From Colonial India to Semi-Colonial Republican China: Imaginaries and Realities of Civil Service and State-Building in Salt Administration, 1912–45

This article studies the Sino-Foreign Salt Inspectorate, which was imposed upon a weak Chinese government by an international consortium from 1913 till 1949. The founder of Inspectorate Sir Richard Dane, high-level civil servant in Indian Civil Service with long experience salt tax administration India. charts development considering how it maintained its organisational integrity hostile policy environment through core strategies simplification, bureaucratisation and insulation. stands as exemplar liberal imperial order replication classic British ideals political economy, operating midst dangerous war, rising nationalism foreign invasion.