Civic architecture for a transnational community: constructing a Municipal Council Building in Shanghai’s International Settlement, 1910-1922

Abstract

The International Settlement in modern Shanghai was celebrated as “the model settlement” primarily because of its remarkable performance in municipal administration. The evolution of its municipal administration has commonly been depicted within a binary framework, with the aggressive, dominant European settlers on one side, and the Chinese who were either obedient or resistant on the other. As a protest to such a simplified dichotomy, this panel illustrates transnational interactions among a variety of communities that significantly (re)shaped the Settlement’s municipal administration. Yin Cao investigates the establishment of Sikh constables, the basic staff of the Settlement’s policing system, in the 1880s within a global context, and highlights the connections between the Settlement and other parts of the world. Focusing on Chinese businessmen’s attempts to partake in the Settlement’s municipal administration during the early Republican period, Bingbing Wei elaborates their flexible tactics in action and discourse under the rapidly changing conditions. Min Wang looks at the international controversy regarding the legitimacy of the Settlement’s municipality in the late 1920s, and presents a deep analysis of the settlers’ response to criticisms from not only Chinese but also their countrymen abroad. The three papers together draw a more complicated picture of the Settlement’s administrative regime, and suggest a more pluralistic, dynamic scholarship on it within a broader framework. Zhenyu Mou, a specialist in Shanghai foreign settlements who focuses mainly on the French Concession, will make comments on each paper and discuss the general theme from a comparative perspective.