This book provides a brief history of how foreign debt has shaped and influenced the development of China is the past 170 years. It discusses both government and non-government debt. In modern China especially after the first Sino-Japanese War the foreign debt problem was a huge burden and influenced China's approach to finance, the economy, politics and diplomacy. This book examines this and also looks at the deeper historical influences of foreign debt on China. Today there is an argument that lending to China was the means for foreign capitalists and imperialists to enslave China, to export capital to China and to vie for spheres of influence. However the author of this book bases his analysis on historical fact and examines how governments of old China colluded with foreign capital to serve their own ends and finance their own often misjudged policies. For anyone interested in the history of finance in China and the rise of China this is an important book that provides an understanding of a phenomenon that has helped shape China since the 19th Century. Publishing in association with Social Science Academic Press (China).