The Goldbugs Go Global

The Philippines, China, and the Foundations of Development

Bibliographic Data

ID21743668
AuthorsJohnny D Fulfer (0000-0003-1569-8969, Indiana University Bloomington, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume23
Issue3
Pages290-308
Publication date2024-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1537-7814 • E-ISSN: 1943-3557
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1537781424000070
OpenAlexW4395669966
LanguageEN
References cited44

While historians have recently called attention to the racial assumptions that shaped the debates over monetary reform in either the colonial Philippines or China during the first years of the twentieth century, this article analyzes the crosscurrents between efforts to “civilize” and “develop” Filipino and Chinese monetary systems. It first examines the history of the Philippine money question (1899–1903), revealing anxieties about the apparent attachment Native Filipinos and Chinese had to silver currency. U.S. colonial officials were ambivalent toward the Native Filipinos, seeing them as possibly teachable, but so-called silver savagism was seen as too deeply engrained in the Chinese community, making the Chinese appear as a threat to monetary stability. In the last section, the article turns to China, revealing how the outcome of the Philippine money question shaped how U.S. monetary experts approached their efforts to reform China’s monetary system. Throughout this process, U.S. colonial officials and monetary experts defined the Philippines and China (“silver countries”) and Filipinos and Chinese (“silver-handling types”) as overlapping objects of development. This analysis reveals how development was simultaneously an economic, racial, and imperial language

Archaeology · China · Development economics · Economic geography · Economics · Geography · Political science · History · International Development and Aid