This is the first book to focus comparatively on the development processes of finance in China and Japan during the prewar period. The key issue is how to evaluate the role of government in the establishing of modern financial system. Both China and Japan started from a similar pre-modern situation in the middle of 19th century in that the monetary conditions were primitive and complicated, the traditional financial institutions were money-exchange-based, and above all, both countries had faced serious challenging pressure from the Western powers. International or domestic military affairs...