ABSTRACT
The British retreat from China that began in the mid-1920s was a result of long-term processes. Influenced by the idealism and internationalism of the post-war context, the public and those in charge of China policy chose to have an optimistic assessment of the Nationalist endeavour to unite and modernise the Chinese state. The purges and the break with Russia thus neutralised both left- and right-wing opposition to the two strands of the government's China policy. Bridgeman boasted that the Labour Council for Chinese Freedom had produced a 'great effect' on public opinion and that it had received wide publicity in the press. By 1928, then, Chinese nationalism had been recognised as a force to be reckoned with by the majority of the British public. Still, doubts may remain concerning whether or not the British really negotiated away their informal empire in the interwar period and thus whether this era can accurately be labelled a 'retreat'.
