The likin or lijin was a form of internal

tariff A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and pol ...

in the Chinese Empire and Republic, which was first introduced as a means of financing the largely locally recruited armies to suppress the

Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It laste ...

History

The lijin tax was first introduced in 1853 by censor Lei Yixian in the area around

Yangzhou Yangzhou, postal romanization Yangchow, is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province (Suzhong), East China. Sitting on the north bank of the Yangtze, it borders the provincial capital Nanjing to the southwest, Huai'an to the north ...

as a way of raising funds in the campaigns against local rebels. As the central government was short of revenue, the imperial court sanctioned the tax and it quickly became an important source of funds for the campaign against the Taiping and Nian rebellions. The tax was levied on an

ad valorem An ''ad valorem'' tax (Latin for "according to value") is a tax whose amount is based on the value of a transaction or of property. It is typically imposed at the time of a transaction, as in the case of a sales tax or value-added tax (VAT). An ...

basis on goods in transit between provinces and on shops, with rates ranging from 2 to 10 per cent.Philip A. Kuhn. The creation of the treaty system in TWITCHETT / FAIRBANK The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 10 , Cambridge, 1978. Cf. Pg 289 After the Taipings were suppressed in 1864, the likin became a permanent feature of the Chinese tax system and it became an important source of revenue for local government, as China had lost its external tariff autonomy after the conclusion of the

Treaty of Nanking The Treaty of Nanjing was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese later termed the Unequal Treaties. In the ...

. In many ways, the tax signified the decentralization of state authority in the wake of the Taiping rebellion. Foreign merchants in the treaty ports believed that the likin tax, as a form of tariff acting against western as well as local goods, was a violation of the treaties which China had concluded with the West. Consequently, foreign merchants made a number of unsuccessful attempts to pressure the Chinese government to abolish it, including the Chefoo Convention. It survived the fall of the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...

into the Warlord Era and was not ended until 1 January 1931.

References

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Bibliography

*Beal, Edwin George. ''The Origin of Likin, 1853–1864.'' Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958. Taxation in China Economy of the Qing dynasty 1853 establishments in China 1931 disestablishments in China Taiping Rebellion Economic history of China {{China-hist-stub

History

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