The Recuperation of Sovereign Rights by Asian Countries, circa 1870–1945: From Capitulations to Equal Relations, the Dutch Experience

Abstract

Western expansion in Asia during the nineteenth and early twentieth century resulted in two different groups of Asian countries: those which fell victim to European colonialism and those which managed to maintain the basis of their sovereign rights. This contribution will concentrate on the second group, including not only the countries of the so-called Far East but those of the Middle Eastern Ottoman Empire as well. The link between these two otherwise separate worlds is the concept of consular jurisdiction. It originated in the Islamic world and was transplanted by the West to China, Japan and Siam in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth, it became the touchstone in the relations of the Asian countries with the West in their struggle for equality.