Published by Primary Source Microfilm

One of the most important archives for the study of China and its relations with the Imperial West in the late Quing and Republican periods (1850-1949), the Maritime Customs Service was an organ of the Chinese state set up by the British to control external and internal trade. By the 1890s the Maritime Customs Service was delivering a quarter of China's state revenue, and the archive kept meticulous records from all its ports and customs posts monitoring trade in arms, opium and all other goods, smuggling, climate and disease statistics, personnel records, intelligence reports, postal and financial administration, refugee movements, political affairs, the Boxer Rebellion and international relations. As such, the material here -- which, because over 80% of it is in English has remained "untainted" by Communist revisionist historians -- is a tremendously rich and detailed resource only just coming to international scholarly attention thanks to an Anglo-Chinese cataloguing project.

The project will present full-text images of original records presented in thematic units on:

• Smuggling and the Policing of Trade
• China's relations with Western Powers (Treaties, Loans, Exhibitions and Diplomacy)
• China's relations with "London Office" and Britain
• The Boxer Rebellion
• MCS and Chinese Government
• The War of Resistance, 1931-45
• China in the 1920s - "current events, local affairs and rumours"

The edition will also include the first-ever complete electronic catalog to the complete archive, and linked thematic databases on Arms and Ammunition and the Environment.

372 reels in 7 parts:
Part 1: 62 reels
Part 2: 43 reels
Part 3: 68 reels
Part 4: 61 reels
Part 5: 48 reels
Part 6: 47 reels
Part 7: 43 reels