In Chinese modern history, there is a mystery which rarely has been fully answered. That is how China balanced its international payments. Due to China's huge trade deficit plus its enormous foreign debts and indemnifications, China needs to pay out about 4.4 billion Silver Taels during 1900-1930 by some analyst. However, the consensus is China only had 2 billion Silver Taels worth of silver bullion plus 1 billion Silver Taels of foreign debts at that time, which means even if China had paid out all she had, leaving the whole country short of silver bullion, there would be still 1.4 billion...
In Chinese modern history, there is a mystery which rarely has been fully answered. That is how China balanced its international payments. Due to Chin...