway track, and the Chinese territory.

The area ceded to the Italian government consisted of four parts:

1. the higher rising area (100,000 square meters) of the salt mines;

2. the so-called Chinese village (200,000 square meters), in the center of the concession area: approximately 1,000 dwellings, mainly huts built by salt workers, with 13,704 inhabitants, according to the 1902 census;

3. north of the village, the least appealing area: wetland, where water could be as deep as 3–4 meters, frozen in winter; and

4. on the emerging parts of this wetland a “vast abandoned and flooded cemetery,” where local dwellers used to bury their dead⁴ (Figure 1.1).

This essay will examine the various representations of the former Italian Concession and the construction of a success story for the newly unified Italian nation in Tianjin.

Figure 1.1 Cemetery and marshes in the territory of the Italian Concession.

TWO ANTAGONISTIC REPRESENTATIONS: WISHFUL THINKING?

Sborlino began his presentation at the 1901 “Orientalists-Geographers” Conference with a significant statement:

The Royal Italian Concession of Tientsin is a minuscule outcome of age-old attempts made by Europe to open the doors of China. The Chinese aversion against the Western strangers, their civilization and trade, was confronted, more than once, by wild massacres and destruction. Even though European cannons on occasions won, they still failed to tame [China], because every defeat cost the country a shred of itself. This added resentment to the inborn aversion, and ultimately led to the organization of new reprisals.⁵

Sborlino contextualized his analysis, mentioning that the origin of the “scramble for concessions” was the outcome of the first Opium War, with the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing (1842). He further pointed out that the “claimed ease of conquest of that immense and extremely wealthy empire awakened the greed and competitiveness of many states and led to the opening of treaty ports such a Tianjin.” Sborlino did emphasize that, after the acquisition of the territory, little had been done for a number of years; however, by 1910, when he was delivering his speech, Sborlino sounded extremely optimistic. Expressing himself in dream-like terms, he reveals his anticipation that his motherland may project itself directly onto the faraway settlement:

In a few months our concession should be comfortably and beautifully provided with numerous European-style houses. We can imagine these houses—on two floors, some of them facing large boulevards with pavements, others surrounded by pretty gardens and small vegetable plots, decorated with verandas—populated by our countrymen, who are actively occupied in running industrial and commercial enterprises, both locally and internationally. Thus would our concession appear to the train’s passengers, to the dwellers of the other concessions, and to the Chinese people living in Tientsin: an enviable example of prosperity and a model of what Italians are able to do when they so wish.⁶

One might be tempted to quickly draw the conclusion that this is, more or less, what happened during the following two decades.⁷ But the history of the acquisition of the Italian Concession, and of its subsequent development is more nuanced and problematic.

Sborlino’s early optimism derived from the fact that, following the expropriation of the salt mines, the expropriation or demolition of the “inhabitable or inhabited” dwellings of the Chinese village, the removal of graves from the cemetery, and the reclaiming of the wetland, eventually the new building regulatory code, police code, and code of hygiene were approved and introduced in 1908.⁸ This legislative effort followed the sale by auction (July 5, 1908) of 41 lots of land (approximately ten hectares).

Mr. E. A. Perogio had been invited to participate in the same Conference of “Orientalist-Geographers,” to speak more broadly about the Italian government’s relations with China. He offered a rather different perspective:

Our insipience is revealed most obviously looking at the (Italian) concession of Tientsin. The city is the commercial entrepôt of the Chinese capital on the Pei-ho, where all other nations have given triumphal evidence of their vigor. Compared with other nations’ real “boulevards,” typical of European capitals, we display but a desert space, where only the government has built its own Consulate; far away, on the margins, one can see a few huts left to the Chinese: nothing else! At the Hotel de la Paix, they were all laughing (in my face) for this admirable proof given by the Italians. The Italian concession? [ . . . ] Go on, and see for yourselves!⁹

Analyzing these conflicting speeches, it is evident that the first one contains a dream-like, highly positive, encomiastic, and ultimately self-reflective representation of the Italian prowess, projected into the near future. The second report is extremely negative: it reflects the embarrassment due to the derision of Italy by the other imperialistic nations, and the long-term desire to revive Italy and see it become part, not a pawn, of Europe. Nevertheless, the two descriptions also reveal a common trait: the central element is the uncanny paradox originated by the dream of the newly created Italian nation to position itself on the world stage, at the same level as the other powers. This paradox was projected onto the Italian presence in China. Fundamentally, on an international level, the acquisition of the concession represented the opportunity for national pride: after the repeated failures that had characterized both the Italian colonial policy in Africa and the unproductive diplomatic relations between Italy and China from the 1866 bilateral treaty onward,¹⁰ Tianjin was seen as the way forward, a pedagogical laboratory that offered the possibility to demonstrate, both to the Italian citizens and the foreigners alike, “what the Italians are able to do when they so wish.”¹¹ The issue of Italy’s ability to position itself as an assertive latecomer on the imperialistic scene, making up for time lost, was projected onto the Italian presence in China.

THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE KINGDOM OF ITALY AND CHINA

A distinctive feature of the foreign policy of the newly unified Italian state was the dichotomy between a frustrated desire for self-assertion on the international scene on the one hand, and the problematic definition of the national interests on the other. This paradox had become particularly clear during the first government led by Francesco Crispi (July 29, 1887–February 6, 1891). Italy’s foreign policy was thus characterized by an uneasy tension between an ambition for a more interventionist posture and the painful awareness of the considerable economic costs of a full-fledged colonial policy.

Crispi’s successor, Antonio di Rudinì, in a famous speech recorded by the then president of the Senate, Domenico Farini, stressed the impossibility of conducting imperialistic policies in Africa: he emphasized the enormous costs of such operation (“fifty million lire a year if not more”) and poignantly concluded: “Let someone else spend it, not me. I will end up bringing everybody home, come what may.”¹² To this Farini replied that withdrawal from the colonial agenda would be impossible, since it would deal an unacceptable blow to the country’s prestige. During the second Crispi government, when the Abyssinian campaigns resumed, I...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 Projecting Italianità on the Chinese Space: The Construction of the “Aristocratic” Concession in Tianjin (1901–1947)
• 2 At the Dawn of Modern Italo-Chinese Relations: Ludovico Nocentini’s Experience
• 3 The Italian Presence in China: Historical Trends and Perspectives (1902–1947)
• 4 Rethinking the Distance, Reframing the Exotic: Italian Tales of Shanghai through the Republican and Early Maoist Eras
• 5 The Beginning and the End of the Idyllic Relations between Mussolini’s Italy and Chiang Kai-shek’s China (1930–1937)
• 6 The Normalization of Relations between Italy and the People’s Republic of China
• 7 Strategic Ambitions in Times of Transition: Key Patterns in Contemporary Italy-China Relations
• 8 Economic Relations between Italy and China
• 9 The Role of the Italian Development Cooperation in Sino-Italian Relations
• 10 Italy’s Engagement with the People’s Republic of China in the Context of the EU-China Strategic Partnership
• Bibliography
• Notes on Contributors
• Index