Jurisdictional Politics in Canton and the First English Translation of the Qing Penal Code (1810) Winner of the 2nd Sir George Staunton Award

Abstract

AbstractThis article criticises the conventional interpretation of the first English translation of the Qing penal code by George Thomas Staunton, and proposes a different reading that stresses its role in promoting a positive image of the legal order in Canton on behalf of the East India Company. It suggests that in viewing the translation as a product of growing confrontation between two incompatible legal and cultural systems, our historical literature has radically diminished the scope of Staunton's comparative enterprise and his method of translation. Not only did Staunton exploit contemporary debates on penal reform to emphasise practical arrangements which overlapped across Chinese and British jurisdictions, he more importantly sought to valorise the Company's role in maintaining the jurisdictional status quo in what was patently an unstable and hybrid legal environment in Canton. However, the latter prerogative promoted a flattering and partial conception of jurisdictional ambiguity in Canton. It elided the Company's role in proliferating instability in Canton, and presented legal accommodation as a unilateral concession by the Qing from the severity of their own laws. This article addresses the intimate connections between the pluralist and pragmatic aspects of Staunton's project. It shows how, even though its pluralism has been forgotten, its pragmatic conceits concerning the origins of extraterritoriality have left a lasting impact on the historiography of Sino-Western relations.