Deposit, Waste

Through the systematic investigation on the emergence and the development of the likin system in modern China, the thesis tends to analyze the role of likin system in modern China and the influence on the economy and life of society under China's specific circumstance. The author is determined to make comprehensive and objective evaluation upon the likin system.The establishment of the likin system was the measure that the Qing Dynasty had to be made. But it evolved as the phenomenon that the toll-gates were set up at no places and no goods wasn't levied the tax. Its harm was so deep that it was thought of as one of the disasters in modern times. All was unexpected. Likin, though, was temporary tax that the Qing Dynasty established for raising money to repress the taiping rebellion. It had been censured for seventy eight years. This showed that the existence of likin had its profound background of economy and society. Abolishing likin was to "change a little, then influence the whole", and it existed contradiction not only between China and other countries, but also between the center and the local authority. The problem of likin system's abolition was the problem about not only economy but also politics.Chinese modernization's start-up, unlike those originally-developed countries that had a so long original accumulated process, was forced torespond under the pressure of outside force in a sense .If China would lead a modem road, how to get a vast sum of capital? Without doubt, likin played this role. Likin system and modernization was an antinomy historic proposition. Modernization was based on substantive financial earnings and this meant that China must increase venture. But under China's specific circumstance, the government had to aggravate the likin collection; then its flooding also badly hindered the currency of merchandise and went against developing the modernization.That is, the existence and abolition of the likin system was a difficult choice under China's specific circumstance that it was modem China's dependent sovereignty (especially sovereignty on custom), insufficient finance, domestic trouble and foreign invasion, the strong pressure with modernization and local vested interest group's strong oppositions.