An unequal treaty is any of a series of treaties signed with Western powers
during the 19th and early 20th centuries by Qing dynasty China and late Tokugawa
Japan after suffering military defeat by the foreign powers or when there was a
threat of military action by those powers. The term is also applied to
treaties imposed during the same time period on late Joseon Korea by the
post-Meiji Restoration Empire of Japan. Starting with the rise of nationalism
and anti-imperialism in the 1920s, the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party
used these concepts to characterize the Chinese experience in losses of
sovereignty between roughly 1839–1949. The term "unequal treaty" became
associated with the concept of China's "Century of Humiliation", especially the
forced opening of the treaty ports, the imposition of European
extraterritoriality on foreigners living in China, and loss of tariff autonomy.
China The historian Wang Dong concludes that
"although the phrase has long been widely used, nevertheless lacks a clear
and unambiguous meaning" and that there is "no agreement about the actual number
of treaties signed between China and foreign countries that should be counted
as 'unequal'." The term "unequal treaty" did not come into use until early in the
20th century. These treaties were considered unequal in China "because
they were not negotiated by nations treating each other as equals but were
imposed on China after a war, and because they encroached upon China's
sovereign rights ... which reduced her to semicolonial status". In many cases
China was effectively forced to pay large amounts of reparations, open up
ports for trade, cede or lease territories, and make various other
concessions of sovereignty to foreign "spheres of influence", following
military defeats. The earliest treaty later referred to as
"unequal" was the 1841 Convention of Chuenpee negotiations during the First
Opium War. China and Great Britain signed the first unequal treaties under
the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. Following Qing China's defeat, treaties with
Britain opened up five ports to foreign trade, while also allowing foreign
missionaries, at least in theory, to reside within China. In addition,
foreign residents in the port cities were afforded trials by their own
consular authorities rather than the Chinese legal system, a concept termed
extraterritoriality. Under the treaties, the UK and the US established the
British Supreme Court for China and Japan and United States Court for China
in Shanghai. = Chinese resentment=
After World War I, patriotic consciousness in China focused on the
treaties, which now became widely known as "unequal treaties". The Nationalist
Party and the Communist Party competed to convince the public that their
approach would be more effective. Germany was forced to terminate its
rights, the Soviet Union ostentatiously surrendered them, and the United States
organized the Washington Conference to negotiate them. After Chiang Kai-shek
declared a new national government in 1927, the western powers quickly offered
diplomatic recognition, arousing anxiety in Japan. The new government declared to
the Great Powers that China had been exploited for decades under unequal
treaties, and that the time for such treaties was over, demanding they
renegotiate all of them on equal terms. In the face of Japanese expansion in
China, however, ending the system was postponed.
Most of China's unequal treaties were abrogated during the Second
Sino-Japanese War, which started in 1937 and merged into the larger context of
World War II. The United States Congress ended American extraterritoriality in
December 1943. Significant examples of unequal treaties with China did outlast
World War II: unequal treaties regarding Hong Kong remained in place until Hong
Kong's 1997 handover, and in 1969, to improve Sino-Russian relations, China
reconfirmed the 1859 Treaty of Aigun. Japan and Korea
When the American Commodore Matthew Perry reached Japan in 1854, it signed
the Convention of Kanagawa. Its importance was limited. Much more
important was the Harris treaty of 1858 negotiated by U.S. envoy Townsend
Harris. Korea's first unequal treaty was not
with the West but with Japan. Taking a page from Western tactics, in 1875 Japan
sent Captain Inoue Yoshika and the warship Un'yō to display military might
over Korea in the Ganghwa Island incident. This forced Korea to open its
doors to Japan by signing the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876.
The unequal treaties ended at various times for the countries involved.
Japan's victories in the 1894–95 First Sino-Japanese War convinced many in the
West that unequal treaties could no longer be enforced on Japan. Korea's
unequal treaties with European states became largely null and void in 1910,
when it was annexed by Japan. Mongolia and China also Russian empire
Select list of unequal treaties = Unequal treaties imposed on China=
= Unequal treaties imposed on Japan= = Unequal treaties imposed on Korea=
= Unequal treaties imposed on Mongolia= See also
Client state Puppet state
Most favoured nation Treaty of Waitangi
Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire References
= Citations= = Bibliography=
Auslin, Michael R.. Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and
the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
ISBN 978-0-674-01521-0; OCLC 56493769 Hsü, Immanuel Chung-yueh. The Rise of
Modern China. New York: Oxford University Press. OCLC 300287988
Perez, Louis G. Japan Comes of Age: Mutsu Munemitsu & the Revision of the
Unequal Treaties 244pp Wang, Dong. "The Discourse of Unequal
Treaties in Modern China," Pacific Affairs 76#3 pp 399–425.
Nish, I. H. "Japan Reverses the Unequal Treaties: The Anglo-Japanese Commercial
Treaty of 1894," Journal of Oriental Studies 13#2 pp 137–146.
Ringmar, Erik. Liberal Barbarism: The European Destruction of the Palace of
the Emperor of China. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wang, Dong.. China's Unequal Treaties: Narrating National History. Lanham,
Maryland: Lexington Books. ISBN 9780739112083; OCLC 60311787
= Primary sources= Halleck, Henry Wager.. International
law: or, Rules regulating the intercourse of states in peace and war
New York: D. Van Nostrand. OCLC 852699 Korean Mission to the Conference on the
Limitation of Armament, Washington, D.C., 1921–1922.. Korea's Appeal to the
Conference on Limitation of Armament. Washington: U.S. Government Printing
Office. OCLC 12923609