Sino-french Industrial Bank Discussing The Beginning

The Banque Industrielle de Chine,which was registered in France according to French company law and was given special permission by Chinese government, was the first joint bank since the new Republic of China founding. Chinese government showed great interest in the joint bank in order to input capital. Accordingly, The Banque Industrielle de Chine undoubtedly played a role of loding agency, but the Chinese government lost the bank' s management power and permited the banknote issue. The bank brought giant economic profits to the French capital group, meanwhile it became a base of aggressing China. Afterfounding the bank operated various businesses , including government loans and banknote issue besides its usual businesses. In the first years, the bank' s profits were good. To gain further development, the bank ever increased capitalization twice. By 1921, it had more than twenties branches, which had formed an enomous finance net .Then, the bank met with crisis . After the First World War, French economy fell into trouble, the price of franc devalued , the general bank' s loss in Paris was very huge because of the bad management, practice graft and the fail of speculation .The crisis was extremely urgent. In order to save the bank, its managers took sdvantage of its political power and economic relation to search for supports. To safeguard French' s economic prestige in the Far East, the French government consulted actively with the Chinese government, but all these did nothing much to end the bad luck of the bank. After the Banque Industrielle de Chine closed, the Banque's notes in China become inconvertible and were almost waste paper , and brought an alarm to the public as a whole. But a coming financial crisis was avoided by redemption of Chinese Bankers' s Association at Beking, Shanghai , Tientsin and Hankow.After the First World War, French's franc had differece prices between gold currency and paper currency. To decrease the loss brought by devalued franc and raised money to restorate the Banque Industrielle de Chine, French forced Chinese government to calculate The Reparation of 1900 in gold franc in the name of returning it to support education, so "gold franc issue" happened. In the fact, "gold franc issue" had nothing to do with the restoration of the bank , but because of franee' s shifting responsibilityand the Peking government's weakness, the two things were mingled together. The agreement of the restoration of the Banque Industrielle de Chine was a chip in "gold franc issue" trade, which brought political issue to the restoration of the bank. The bank' s closed situation and restoration of tortous negotiation , which had lasted for over four years , ended in Beking government' s compromise.The bank'close was a great damage to the Banque's creditors in China. Chinese creditors stuggled to safeguard their own lawful interest in group. However, for the disordered political situation and government' s weakness, Beijing government' s not only didn' t safeguard native creditor' s interest, but also pay enomous cost, while the Banque Industrielle de Chine lengthened its life supported by French government, which took advantage of its own international influence and the unfair treaty. It proves that any cooperation business form can't be utilized really by China without national independence and sound law no matter it is successful or not. So it was only a nest of officers and businessmen' s colluding and ploting selflish interest and a tool of imperialists robbing China.