Thread by @ernestleungmt

Who said the Chinese Anfu Club Regime and Duan Qirui had no economic thinking?

Club Council, 1918 - State demonstrative factories like Meiji Japan, experimental farms, subsidies to private startups, Listian tariffs, export bans on ess. goods, even inspections on unsanitary food

On Feb 26, 1920 China announced the establishment of an "Economic General Staff" - the Economic Investigation Bureau based on the Postwar Econ. Investigat'n Commission.

PM would be Bureau President and Deputy Presidents Sun Baoqi and Wang Naibin were both experienced technocrats

The Bureau's councillors included Kong Xiangke, a Versailles representative who died of overwork on the post; Huang Xuwan was an expert on tariffs and economic historian; Xiao Fangjun, a doctor who treated Sun Yat-sen and Liang Qichao, and a Zhang Wu who had his PhD from Berlin

State Socialist urban planning, 1920 - Peking Metropolitan Council 京都市政公所

Inspection tour to Japan, labour savings bureaus loaning to the poor, primary schools, trees, housing, public toilets, parks, abattoirs, rickshaw-pullers resting places, soon water mains and tramways

In a lengthy Policy Address on Feb 28, 1920 President Xu Shichang announced the re-centring of state policy on economics, having been inspired by Herbert Spencer and WWI US mobilisation. He argued for a Listian line, calling the Open-Door a plot by the powers to save free trade.

@Andrew_Levidis @michaelschiltz Michael, great to see your reply to Andrew. My MPhil thesis on German State Socialism in E Asia was made possible by your book. I found that Nishihara called himself a State Socialist and detailed industrial plans were made by China for the Loans.

Men behind the ideas - PM Duan Qirui, Berlin War College graduate (spec. artillery) and Krupp intern; President Xu Shichang, Governor of Manchuria 1907-9 and PM; Liang Shiyi, late-Qing 1st gen. technocrat and state banker; Sun Baoqi, Taxation Commissioner and late-Qing diplomat.

Nothing Maoist about cooperatives/communes. In 1920 the Peiyang Govt was planning to avoid class war - factory legislation, a Peasant-Worker Bank, German/Danish-type cooperatives for credit, consumption, industry & agriculture - to buy agricultural machinery, seeds & fertilisers.

[ Anfu Space Funk ] In April 1920, China, having set up an Air Commission and commercial wireless, was quoting Marconi (?) on communication with planets such as Mars and the Sun, and also pondering about alien life. Can someone with knowledge of telegraphy explain this article?