Although China’s Taiping Rebellion (1851-64) is perhaps history’s bloodiest civil war it has remained largely beyond the purview of genocide scholars, and its historiography has generally portrayed it as a “progressive” or “revolutionary” movement. This essay argues, however, that in its alien ideology derived from Protestantism and pre-Confucian millenarianism guided by the visions of Hong Xiuquan (1813-1864); radical attempts at social leveling; dismantling of Confucian culture and society; and elimination of select ethnic and religious groups, this attempt to create a theocratic “heavenly kingdom of great peace” (taiping tianguo) bears the hallmarks of current definitions of genocide and departs in crucial ways from even the most massive and sanguinary conflicts marking the Chinese past.

Chapter 1 begins with a discussion of the early interest of German bankers in the Chinese market, including the failed attempt of the Deutsche Bank to establish branches in East Asia in the 1870s. The chapter then explores the early development of foreign banking in modern China from the middle of the nineteenth century and the growing interest of Chinese reformers and officials in using foreign capital and cooperating with foreign banks. We then return to the German bankers and investigate the activities of a study mission sent to China by a group of German banks and industrial concerns. Finally, the chapter traces the establishment of the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank in China by leading German banks in 1889.

This chapter focuses on the so-called Self-Strengthening era during the second half of the nineteenth century when the Qing empire was expanding state involvement in industry and technology from its traditional ideology. The origin and motivation of state involvement in the private market during this era is different from that in the early twentieth century, which began to take lessons from Meiji Japan and the ideology of modernization (see Bian’s chapter in this volume). There were some elements of continuity here – in remnants of “Self-Strengthening” through the state efforts both to build up modern enterprises and develop to science and technology. This chapter explains the impact of the state sector’s emergence that was manifested in the development and expansion of state arsenals and modern enterprises.