Abstract
Although not clearly visible from the concise title, one of the most important qualities of Matthew Heaslip's study about the China Station of the British Royal Navy is how it highlights cultural aspects rarely revealed by previous studies. The narration starts by giving a picture of European–Asian interaction in the cosmopolitan port cities of China. It reveals the indirect impact of the Royal Navy's presence on the lives of the local population. In the rapidly changing landscape of 1920s China, with the dissolution of the Qing Dynasty (1636–1912) and the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 in the background, the Royal Navy assumed an informal function as the police for international settlers as well as the local population. Civil conflicts and power contestations among different factions within China gave birth to widespread under-regulated areas. The Royal Navy had to battle a significant number of cases of banditry and piracy in these areas. Indeed, the main interest that motivated the Royal Navy's actions was still the security of British trade and the safety of the British people. The impression given by the title that the book might focus solely on military history will be clarified immediately when the reader reads the first chapter.
As the main idea, the book illustrates the role of the Royal Navy in two major dimensions: the British global imperial orientation, on the one hand, and its narrower interest in the East Asia region, on the other. Heaslip succeeds in bringing these dimensions together. The book provides an illuminating argument about how the micro-actions of lower-rank officers in the China Station impacted Britain's broader global imperial position. It also highlights the fact that the situation surrounding the Station played a pivotal role in the materialization of Whitehall's China policy. China was continuously important for Britain – by the 1920s, Britain was China's biggest trade partner – but the China Station was not well equipped with new military advancements and necessary warships. As a result, for example, when the Shanghai crisis erupted in 1927, the British government deployed a large-scale defence task force to China. It was the largest deployment of warships to the east of Suez between 1901 and 1944. The deployment indicated the importance of China to British imperial interests. At the same time, it also highlighted the lack of equipment provided to the vital post. The deployment changed the constellation of Britain's naval power globally. Heaslip sheds light on this previously neglected topic.
While executing its informal policing work in China, the Royal Navy also encountered other western powers operating in the region. Consequently, these western powers also arranged to maintain their collective regional interests in practice instead of defending the national interests of each country. This was in contrast with the formal policy issued by their respective governments, where no formal alliance had been made (for example, between Britain and the United States). Such a reality could never be exposed by only researching broader imperial policy or documents issued by the central government; Heaslip reveals such practice through the painstaking job of consulting the plentiful personal papers of naval officers who served in the China Station.
The sources also give a deeper insight into the gap regarding the understanding of reality between higher policymakers in London and the executing officers on-site. The principle of peace operations held by the higher policymakers could result in a violent act exercised by naval officers due to many factors, including technical problems. In the Wanxian (1926) and Nanjing (1927) crises, for example, technical matters played a vital role. Paying large attention to the technicality of ships and boats, Heaslip underlines that ‘[o]n the gunboats, accuracy was entirely down to the abilities of the gun commander and his crew’ and ‘[m]any gunnery officers only had limited experience … in shore bombarding’ (183). The situation eventually resulted in a catastrophic output of civilian casualties in both cities. Indeed, Heaslip's explanation does not serve as a justification for the violent act, but it enriches comprehension of the events.
Heaslip's brief explanations of ship and boat technicalities help readers with no background knowledge of such matters to understand the entirety of the story. The book is also supplemented by an appendix detailing the different warship types mentioned and another appendix containing a compact list of senior officers serving in the China Station. Other useful tools are summary paragraphs for each chapter and a finely arranged index. These ensure the reception of the book by a broader audience.
In summary, Gunboats, Empire and the China Station: The Royal Navy in 1920s East Asia gives a complete account of the Royal Navy's unique role in maintaining Britain’s informal imperial position within the broader context of the transformations and internal conflicts of 1920s China. Although the time of unrest of the nineteenth century and the First World War (1914–1918) had passed, the interwar period presented a decade of ‘violent peace’. Heaslip presents the challenges faced by the Royal Navy during this problematic peacetime. His use of the personal papers of Navy officers significantly enriches the information he draws from official papers. This is a very important book for historians and the general public in understanding western involvement and informal imperial practice in China. However, the minimal use of Chinese primary sources might be an aspect worthy of further research.
