Informal empire

The term "Informal empire" describes the spheres of influence which an empire may develop that translate into a degree of influence over a region or country, which is not a formal colony, protectorate, tributary or vassal state of the empire, as a result of the extension of commercial, strategic or military interests of the empire.

In a 2010 article, Gregory Barton and Brett Bennett defined informal empire as:

A willing and successful attempt by commercial and political elites to control a foreign region, resource, or people. The means of control included the enforcement of extra-territorial privileges and the threat of economic and political sanctions, often coupled with the attempt to keep other would-be imperial powers at bay. For the term "informal empire" to be applicable, we argue, historians have to show that one nation’s elite or government exerted extraterritorial legal control, de facto economic domination, and was able to strongly influence policies in a foreign country critical to the more powerful country’s interests.

Informal empire may assume a primarily economic guise. However, this is not the exclusive definition or requirement of the term. Strategic considerations or other concerns may bring about the creation of an imperial influence over a region not formally a component of the empire.

Origins

The ancient Athenians exerted control over the Delian league through an informal empire in the 5th century BCE.[1] The role of chartered companies such as the Muscovy Company, the Levant Company, the British East India Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, beyond official state channels, was a forerunner of informal empire, demonstrating that English/British imperialism had taken on such a nature from its onset.[2]

British Empire

The term is most commonly associated with the British Empire, where it is used to describe the extensive reach of British interests into regions and nations which were not formal parts of the Empire, in that they were not colonies and were not directly ruled by the British.[3]

Among the most notable elements of the British informal empire was China, which played an important, if unwilling, role in British imperial trade, and South America, which was a significant region for British commercial interests and investments.[4] Informal empire consisted primarily of three elements: privileged legal status for foreigners, a forcibly imposed imbalanced trade system, and interventionist tools such as military force and imperial consuls. Most significant was the Shanghai Municipal Council, which although theoretically under lease from the Chinese government, was effectively unaccountable and saw most positions filled by Britons backed by British naval power. Treaties were gradually forced on China to transfer government functions over to foreign control, or outright seized, such as China's most important coal mine at Kaiping. Foreign banks in coordination with colonial powers were immune to Chinese financial regulation, and established a near-total control of the Chinese financial system. Unfavourable terms of loans were hence imposed on the Chinese government, which often included seizures of Chinese tax revenue, business profits, mineral rights, and imposition of exclusivity clauses with the sale of overpriced construction materials and trains. The system broke down after the fragmentation of China by warlord armies in 1916 and the First World War, escalating Chinese resistance to domination, making foreign enforcement on Chinese affairs less reliable and replacing it with Japanese attempts at hegemony.[5] Challenges to British dominance in China from other Europeans, as well as by the US, led to a shift from more informal to more formal imperialism at the turn of the century, with the seizing of more concessions and direct exploitation rights. These were returned during the Second World War so that China would continue resisting Japan.[6]

The British military intervention in the Russian Civil War on behalf of the Whites was also motivated by a desire to establish an informal empire of influence and economic ties over Southern Russia, to deny Germany access to these assets and block the passage to British colonies in Asia.[7]

Informal empire, like many imperial relationships, is difficult to classify and reduce to a prescriptive definition. In the instance of the British informal empire, the character of the relationship varied widely. Chinese inclusion in the sphere of British informal empire was unwilling, and was maintained by the use of direct military coercion – the First and Second Opium Wars – and through the exertion of great diplomatic pressure.[8] South American governments were often willing partners in the extension of British commercial ventures, but force was sometimes used against those who tried to apply protectionist policies (see for example, the Anglo-French blockade of the River Plate).

Informal empire is an important concept required to adequately explain the reach and influence of empire, and in the case of the British Empire, is vital to any holistic account of the British Imperial experience and intrinsic to describing the interests and purposes of the Empire as a whole. Informal empire, far from being distinctive and separate from formal empire, is often bound up with formal imperial interests. For example, British informal empire in China was a product of British formal control of India, resulting from the need to finance the activities of the British East India Company through the sale of opium to the Chinese. By 1850, opium smuggling to China accounted for up to 20% of the revenue of the British Empire, serving as the most profitable single commodity trade of the 19th century.[9] As Timothy Brook and Bob Wakabayashi write of opium, “The British Empire could not survive were it deprived of its most important source of capital, the substance that could turn any other commodity into silver.”[10]

In the economic sphere, British informal empire was driven by the free trade economic system of the Empire. In the so-called "Imperialism of Free Trade" thesis, as articulated by historians Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher, the British Empire expanded as much by the growth of informal empire as it did by acquiring formal dominion over colonies.[11] Furthermore, British investment in empire was to be found not only in the formal Empire, but also in the informal empire – and, by Robinson and Gallagher's account, was indeed predominantly located in the informal empire. It is estimated that between 1815 and 1880, £1,187,000,000 in credit had accumulated abroad, but no more than one-sixth was placed in the formal empire. Even by 1913, less than half of the £3,975,000,000 of foreign investment lay inside the formal Empire.[12]

British historian David Reynolds claims that during the process of decolonisation, it was hoped that as an alternative to the declining formal empire, informal influence, sealed by economic ties and defense treaties would be swayed over the former colonies. The Commonwealth is suggested to have been an attempt by Britain to maintain some indirect influence over the newly independent countries.[13]

United States

US foreign policy from the late 19th century onward, under leaders such as Grover Cleveland, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, John Hay, Woodrow Wilson and New Deal leaders, has been described as "informal empire".[14] 20th century US policy of establishing international influence through friendly regimes, military bases and interventions, and economic pressure, has drawn comparisons with British-style informal empire. The fundamental elements involved a clientelistic relationship with the elite, sometimes established forcibly, effective veto power over issues pertaining to the Great Power's interests, and the use of military threats, regime change, or multilateral pressure to accomplish diplomatic aims. The policy is intended to create an international economic order that benefits the Great Power by creating markets for export and investment, improving the profitability of their capitalists. This commitment to open economy is selective and applied only when it benefits their producers. Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran and Chile are examples of this policy being implemented.[15] The policy was summed up by Secretary Bryan as having “opened the doors of all the weaker countries to an invasion of American capital and American enterprise.”[16] Under informal empire, the US relationship with raw material supplying countries became highly imbalanced, with much of their wealth repatriated to the US. This also disproportionately benefited the (often authoritarian) pro-American rulers of these countries at the expense of local development.[17] The US chose to switch from formal to informal empire after the Second World War not because of lack of desire for colonialism (there was strong public support for seizing colonies from Japan and even Britain, as well as a continued belief in colonies' incapability to govern themselves) but rather because of a changed international landscape. Since most of the world was already organised into colonies, US policymakers chose to utilise preexisting colonial empire networks instead of establishing new colonies. The US also had to adapt themselves to rising anti-colonial nationalist movements so as to acquire allies against the Soviet Union.[18]

France

French interventions in Mexico (1838, 1861) and elsewhere in Latin America such as Argentina and Uruguay have also been described as "informal empire".[19] France did not intend to seize territory. Instead, the imperial relationship was governed by treaty. Intervention was based on significant segments of the local population who looked to French ideals and French power as a means of self-advancement. [20]

The decolonisation of Africa led to the conversion of many former colonies into client states under a French informal empire known as Françafrique. Chief of Staff for African Affairs Jacques Foccart was the figure instrumental in creating collaborative networks between the French government and the new African elites. The purpose of the network was to aid capital accumulation for France.[21]

Japan

Japanese activity in China from 1895 to the outbreak of the Second World War has also been described as an informal empire. Japan was forced into concealing their territorial ambitions under informal terms as they lacked the strength to overcome Western objections to Japanese territorial gains. The Japanese advanced their own special privileges in China through promoting all Western interests alongside their own. Japan profited immensely from the informal empire in China and Japan's first multinational manufacturing firms were initiated in China rather than Japan's formal colonies due to China's vast internal market and raw material supply. Chinese popular pressure to drive out Japanese imperial institutions led to the Japanese attempting to switch from informal to formal imperialism to protect their profits, beginning the Second World War in Asia.[22]

See also

References

Notes
  1. Jeremy Black (2015). The British Empire: A History and a Debate. Ashgate Publishing. p. 11. ISBN 1472459660.
  2. Jeremy Black (2015). The British Empire: A History and a Debate. Ashgate Publishing. p. 46. ISBN 1472459660.
  3. Encyclopaedia Britannica. "British Empire". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Hong Kong island became British in 1841, and an 'informal empire' operated in China by way of British treaty ports and the great trading city of Shanghai.
  4. Porter, Andrew, ed. (1999). The Oxford History of the British Empire: The nineteenth century. Oxford University Press. pp. 146–155. ISBN 9780198205654.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  5. Porter, Andrew (1999). THE OXFORD HISTORY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE VOLUME III The Nineteenth Century. Oxford University Press. pp. 148–153, 166–168. ISBN 978-0-19-924678-6.
  6. Encyclopedia of Chinese-American Relations (McFarland, 2015) edited by Yuwu Song, p.288-289
  7. Jeremy Black (2015). The British Empire: A History and a Debate. Ashgate Publishing. pp. 217–218. ISBN 1472459660.
  8. "The Opium Wars in China | Asia Pacific Curriculum". asiapacificcurriculum.ca. Retrieved May 24, 2018.
  9. Frederic Wakeman Jr.; John K. Fairbank (1978). The Canton Trade in the Opium War," in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 10, Late Ch'ing, 1800–1911. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 172.
  10. Timothy Brook; Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi (2000). Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 6.
  11. John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson, "The Imperialism of Free Trade", The Economic History Review, Second series, Vol. VI, no. 1 (1953) An online version of this seminal article is available at: "Archived copy". Archived from the original on December 21, 2008. Retrieved December 25, 2008.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  12. A.. H. Imlah, 'British Balance of Payments and Exports of Capital, 1816-1913', Econ. Hist. Rev. 2nd ser. V (1952), pp. 237, 239; Hancock, op. cit. p. 27.
  13. "Was British Decolonization after 1945 a Voluntary Process?". E-International Relations. Retrieved September 18, 2016.
  14. Williams, William Appleman (2009). "1, 3". The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393079791. And for Wilson, as for his predecessors and successors, the Open Door Policy was America’s version of the liberal policy of informal empire or free-trade imperialism.
  15. Atul Kohli (2020). Imperialism and the Developing World: How Britain and the United States Shaped the Global Periphery. Oxford University Press. pp. 6–12. ISBN 0190069627.
  16. Williams, William Appleman (2009). "2". The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393079791. leader who concluded that his society needed overseas markets and was determined to find them. He fully intended, however, to do so in such a way that order and stability would be assured, a protestant peace secured and preserved, and the backward nations protected from rapacious foreigners while being led along the path of progress by the United States. Confident that Wilson was a man with the same goals, Bryan could without any reservations praise the President, in May 1914, as one who had “opened the doors of all the weaker countries to an invasion of American capital and American enterprise.” Candidly asserting America’s “paramount influence in the Western Hemisphere,” Bryan’s objective was to “make absolutely sure our domination of the situation.”
  17. Williams, William Appleman (2009). "5". The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393079791. major consequence of New Deal trade philosophy was the way it sustained, and even deepened, the pattern of free trade imperialism or informal empire that had evolved out of British economic policy in the nineteenth century. America’s relationship with the chief suppliers of raw materials became economically and politically ever more imbalanced in its own favor.
  18. Go, Julian (2011). Patterns of Empire: The British and American Empires, 1688 to the Present. Cambridge University Press. pp. 133–154. ISBN 1139503391.
  19. Edward Shawcross (2018). France, Mexico and Informal Empire in Latin America, 1820-1867: Equilibrium in the New World. Springer. pp. 15, 55–56. ISBN 3319704648.
  20. Edward Shawcross (2018). France, Mexico and Informal Empire in Latin America, 1820-1867: Equilibrium in the New World. Springer. pp. 248–250. ISBN 3319704648.
  21. Andrea Behrends; Stephen Reyna; Günther Schle (2011). Crude Domination: An Anthropology of Oil. Berghahn Books. p. 141. ISBN 0857452568.
  22. Peter Duus,; Ramon H. Myers,; Mark R. Peattie (2014). The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895-1937. Princeton University Press. pp. xi–xxix. ISBN 1400847931.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
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