Chapter 2 Establishment of Official Post of the Qing Dynasty

Section 1 Historical Background and Establishing Process

The Qing Post was set up in 1896. The situation in post that the Qing Government faced was getting more and more serious. With the invasion of western powers, "Guest Post" set up in China by foreign countries was increasing and even expanded from trading ports to inland and border areas. These so called "Guest Post" seriously violated Chinese sovereignty, monopolized foreign post business of China, even opened up postal routes and ran mail delivery in inland of China. Mails were packed by the packages of their own countries and were exempted from check by China Customs. Foreign powers not only set up post offices in China, but also connived business bureaus and foreign merchants side the concessions to set up diversified post offices which in fact undertook Print and issue of stamps and other speculative and deceitful deals. So Chinese officials and civilians were resentful about such a situation. Appeals for abolishing "Guest Post" was getting more and more. Meanwhile, old post system had reached its summit of corruption. Documents were delayed. The old post malfunctioned. Because ships navigated on seas and rivers, transportation on rivers were opened up, the importance of old Post was gradually disappearing. To deliver foreign affair documents, Document Office was set up besides the old post, which increased economical burden on the Qing Government. Under such a situation, the Qing Government had to consider about establishing official post by government.

Memorial to the Emperor about
establishing national post and the
inscription on which the Emperor 
Guangxu signed

H. J. Kopsch, the British who was once Customs Duty Administrator in China, suggested to establish post by government. He said that though there was good post system in China, it didn't deliver mails for merchants while private owned public Post office was slow, not frequent in delivery and wasn't reliable. Its cost was high. If government set up post, "Guest Post" would lost its reasons for existence and would close by itself. In 1885, H. J. Kopsch, in charge of the translation of Hong Kong Post Regulations, put forward fifteen of suggestions about establishing post by government and sent these to Qing Government. The Prime Office consulted to some officials about it. Although officials and civilians all supported to set up post, the Qing Government still hesitated and took no actions. By that time, foreign "Guest Post" continued to develop and couldn't be stopped. Many major officials requested the government to set up national post. The Prime Office submitted the request of "establishing post" to the emperor Guangxu. On March 20, 1896, the Emperor Guangxu approved to set up official post office of the Qing Dynasty. The Prime Office appointed General Duty Official Hart as General Post Official to be responsible for the administration of the official post office of the Qing Dynasty. In its request submitted to the Emperor, the Prime Office put forward its main consideration of establishing post that: when official post was established, customs post office was popularized, then inland post office would be set up after it reached a certain scale. For public post office, it could coexist with official post office. Besides, the Prime office also submitted post regulations written by Had, which regulated the locations where post office would be set up and management method, the kind of delivered mails and transferring method, as well as charges of all kinds of mails.

The establishment of official post office had epoch-making significance in modern history of China Post. It indicated that after modern post was introduced in China, it was gradually recognized by the society and at last was approved by the Qing Government which created conditions and provided assurance for post developing from customs to inland, forming national post network.

After official post was established, it was rather weak. There were "Guest Post" as a strong competitor that was continuously expanding and public post office that had occupied post market. Old national post delivery system operated normally. It was difficult for official post to develop. Because of its intrinsically scientific and advanced properties, relying on the support of national administrative forces, modem post carried out active and stable developing policy and steadily competed with all opponents. At last it was popularized and highly developed. During the 15 years until the Qing Dynasty ended, modern post communication network that covered most areas of the country and in parallel with old Post delivery system had been set up. The achievement was great.