The Unequal Treaties and the Treaty Ports

Abstract

The “unequal treaties” and the treaty ports are two intricately linked elements of modern China’s experience with the world from 1843 to 1943 and beyond. The legal framework of treaty ports was rooted and developed in a series of documents signed between China and foreign countries that are considered by the Chinese to be unfair treaties. Although the definition and exact number of the “unequal treaties” are subject to fierce debate, it is generally agreed that a total of at least fourteen countries concluded unequal treaties with China, and that there were forty-eight treaty ports under a binding international treaty, except for three self-opened ports—Sandu Ao (Santuao), Yueyang (Yochow), and Qinhuangdao (Chinwangtao)—that were voluntarily opened by a Qing imperial decree in 1898 under the same trade regulations as the treaty ports. Among the nineteen Chinese provinces, by the early 20th century only Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan, and Guizhou had no treaty ports. Not necessarily located on the coast or near navigable water, the treaty ports were the “ports of entry,” but also something more. In historiographical terms, the treaty ports have been variously characterized as sites of paramount importance, as centers of controversy, and as a significant dimension of the encounter between China and the world. During the first half of the 20th century, the foreign presence and establishment served as the “port of entry” to the study of modern China for two generations of Western scholars, epitomized by Hosea Ballou Morse and John King Fairbank. From the 1980s on, social, cultural, and bottom-up approaches took the China history field by storm, in tandem with the master narrative of nation-states and transnationalism through nation-states. In the Chinese-speaking world, scholarly interest in the history of treaty ports is no match, to say the least, for research into issues surrounding the unequal treaties. China’s recent rise, especially the prosperity of former treaty port areas since the late 1970s, has prompted reconsideration of whether the Western presence did indeed matter in modern China. There is still a considerable hiatus to be covered regarding the interplay between bilateral and transnational aspects of the treaties and the ports. This article intends to further the study of the many dimensions of the treaties and treaty ports phenomena as viewed from the development of the main historical paradigms of Anglophone and Chinese research and the major source collections in Chinese, English, and Japanese.