‘Winning the Peace’: The Chinese Maritime Customs Service, foreign technocrats, and planning the rehabilitation of post-war China, 1943–1945

Introduction

‘We must not only win the war but also win the peace.’¹ This statement appeared on a plan for post-war rehabilitation drawn up by the Marine Department of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service (CMCS) in January 1944. It marked the period during which planning for post-war reconstruction was a major part of the daily activities of Customs Service staff in China's wartime capital, Chongqing, under the leadership of Lester K. Little (1943–1950), the first American and last foreign inspector-general of the Customs Service. Before Little's arrival, there was uncertainty among foreign Customs Service staff as to whether they would still occupy any significant position in the CMCS. This should be understood in a context where the rise of Japan had overthrown European power across East and Southeast Asia. Whereas the European empires reasserted their presence in the colonial states after the Second World War, the situation in China was different: extraterritoriality was abrogated in January 1943 and China would emerge as a fully sovereign state once the war ended.

The confusion over the future existed widely among various foreign experts and officials, including administrators and policemen of foreign concessions and specialist staff in philanthropic organizations, who had seen their future careers in China.² As these seasoned officials and experts struggled to come to grips with their role in post-war China, a new group of foreign experts arrived. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) sent over 2,000 relief workers and experts to China during its brief existence from 1943 to 1947.³ Foreign experts seemed to be even more active in post-war China than in the pre-war years.⁴ This article will show that when the Chongqing government focused on planning for China's post-war reconstruction during the last phase of the Sino-Japanese War (1943–1945), a period we can characterize as the first few post-treaty years, it tailored its reliance on foreign Customs Service employees to the post-war need for rehabilitation. This article argues that the evolution of the Nationalist state during the war is crucial to understanding both change and continuity in the role of foreign experts in China—and the fact that the space for foreigners without the technical expertise to secure a position in the Chinese government was narrowing.

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