The existence of warlords and warlordism is not a post-9/ll phenomenon. The international arms trade has a long history, and includes the sale of foreign weapons to Chinese warlords after the First World War.
First published in 1982, this book remains the classic account of the arms trade in warlord China. The second edition includes a new preface that reframes the argument within the paradigm of critical militarism and state criminality. Arming the Chinese tells the story of the warlords who sought weapons for their expanding armies and of the merchants and governments in Europe, Japan, and the United States who provided them. Although the warlords were hearty individualists who retained control over domestic affairs and rarely relied on single foreign suppliers, the armaments trade, Chan argues, was a new form of imperialism, which perpetrated the continued Western and Japanese domination of China.
Table of Contents: Preface to the Second Edition
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Warlord Unification Efforts: Background to the Armaments Trade
2 The Western Armaments Trade and Its Control in Warlord China
3 Chinese Warlords and the Armaments Trade
4 The Ramifications of the Western Armaments Trade
Conclusion
Notes
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
