1. Political Relevance of Railways

The question of railroads lay at the very heart of China's political difficulties, both external and internal, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Externally, the political pressures had started with the British, culminating in the Opium Wars and the "unequal treaties", but later in the 19th century, the pressure for colonial concessions came from other European powers (not to mention the Japanese, who were avid stu…