166-651: HSBC Holdings plc ( Chinese : 滙豐 ; initialism from its founding member The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation ) is a British universal bank and financial services group headquartered in London , England, with historical and business links to East Asia and a multinational footprint. It is the largest Europe-based bank by total assets , ahead of BNP Paribas , with US$ 2.919 trillion as of December 2023. In 2021, HSBC had $ 10.8 trillion in assets under custody (AUC) and $ 4.9 trillion in assets under administration (AUA). HSBC traces its origin to
332-663: A hong trading house in British Hong Kong . The bank was established in 1865 in Hong Kong and opened branches in Shanghai in the same year. It was first formally incorporated in 1866. In 1991, the present parent legal entity, HSBC Holdings plc , was established in London and the historic Hong Kong–based bank from whose initials the group took its name became that entity's fully-owned subsidiary. The next year (1992), HSBC took over Midland Bank and thus became one of
498-547: A family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with
664-469: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where
830-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and
996-469: A 212% increase in quarterly profit. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing') is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of
1162-510: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and
1328-673: A Japanese protest after 323 uncounted votes were discovered. As a result, the election was declared invalid and a new poll held on April 20–21, 1936, at which the Japanese nominated only two candidates. In the case of the Chinese members, in 1926 the Ratepayers' Meeting adopted a resolution approving the addition of three Chinese members to the council and they took their seats for the first time in April, 1928; while in May, 1930, their number
1494-599: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese
1660-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of
1826-615: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of
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#17327728027761992-714: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only
2158-552: A defending argument for the maintenance of the orchestra, and Japan, whose Viscount Konoye encouraged the Japanese people to support the orchestra and the culture that it brought to the East. In addition to the string orchestra, opera and choral music were favored forms of entertainment. Often, the orchestra would accompany singers as a part of orchestra concerts, in addition to the symphonies and other pieces that they played, or just in choral or opera concerts. The French Concession
2324-618: A judge. In 1927, a Provisional Court was established with a sole Chinese judge presiding. In 1930, Chinese Special Courts were established which had jurisdiction over all non-treaty power individuals and companies in the Settlement. Two countries, Britain and the United States, established formal court systems in China to try cases. The British Supreme Court for China and Japan was established in 1865 and located in its own building in
2490-648: A large French bank, for £6.6 billion. In July 2001 HSBC bought Demirbank , an insolvent Turkish bank. In July 2002, Arthur Andersen announced that HSBC USA, Inc., through a new subsidiary, Wealth and Tax Advisory Services USA Inc. ( WTAS ), would purchase a portion of Andersen's tax practice. The new HSBC Private Client Services Group would serve the wealth and tax advisory needs of high-net-worth individuals. Then in August 2002 HSBC acquired Grupo Financiero Bital, SA de CV, Mexico's third largest retail bank for $ 1.1 billion. In November 2002, HSBC expanded further in
2656-576: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as
2822-631: A mixture of coins, including Chinese copper cash coins and Mexican dollars. Paper money was first issued by European and North American colonial banks (one British colonial bank known as the Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China at one time issued banknotes in Shanghai that were denominated in Mexican dollars). Yen was used in the Japanese district of "Little Tokyo". European and North American currencies did not officially circulate in
2988-584: A new business unit as Wealth and Personal Banking. In October 2020, HSBC committed to achieve zero-emission by 2050, e.g., by this year it would not only become carbon neutral by itself but also will work only with carbon-neutral clients. It also committed to providing 750–1,000 billion dollars to help clients make the transition. It also pledged to achieve carbon neutrality in his own operations by 2030. In January 2021, HSBC announced that it would be closing 82 branches in Britain. In May 2021, HSBC announced
3154-834: A new coal policy and provide further detail on its climate strategy by the end of 2021. The organisation's "Thermal Coal Phase-Out Policy" was published in December 2021. In August 2021, HSBC announced the acquisition of AXA Singapore. HSBC Insurance (Asia-Pacific) Holdings Ltd, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of HSBC would acquire 100% of the issued share capital of AXA Singapore for $ 575m. In December 2021, HSBC Asset Management (India) Private Ltd, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of HSBC announced it would acquire L&T Investment Management for $ 425 million from L&T Finance Holdings . In June 2022, HSBC announced its intention to sell its business in Russia. This requires approval from
3320-539: A new head office building in Hong Kong in 1935. Bank note issuance displaced other forms of the era and of the region, such as silver taels , due to political and economic instability. HSBC gained significant influence as a result. Michael Turner became chief manager in 1953 and set about diversifying the business. His tenure came to an end in 1962 having established The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation of California 1955 and having acquired The British Bank of
3486-474: A practical monopoly over the city's businesses by the mid-1880s. It bought up all the local gas-suppliers, electricity producers and water-companies, then—during the 20th-century—took control over all non-private rickshaws and the Settlement tramways. It also regulated opium sales and prostitution until their banning in 1918 and 1920 respectively. Until the late-1920s, therefore, the SMC and its subsidiaries, including
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#17327728027763652-613: A probe by the US Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency found that there was "significant potential for unreported money laundering or terrorist financing". On 11 December 2012, HSBC agreed to pay a record $ 1.92 billion fine in this money laundering case. It was reported that bank officials consistently overlooked internal warnings about the inadequacy of HSBC's monitoring systems, according to
3818-410: A representative office. HSBC announced renaming of its Personal Financial Services (PFS) business group to Retail Banking and Wealth Management (also known as RBWM) on HSBC's 2011 Investor Day. On 11 May 2013, the new chief executive Stuart Gulliver announced that HSBC would refocus its business strategy and that a large-scale retrenchment of operations, particularly in respect of the retail sector,
3984-542: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate
4150-484: A separate agreement in February 1946. It was one of two Chinese international settlements, along with Gulangyu International Settlement . The Treaty of Nanking and its supplementary treaty of 1843 – the first of the so-called unequal treaties - provided British merchants with the right to reside with their families and rent grounds and houses in five ports – Guanzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Shanghai and Ningbo – but there
4316-470: A similar expansion of the French concession in 1914) was turned down by the Chinese government due to anti-imperialist sentiments. Britain, pre-occupied with World War I , did not press the issue and the extra-settlement roads area retained the "quasi-concession" status until the demise of the concession. Parts of the northern extra-settlement roads area was allocated to Japan for defence purposes in 1927, which
4482-508: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin
4648-556: A total 470 branches before divestments. On 9 August 2011, Capital One Financial Corp. agreed to acquire HSBC's U.S. credit card business for $ 2.6 billion, netting HSBC Holdings an estimated after-tax profit of $ 2.4 billion. In September it was announced that HSBC sought to sell its general insurance business for around $ 1 billion. In 2012, HSBC was the subject of hearings of the U.S. Senate permanent subcommittee for investigations for severe deficiencies in its anti-money laundering practices (see Controversies ). On 16 July
4814-631: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c. 1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct
4980-575: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than
5146-572: A £12.5 billion (US$ 17.7 billion; HK$ 138 billion) rights issue to enable it to buy other banks that were struggling to survive. However, uncertainty over the rights issue's implications for institutional investors caused volatility in the Hong Kong stock market: on 9 March 2009 HSBC's share price fell 24.14%, with 12 million shares sold in the last few seconds of trading. On 25 April 2011, HSBC decided to shut down its retail banking business in Russia and reduce its private banking presence to
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5312-602: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which
5478-571: Is a 90% HSBC-owned joint venture. In November 2022, HSBC announced its intention to exit the Canadian market. Royal Bank of Canada would acquire 100% of the common shares of HSBC Canada for an all-cash purchase price of $ 13.5 billion, 9.4 times HSBC Canada's estimated 2024 earnings. Completion of the transaction is expected by late 2023, subject to regulatory approvals. HSBC has been under pressure to cut costs and divest non-Asian businesses. In February 2023, HSBC announced that its profits for
5644-490: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,
5810-603: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of
5976-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate
6142-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles
6308-489: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,
6474-445: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because
6640-500: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for
6806-552: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it
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6972-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while
7138-697: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system
7304-712: The Bank of Communications of Shanghai. In the United Kingdom HSBC acquired Marks & Spencer Retail Financial Services Holdings Ltd for £763 million in December 2004. Acquisitions in 2005 included Metris Inc, a US credit card issuer for $ 1.6 billion in August and 70.1% of Dar es Salaam Investment Bank of Iraq in October. In April 2006, HSBC bought the 90 branches in Argentina of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro for $ 155 million. In December 2007 HSBC acquired
7470-602: The British Consulate compound , and the United States Court for China was established in the US Consulate in 1906. Both courts were occupied by the Japanese on 8 December 1941 and effectively ceased to function from that date. The currency situation in China was very complicated in the 19th century, as there was no unified monetary system. Different parts of China operated different systems, and
7636-626: The Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in
7802-533: The First World War , Japan overtook Britain as the country with the largest number of foreign residents in Shanghai. In 1914, Japan sided with Britain and France in the war and conquered all German possessions in China. By the beginning of the 1930s, Japan was swiftly becoming the most powerful national group in Shanghai and accounted for some 80% of all extraterritorial foreigners in China. Much of Hongkew , which had become an unofficial Japanese settlement,
7968-597: The French concession dropped out of the arrangement. The following year the British and American settlements formally united to create the Shanghai International Settlement. As more foreign powers entered into treaty relations with China, their nationals also became part of the administration of the settlement. The number of treaty powers had climbed to a high of 19 by 1918 but was down to 14 by
8134-863: The General Post Office Building that is today the Shanghai Post Museum. International merchants brought with them amateur musical talent that manifested in the creation of the Shanghai Philharmonic Society in 1868. From here, the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra was officially formed in 1879. In 1938, the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra faced disbandment as the ratepayers in the annual Municipal Council meeting considered reallocating budgets away from
8300-746: The Hong Kong Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the Hang Seng Index and the FTSE 100 Index . It has secondary listings on the New York Stock Exchange , and the Bermuda Stock Exchange . HSBC has been implicated in a number of controversies and the bank has been repeatedly fined for money laundering (sometimes in relation to major criminal organizations such as
8466-474: The Imperial Japanese Army entered and occupied the British and American controlled parts of the city in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor . The British and American troops, taken by surprise, surrendered without a shot, with the exception of the only British riverboat in Shanghai, HMS Peterel , which refused to surrender; six of the 18 British crew on board at the time were killed when
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#17327728027768632-533: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in
8798-710: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with
8964-595: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and
9130-524: The Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek . However, because Shanghai was under Japanese control, this was unenforceable. In reply, in July 1943, the Japanese retroceded the SMC to the City Government of Shanghai, which was then in the hands of the pro-Japanese Wang Jingwei Government . After the war and the liberation of the city from the Japanese, a Liquidation Commission fitfully met to discuss
9296-821: The Shanghai Ghetto in Hongkew. On 21 August 1941 the Japanese government closed Hongkew to Jewish immigration. In February 1943, the International Settlement was de jure returned to the Chinese as part of the British–Chinese Treaty for the Relinquishment of Extra-Territorial Rights in China and American–Chinese Treaty for Relinquishment of Extraterritorial Rights in China with the Nationalist Government of
9462-651: The Shanghai Municipal Police . In 1932 there were 1,040,780 Chinese living within the International Settlement, with another 400,000 fleeing into the area after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937. For the next five years, the International Settlement and the French Concession were surrounded by Japanese occupiers and Chinese revolutionaries, with conflict often spilling into the Settlement's borders. In 1941,
9628-550: The Sinaloa cartel ) or setting up large scale tax avoidance schemes. After the British established Hong Kong as a crown colony in the aftermath of the First Opium War , merchants from other parts of the British Empire, now in Hong Kong, felt the need for a bank to finance the growing trade, through Hong Kong and sometimes also through Shanghai, between China and India , the rest of the British Empire and Europe, of goods, produces and merchandises of all kinds, but especially opium , cultivated in or transited (re-exported) through
9794-414: The Spanish pieces of eight that had been coming from Mexico for a few hundred years on Manila galleons were current along the China coast. Until the 1840s, these silver dollar coins were Spanish coins minted mainly in Mexico City ; but from the 1840s, these gave way to Mexican republican dollars . In Shanghai, this complexity represented a microcosm of the complicated economy existing elsewhere along
9960-415: The United States Post Office Department maintained a United States Postal Agency at the Shanghai consulate through which Americans could use the US Post Office to send mail to and from the US mainland and US territories. Starting in 1919 the 16 current regular US stamps were overprinted for use in Shanghai with the city's name, "China", and amounts double their printed face values. In 1922 texts for two of
10126-423: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
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#173277280277610292-542: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
10458-456: The police , power station, and public works, were British dominated (though not controlled, since Britain itself had no authority over the council). Some of the Settlement's actions during this period, such as the May 30th Movement , in which Chinese demonstrators were shot by members of the Shanghai Municipal Police (leading to anti-Western protests), did embarrass and threaten the British Empire 's position in China. No Chinese residing in
10624-657: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Shanghai International Settlement#Japanese occupy
10790-425: The 17 banks in the UK that were "facing questions over what they knew about the international scheme and why they did not turn away suspicious money transfers," as HSBC "processed $ 545.3m in Laundromat cash, mostly routed through its Hong Kong branch." Other banks facing scrutiny under the investigation included the Royal Bank of Scotland , NatWest , Lloyds , Barclays and Coutts . In response, HSBC stated that it
10956-407: The 1930s: the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Peru, Mexico, and Switzerland. Nonetheless, the SMC remained a predominantly British affair until the growth of Japan 's involvement in the late 1930s. The international character of the Settlement was reflected in the flag and seal of the Municipal Council, which featured
11122-436: The 19th century, Shanghai Russians also arrived, with Russia's construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway and acquisition of Harbin and Port Arthur . On 11 July 1854 a committee of Western businessmen met and held the first annual meeting of the Shanghai Municipal Council ( SMC , formally the Council for the Foreign Settlement North of the Yang-king-pang ), ignoring protests of consular officials, and laid down
11288-414: The 5,584 acres the International Settlement was to cover by 1899 – was slightly expanded westward and northward. Following the British example, the French consul Charles de Montigny and the Daotai Lin’gui agreed in 1849 that a French settlement be established on a strip of land between the Chinese city and the British settlement. The American consul was somewhat offended by the fact that the British and
11454-417: The Baltic states, or Finland. Chinese citizens and citizens of non-treaty powers were subject to Chinese law. Inside the Settlement, cases against them would be brought to the Mixed Court , a court established in the Settlement in the 1864 which existed until 1926. In cases involving foreigners, a foreign assessor , usually a consular officer, would sit with the Chinese magistrate and in many cases acted like
11620-412: The British and their enclaves were established north and south, respectively, of the British area. Unlike the colonies of Hong Kong and Macau , where the United Kingdom and Portugal enjoyed full sovereignty in perpetuity, the foreign concessions in China remained under Chinese sovereignty. In 1854, the three countries created the Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC) to serve all their interests, but, in 1862,
11786-456: The China coast. The Chinese reckoned in weights of silver, which did not necessarily correspond to circulating coins. One important unit was a tael , a measurement of weight with several different definitions. These included customs taels (for foreign trade) and cotton taels (for cotton trade), among others. Shanghai had its own tael, which was very similar in weight to the customs tael and therefore popular for international business. China also had
11952-599: The Chinese Bank in Taiwan. In May 2008, HSBC acquired IL&FS Investment, an Indian retail broking firm. On August 3, 2008, HSBC began its banking operations in Algeria with the opening of a branch in Algiers. In 2005, Bloomberg Markets magazine accused HSBC of money laundering for drug dealers and state sponsors of terrorism. Then-CEO Stephen Green said that "This was a singular and wholly irresponsible attack on
12118-646: The Chinese Post Office to the Universal Postal Union to the Shanghai Post Office. Some other foreign countries refused to fall under this new postal service's remit, however; for many years, Japan notably sent almost all its mail to Shanghai in diplomatic bags , which could not be opened by postal staff. The General Shanghai Post Office was first located on Beijing Road and moved to the location on Sichuan North Road of
12284-612: The European powers as part of the Eight-Nation Alliance during the infamous fifty-five-day siege of the foreign embassy compound in Peking . Japan entered the 20th century as a rising world power, and with its unequal treaties with the European powers now abrogated, it actually joined in, obtaining an unequal treaty with China granting extraterritorial rights under the Treaty of Shimonoseki signed in 1895. In 1915, during
12450-459: The French had secured the best plots of land in the area, and after lengthy deliberations, the Americans – who with the Treaty of Wanghia of 1844 had gained the same rights as those enjoyed by the British in the five treaty ports – established their own settlement northeast of Shanghai. In 1852 the total population of the settlements was about 500, including 265 foreigners. Towards the end of
12616-502: The International Settlement (1941) The Shanghai International Settlement ( Chinese : 上海公共租界 ) originated from the 1863 merger of the British and American enclaves in Shanghai , in which British and American citizens would enjoy extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction under the terms of unequal treaties agreed by both parties. These treaties were abrogated in 1943. The British settlements were established following
12782-494: The International Settlement era can still be seen today along the Bund and in many locations around the city. The International Settlement did not have a unified legal system. The Municipal Council issued Land Regulations and regulations under this, that were binding on all people in the settlement. Other than this, citizens and subjects of powers that had treaties with China that provided for extraterritorial rights were subject to
12948-399: The International Settlement were permitted to join the council until 1928. Amongst the many members who served on the council, its chairman during the 1920s, Stirling Fessenden , is possibly the most notable. An American, he served as the settlement's main administrator during Shanghai's most turbulent era, and was considered more "British" than the council's British members. He oversaw many of
13114-452: The International Settlement's Land Regulations stated unequivocally that "the land encompassed in the territory remains Chinese territory, subject to China's sovereign rights." As expressed by legal experts, "the self-governing International Settlement possesses no more power than the mere delegation of purely local and municipal powers and functions. Control of police, sanitation, roads, and other problems of local administration are granted to
13280-401: The International Settlement. Until the year 1873, however, US dollar coins would have reasonably corresponded in size, shape and value to Mexican dollars. Between 1873 and 1900, all silver standard dollars had depreciated to about 50% of the value of the gold standard dollars of the United States and Canada, leading to a rising economic depression. The Chinese themselves officially adopted
13446-567: The Japanese (whose troops eventually outnumbered the other countries' many times over). From the 1860s, the Municipal Council began building roads beyond the concession boundaries, ostensibly to connect the concession with other properties or facilities which required the protection of Britain and other treaty powers during the unrest of the Taiping Rebellion. The Municipal Council obtained limited administrative powers over
13612-584: The Japanese launched an abortive political bid to take over the SMC: during a mass meeting of ratepayers at the Settlement Race Grounds, a Japanese official leaped up and shot William Keswick , then chairman of the council. While Keswick was only wounded, a near riot broke out. Britain evacuated its garrisons from mainland Chinese cities, particularly Shanghai, in August 1940. Anglo-American influence effectively ended after 8 December 1941, when
13778-406: The Japanese used as a base for military operations during the 1932 January 28th Incident and the 1937 Battle of Shanghai . After that battle, Japan took full control over the northern extra-settlement roads area and expelled International Settlement police. The neutrality of the western extra-settlement roads area survived in some form until the withdrawal of British troops in 1940. Article 28 of
13944-782: The Justice Department. For example, in 2008, the CEO of HSBC Mexico was reportedly informed by Mexican law enforcement about a recording of a Mexican drug lord, who indicated that HSBC Mexico was a preferred location for money laundering. The United States Department of Justice , however, decided not to pursue criminal penalties, a decision which the New York Times labelled a "dark day for the rule of law." HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver said: "We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again." In July 2013, Alan Keir
14110-702: The Land Regulations which established the principles of self-government. The aims of this first Council were simply to assist in the formation of roads, refuse collection, and taxation across the disparate Concessions. In 1863 the American concession—land fronting the Huangpu River to the north-east of Soochow Creek ( Suzhou Creek )—officially joined the British Settlement (stretching from Yang-ching-pang Creek to Suzhou Creek) to become
14276-565: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though
14442-897: The Middle East and the Mercantile Bank (based in India) in Aug 1959. Turner was succeeded in 1962 by Jake Saunders . In 1964 the Chief Managership was superseded as the top executive role in the bank by an Executive Chairmanship. During the Konfrontasi period in the 1960s, a group of Indonesian forces bombed the MacDonald House building in Singapore (at the time used by HSBC) just a few months after Singapore
14608-426: The Municipal Council simply because that body happens to be the one best equipped to deal with these matters in an area where the large majority of foreigners dwell. But the Municipal Council is in no sense a political body. Its powers, being delegated and hence limited, are subject to strict construction. What foreigners acquire is simply the delegated power of municipal administration, while the reserve powers remain in
14774-545: The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Peru, Mexico, and Switzerland. Germany and Austria-Hungary lost their treaty rights after WWI, and Russia gave up her rights as a matter of political expediency. Belgium was declared by China to have lost her rights in 1927. Furthermore, the Chinese government adamantly refused to grant treaty power status to any of the new nations born in the wake of WWI, such as Austria and Hungary (formerly Austria-Hungary), Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia,
14940-534: The Raj . The founder, Thomas Sutherland of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company , wanted a bank operating on "sound Scottish banking principles". Still, the original location of the bank was considered crucial and the founders chose Wardley House in Hong Kong since the construction was based on some of the best feng shui in colonial Hong Kong . After raising a capital stock of HK$ 5 million,
15106-639: The Russian government, and the deal is expected to close in the first half of 2024. The projected loss is $ 300 million. A possible buyer is the Russian Expobank . In February 2024, the President of Russia allowed HSBC and Expobank to carry out this transaction. In July 2022, HSBC became the first foreign lender to open a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee in its Chinese investment banking subsidiary. The subsidiary, HSBC Qianhai Securities,
15272-430: The Shanghai International Settlement. The French concession remained independent and the Chinese retained control over the original walled city and the area surrounding the foreign enclaves. This would later result in sometimes absurd administrative outcomes, such as needing three drivers' licenses to travel through the complete city. By the late-1860s Shanghai's official governing body had been practically transferred from
15438-653: The UK-based Midland Bank and the impending transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China. HSBC Holdings' acquisition of Midland Bank was completed in 1992 and gave HSBC a substantial market presence in the United Kingdom. As part of the takeover conditions for the acquisition of the bank thereof, HSBC Holdings plc was required to relocate its world headquarters from Hong Kong to London in 1993. Major acquisitions in South America started with
15604-603: The United Kingdom treaty). The only department not chaired by a Briton was the Municipal Orchestra, which was controlled by an Italian . The Settlement maintained its own fire-service, police force (the Shanghai Municipal Police ), and even possessed its own military reserve in the Shanghai Volunteer Corps ( 萬國商團 ). Following some disturbances at the British concession in Hankow in 1927 ,
15770-401: The United States. Under the chairmanship of John Bond, it spent £9 billion (US$ 15.5 billion) to acquire Household Finance Corporation (HFC) , a US credit card issuer and subprime lender. In a 2003 cover story, The Banker noted "when banking historians look back, they may conclude that [it] was the deal of the first decade of the 21st century". Under the new name of HSBC Finance ,
15936-418: The areas adjacent to these "extra-settlement roads", making the area a "quasi-concession". The expansion of the International Settlement in 1899 took in most of the extra-settlement roads area, but from 1901 the Municipal Council began building further roads beyond the new boundary with a view to expanding the concession to cover those areas as well. However, a request to further expand the concession (inspired by
16102-670: The bank commenced operations on 3 March 1865. It opened a branch in Shanghai in April of that year and started issuing locally denominated banknotes in both the Crown Colony and Shanghai soon afterwards. The bank was incorporated in Hong Kong as The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation by the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Ordinance (Numbers 2 and 5 of 1866), and a branch in Japan was also established in Yokohama in 1866. Shares of
16268-405: The bank reportedly telling Mossack Fonseca it was "comfortable" with Rami Makhlouf as a customer, even though US Treasury sanctions against him were in effect at the time. On 20 March 2017, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that hundreds of banks had helped launder KGB -related funds out of Russia , as uncovered by an investigation named Global Laundromat . HSBC was listed among
16434-597: The bank were one of 13 securities initially traded on the Shanghai Stock Exchange , and were traded on that exchange until the Japanese closed the exchange in 1941 . Sir Thomas Jackson became chief manager in 1876. During his twenty-six-year tenure, the bank became a leader in Asia. A period of expansion followed, with new buildings constructed in Bangkok (1921), Manila (1922) and Shanghai (1923), and
16600-676: The bank's international compliance procedures", but subsequent investigation indicated that it was accurate and proved that the bank was involved in money laundering for the Sinaloa Cartel and throughout Mexico . In July 2006, HSBC announced that it would acquire Westpac 's sub-custody operations in Australia and New Zealand for $ 112.5 million, making HSBC the leading sub-custody and clearing player in Australia and New Zealand. In 2007, HSBC wrote down its holdings of subprime-related mortgage securities by $ 10.5 billion, becoming
16766-559: The branch network of its HSBC Finance arm in the United States, leading to nearly 6,000 job losses and leaving only the credit card business to continue operating. Chairman Stephen Green stated, "HSBC has a reputation for telling it as it is. With the benefit of hindsight, this is an acquisition we wish we had not undertaken." According to analyst Colin Morton, "the takeover was an absolute disaster". In March 2009, it announced that it had made US$ 9.3 billion of profit in 2008 and announced
16932-445: The business conduct of HSBC under the title Swiss Leaks based on the 2007 hacked HSBC account records from whistle-blower Hervé Falciani . The ICIJ alleges that the bank profited from doing business with corrupt politicians, dictators, tax evaders, dealers of blood diamonds, arms dealers and other clients. US Senate investigators in 2012 had sought the hacked HSBC account records from Falciani and French authorities, but never received
17098-481: The committee presented its findings. Among other things, it concluded that HSBC had been transferring $ 7 billion in banknotes from its Mexican to its US subsidiary (much of it related to drug dealing ), was disregarding terrorist financing links and was actively circumventing US safeguards designed to prevent transactions involving terrorists, drug lords and rogue regimes, including hiding $ 19.4 billion in transactions with Iran. This investigation followed on from
17264-459: The complications arising from a mixture of Chinese and Spanish coinages, there was one overwhelming unifying factor binding all the systems in use: silver . The Chinese reckoned purely in terms of silver, and value was always compared against a weight of silver (hence, the reason large prices were given in tael). It was the strict adherence of the Chinese to silver that caused China and even the British colonies of Hong Kong and Weihaiwei to remain on
17430-583: The data. HSBC announced in August 2015 that it would be selling its Brazilian unit to Banco Bradesco for $ 5.2 billion following years of disappointing performance. In 2015, HSBC was recognised as the most trusted foreign bank in India by The Brand Trust Report 2015. In 2016, the bank was mentioned numerous times in connection with the Panama Papers investigation. Many Syrians were angered when their accounts were judged high-risk and closed, despite
17596-606: The defences at Shanghai were augmented by a permanent battalion of the British Army , which was referred to as the Shanghai Defence Force (SDF or SHAF), and a contingent of US Marines . Other armed forces would arrive in Shanghai; the French Concession had a defensive force of Troupes de marine and Annamite suppletive troops from French Indochina , the Italians also introduced their own marines, as did
17762-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which
17928-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of
18094-655: The division was the second largest subprime lender in the United States. The new headquarters of HSBC Holdings at 8 Canada Square , London officially opened in April 2003. In July 2003, HSBC announced that it had agreed to acquire 82.19% of the Korean fund administrator, Asset Management Technology (AM TeK), for $ 12.47 million in cash; it was the largest fund administrator in South Korea, with $ 24 billion of assets under administration. In September 2003 HSBC bought Polski Kredyt Bank SA of Poland for $ 7.8 million. In June 2004 HSBC expanded into China buying 19.9% of
18260-456: The dollar unit as their national currency in 1889, and the first Chinese dollar coins, known as yuan , contained an inscription which related their value to an already existing Chinese system of accounts. On the earliest Chinese dollar (yuan) coins it states the words 7 mace and 2 candareens . The mace and candareen were sub-divisions of the tael unit of weight. Banknotes tended to be issued in dollars, either worded as such or as yuan. Despite
18426-576: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by
18592-411: The exit of US retail banking business by selling 10 California branches to Cathay Bank and 80 branches to Citizens Financial Group and closing the remaining branches. The bank said it intends to focus on the banking and wealth management needs of globally connected affluent and high net worth clients. In May 2021, HSBC committed to end the financing of the coal industry , with a commitment to publish
18758-628: The first British consul, Captain George Balfour , could not even find a house for the consulate. The British finally decided to locate themselves in the northern suburbs and asked the Daotai , Gong Muiju, to designate an area there as a segregated British area. This dovetailed with the Daotai's intentions since two violent incidents between local Chinese and foreigners had prompted him to take steps to limit contacts between Chinese and foreigners. This
18924-452: The first major bank to report its losses due to the unfolding subprime mortgage crisis . According to Bloomberg , "HSBC is one of world's strongest banks by some measures". When HM Treasury required all UK banks to increase their capital in October 2007, the group transferred £750 million to London within hours, and announced that it had just lent £4 billion to other UK banks. In March 2009, HSBC announced that it would shut down
19090-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable
19256-453: The flags of several countries. The international settlement came to an abrupt end in December 1941 when Japanese troops stormed in immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor . In early 1943, new treaties signed formally ended the extraterritorial privileges of Americans and Britons, although its terms were not met until the recovery of Shanghai following Japan's 1945 surrender . The French later surrendered their privileges in
19422-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has
19588-618: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although
19754-485: The individual concessions to the Shanghai Municipal Council (工部局, literally "Works Department", from the standard English local government title of 'Board of works'). The British Consul was the de jure authority in the Settlement, but he had no actual power unless the ratepayers (who voted for the council) agreed. Instead, he and the other consulates deferred to the council. The council had become
19920-586: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into
20086-469: The largest domestic banks in the United Kingdom. HSBC has offices, branches and subsidiaries in 62 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America, serving around 39 million customers. As of 2023, it was ranked no. 20 in the world in the Forbes rankings of large companies ranked by sales, profits, assets, and market value. HSBC has a dual primary listing on
20252-534: The last quarter of 2022 had almost doubled compared to those at the same time the previous year. However, its pre-tax profit actually fell because it absorbed the cost of selling its French retail banking operations. The bank also announced that they were closing 114 branches in the United Kingdom. The move came as more people were using online banking since the pandemic, reducing the need for physical branches. The move has been criticized by Unite . As interest rates increased globally in May 2023, HSBC Holdings reported
20418-468: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses
20584-411: The laws of their own countries and civil and criminal complaints against them were required to be brought against them to their consular courts (courts overseen by consular officials) under the laws of their own countries. The number of treaty powers had climbed to a high of 19 by 1918 but was down to 14 by the 1930s: the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark,
20750-486: The local Shanghai tael unit. The Shanghai Post Office controlled all post within the Settlement, but post entering or leaving the treaty port was required to go through the Chinese Imperial Post Office. In 1922 the various foreign postal services, the Shanghai Post Office, and the Chinese Post Office were all brought together into a single Chinese Post Office, thus extending the 1914 membership of
20916-524: The local and international needs of domestic and overseas clients", HSBC agreed to sell 195 branches in New York and Connecticut to First Niagara Financial Group Inc , and divestures to KeyCorp , Community Bank, N.A. and Five Star Bank for around $ 1 billion, and announced the closure of 13 branches in Connecticut and New Jersey . The rest of HSBC's U.S. network will only be about half from
21082-501: The major incidents of the decade, including the May 30th Movement and the White Terror that came with the Shanghai massacre of 1927 . By the early 1930s, the British and the Chinese each had five members on the council, the Japanese two and the Americans and others two. At the 1936 Council election, because of their increasing interests in the Settlement, the Japanese nominated three candidates. Only two were elected, which led to
21248-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including
21414-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with
21580-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in
21746-445: The next chairman. However, while many current and former senior employees supported the tradition of promoting the chief executive to chairman, many shareholders instead pushed for an external candidate. HSBC's board of directors had reportedly been split over the succession planning and investors were alarmed that the row would damage the company. On 23 September 2010, Geoghegan announced he would step down as chief executive of HSBC. He
21912-472: The orchestra, since it was "western and unnecessary." However, after much discussion, they decided to keep the orchestra, acknowledging that its educational value was much greater than the cost of keeping it up. The Shanghai Municipal Orchestra had the financial and verbal backing of many other larger countries, including Italy, who donated 50,000 lire to the orchestra, the France Council, who acted as
22078-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of
22244-490: The overprints were changed, thereby completing the Scott catalogue set of K1-18, "Offices in China". The British originally used British postage stamps overprinted with the local currency amount, but from 1868, the British changed to Hong Kong postage stamps already denominated in dollars . However, in the special case of Shanghai, in the year 1865 the International Settlement began to issue its own postage stamps, denominated in
22410-600: The period of Japanese occupation. The Japanese sent European and American citizens to be interned at the Lunghua Civilian Assembly Center , a work camp on what was then the outskirts of Shanghai. Survivors of Lunghua were released in August 1945. Shanghai was notable for a long period as the only place in the world that unconditionally offered refuge for Jews escaping from the Nazis. These refugees often lived in squalid conditions in an area known as
22576-557: The purchase of the Banco Bamerindus of Brazil for $ 1 billion in March 1997 and the acquisition of Roberts SA de Inversiones of Argentina for $ 600 million in May 1997. In May 1999, HSBC expanded its presence in the United States with the purchase of Republic National Bank of New York for $ 10.3 billion. Expansion into Continental Europe took place in April 2000 with the acquisition of Crédit Commercial de France ,
22742-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,
22908-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for
23074-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without
23240-636: The remaining details of the handover. By the end of 1945, most Westerners not actively involved in the Chinese Civil War (such as intelligence agents, soldiers, journalists, etc.) or in Shanghai's remaining foreign businesses, had left the city. With the defeat of the Kuomintang in 1949, the city was occupied by the Communist People's Liberation Army and came under the control of the mayor of Shanghai . The foreign architecture of
23406-536: The ship was sunk after the Japanese opened fire at almost point-blank range. The French troops did not move from the preserved French Concession, as the French Vichy government considered itself neutral. European residents of the International Settlement were forced to wear armbands to differentiate them, were evicted from their homes, and—just like Chinese citizens—were liable to maltreatment. All were liable for punitive punishments, torture and even death during
23572-471: The silver standard after the rest of the world had changed over to the gold standard. When China began producing official Republican yuan coins in 1934, they were minted in Shanghai and shipped to Nanking for distribution. Shanghai had developed a postal service as early as the Ming dynasty , but during the treaty port era foreign postal services were organised through their respective consulates. For example,
23738-517: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by
23904-511: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language
24070-700: The sovereign grantor, the Chinese Government. Although under the control of the Consular Council, the area is still Chinese territory, over which China's sovereignty remains unsurrendered". In the 19th century, Europeans possessed treaty ports in Japan in the same way they held those in China. However, Japan rapidly developed into a modern nation, and by the turn of the 20th century the Japanese had successfully negotiated with all powers to abrogate all unequal treaties with it. Japan stood alongside
24236-623: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to
24402-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in
24568-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese
24734-537: The victory of the British in the First Opium War (1839–1842). Under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking , the five treaty ports including Shanghai were opened to foreign merchants, overturning the monopoly then held by the southern port of Canton ( Guangzhou ) under the Canton System . The British also established a base on Hong Kong . American and French involvement followed closely on the heels of
24900-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until
25066-517: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
25232-524: The year. The consumer banking division of HSBC will focus on the UK, Hong Kong , high-growth markets such as Mexico, Singapore, Turkey, and Brazil, and smaller countries where it has a leading market share. According to Reuters, Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver told the media, "There will be further job cuts. There will be something like 25,000 roles eliminated between now and the end of 2013." In August 2011 "to align our U.S. business with our global network and meet
25398-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,
25564-485: Was against financial crime, and that the case "highlights the need for greater information sharing between the public and private sectors." On 1 October 2017, Mark Tucker succeeded Douglas Flint as group chairman of HSBC, the first non-executive and outside chairman appointed by the group. Also in October 2017, HSBC announced that John Flint, chief executive of Retail Banking and Wealth Management, would succeed Stuart Gulliver as Group Chief Executive on 21 February 2018. It
25730-434: Was appointed chief executive of HSBC Bank plc after Brian Robertson's resignation. Keir's duties include overseeing the firm's UK, European, Middle Eastern, and African divisions. In June 2014, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary HSBC Life (UK) Limited agreed to sell its £4.2 billion UK pensions business to Swiss Re . In February 2015 the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released information about
25896-412: Was formalized in 1845 with the delimitation of a segregated area north of Yangjingbang, a creek that ran north of the Chinese city. Later that year Gong Muiju and Balfour concluded an agreement called the Land Regulations ( Shanghai zudi zhangcheng ), which set forth the institutional basis for the British settlement. In 1848, with the permission of the Daotai, the 138-acre British settlement – a fraction of
26062-523: Was further announced on 5 August 2019 that Flint was leaving and his role would be filled on a temporary basis by Noel Quinn, head of HSBC's global commercial bank. Noel Quinn was subsequently appointed to the role on a permanent basis in March 2020. In February 2020, HSBC announced it would cut 35,000 jobs worldwide after it was announced corporate profits decreased by 33% in 2019. In 2020, HSBC announced merging two of its business lines: Retail Banking and Wealth Management & Global Private Banking to form
26228-403: Was granted its independence from Malaysia. Three people were killed, 33 injured, and the two Indonesian military officers responsible for the bombing were tried and executed. The present building in Hong Kong was designed by Sir Norman Foster and was held as one of the most expensive and technologically advanced buildings in the world in 1986, costing HK$ 5.3 billion. On 6 October 1989, it
26394-433: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half
26560-492: Was increased to five. The International Settlement was wholly foreign-controlled, with staff of all nationalities, including British , Americans, Danes , Dutch , French , Spanish , Portuguese , Italians and Germans . In reality, the British held the largest number of seats on the council and headed all the Municipal departments (British included Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians , Newfoundlanders , and South Africans whose extraterritorial rights were established by
26726-432: Was known as Little Tokyo . In 1931, supposed "protection of Japanese colonists from Chinese aggression" in Hongkew was used as a pretext for the Shanghai Incident , when Japanese troops invaded Shanghai. From then until the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) Hongkew was almost entirely outside of the SMC's hands, with law and protection enforced to varying degrees by the Japanese Consular Police and Japanese members of
26892-412: Was not a word about separate residential areas for foreigners on Chinese soil. However, the imperial commissioner who negotiated the supplementary treaty reported to the Qing emperor that by signing the treaty he had successfully arranged that in the treaty ports "the boundaries of an area should be designated which foreigners are not allowed to exceed" ( yiding jiezhi, buxu yuyue ), an intent however that
27058-435: Was not clearly stated in the English-language version of the treaty. The Qing rulers, by intending to confine the "barbarians" to an officially designated special zone, apparently hoped to resurrect the old Canton system , that is, a system that strictly confined foreigners to a segregated zone. At Shanghai, the intention of the imperial officials had clearly been initially to keep the foreigners out and upon his arrival in 1843,
27224-421: Was planned. HSBC would no longer seek to be 'the world's local bank', as costs associated with this were spiraling and US$ 3.5 billion needed to be saved by 2013, with the aim of bringing overheads down from 55% of revenues to 48%. In 2010, then-chairman Stephen Green planned to depart HSBC to accept a government appointment in the Trade Ministry. Group Chief Executive Michael Geoghegan was expected to become
27390-408: Was registered as a regulated bank with the Banking Commissioner of the Government of Hong Kong . HSBC Holdings plc, originally incorporated in England and Wales, was a non-trading, dormant shelf company when it completed its transformation on 25 March 1991 into the parent holding company to the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited now as a subsidiary, in preparation for its purchase of
27556-424: Was succeeded as chief executive by Stuart Gulliver , while Green was succeeded as chairman by Douglas Flint ; Flint was serving as HSBC's finance director (chief financial officer). August 2011: Further to CEO Stuart Gulliver's plan to cut $ 3.5 billion in costs over the next two years, HSBC announced that it will cut 25,000 jobs and exit from 20 countries by 2013 in addition to 5,000 job cuts announced earlier in
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