China's Railway

1758 Words4 Pages

In 1894, the Qing government was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War; the Boxer Rebellion in China seized the railway interests. More than ten thousand kilometres to be swallowed up in China and carved up the right of way to form the imperialist plunder of China's first climax. Subsequently, in accordance with their needs, they were designed and built a number of railways; however it was in different standards, equipment clutter, resulting in confusion and China Railway backwardness.

The development of China's railway construction was started from 1876, which named ‘Songhu Railway’ since 1981, and it was 105 years ago, building a 50,181 km railway. Before the People’s Republic of China was been built up, the annual average of railway construction is only more than 300 kilometres. During the Qing Dynasty Songhu Railway which was been built by British merchants in Shanghai is considered to be the China's first railway on the land. Before that, the British businessmen in Xuanwumen(Peking), built a 500 meters a small railway, only for the people to treated.

In the Qing Dynasty (1876 ~ 1911), the construction of railway was about 9400 km. Imperialism, which directly accounts for about 41% of the construction business; imperialist control through loans, about 39%; state-owned railways, including China's Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway was built as self-reliance, the business head office was redemption of the Beijing-Hankou Railway; and Guangzhou third rail only accounted for about 20%.

From 1881 to 1911 the railway built in the Tang Xu, which collapsed the Qing government for 30 years, is the first phase of the railway. At this stage, the Qing government as the continuous Westernization and domestic proposals to promote people with lofty...

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...y two. First goal is to reclaim those foreign concessions whose agreements had already been signed or drafted before this period. Secondly, the goal is to construct a Chinese railway system through investments in China. (LEE)

Works Cited

C.H.Paul, 1931. Railway Politics and the Open Door in China, 1916-1917[Online], 25(4). Available at: [Accessed 26 November 2010]

D. Mclean, 1973.Chinese Railways and the Townley Agreement of 1903[Online], 7(2). Available at: < URL: http://www.jstor/org/stable/311772 > [Accessed 14 November 2010]

L.Enhan, 1977. China’s quest for railway autonomy 1904-1911. 1st Ed. Singapore: Singapore University Press.

The Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China, Available at: [Accessed 28 November 2010]

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