The British at Weihaiwei: A Case Study in the Irrationality of Empire

Abstract

The grand spectacle of Britain's return of Hong Kong, its colony since the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997 served to dramatize to a global audience the end of imperialism in its most overt political form. Beginning with China's defeat in the First Opium War in 1842, Britain and other European powers came to exercise varying degrees of forcible dominion, wrapped in a confusing array of legal guises, over parts of this proud but endangered country. Known to the Chinese ever since as the “unequal treaties,” these agreements progressively infringed on China's sovereignty, administrative and legal integrity, and economic viability. Extraterritorial rights exempting foreigners from Chinese justice, treaty ports where administration was in the hands of foreigners, and foreign control of extensive portions of Chinese bureaucratic administration, including even the country's ability to collect revenue through the Maritime Customs Service—all became part of the elaborate edifice of extraordinary rights and privileges that the powers created for themselves in the name of the “great game” of empire in China.1