The bund and beyond: Rethinking the sino-foreign financial grid in pre-war Shanghai

Drawing on wide-ranging sources, this article offers an integrative analysis of four critical aspects of Shanghai's pre-war economy; it reexamines the city's currency, its banking institutions and capital markets, its pattern of industrialisation, and its legal grounding as a treaty-port. Contrary to much of the conventional wisdom, the article suggests that while Shanghai's reputation for economic stability echoed far and wide during the pre-war era (1842-1937), the city's development pattern was far from replicated further inland.