Content area
Full Text
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
In the annals of the economic history of the Nationalist era, the sudden arrest and execution of Feng Rui (1899-1936) has been a long-standing puzzle. Feng was an eminent and cosmopolitan public figure, a US-educated agronomist, a nationally and internationally respected agricultural reformer and director of a major provincial investment to improve China's sugarcane crop and modernize Guangdong's sugar mills. Why did a military tribunal execute him in short order? With deft analysis of a range of archival resources, Emily Hill locates Feng's execution at the crossroads of provincial rivalries, Chiang Kai-shek's efforts to break up what was seen as Guangdong's semi-autonomous government, and Nanjing's mounting tension with Japan over smuggling and tariffs. Feng's purported crime was repackaging smuggled Japanese sugar to pass it off as produced by government factories. The factories were a major nationalist enterprise intended to move China away from imports. Apparently the sugar boilers were never fired up. People called this "smokeless sugar." The Japanese invasion of northern and northeastern China from 1931 onwards set up the broader context of rising nationalist concerns, as Japanese troops and ships provided protection for the smugglers.
Using the life and times of...