ABSTRACT
For a long time, there has been a heated debate about the role of foreigners in China’s early economic development from 1840 to 1949. There are two popular theories which attempt to explain China’s failure to modernize. The first, Lenin’s theory of imperialism, gave Chinese intellectuals and revolutionaries ‘a general framework for understanding and interpreting China’s modern historical experience’ (Dernberger 1975: 22). Among the revolutionaries, the classic statement comes from Mao Zedong in ‘The Chinese Revolution and The Chinese Communist Party’:
. . . in their aggression against China the imperialist powers have on the one hand hastened the disintegration of feudal society and the growth of elements of capitalism, thereby transforming a feudal into a semi-feudal society, and on the other imposed their ruthless rule on China, reducing an independent country to a semi-colonial country.
