THE UNEQUAL TREATY SYSTEM

Up to the beginning of the Opium War (1840-42), Western merchants had

largely accepted the conditions of trade laid down by the Chinese. This system
had also provided an institutional frame work for the relationship of the Chinese
to the Europeans. However, the situation completely changed after the Treaty
of Nanjing (1842) and the treaties that followed. These treaties infringed upon
the,, national sovereignty of China through a variety of rights secured by the
foreigners. As per these treaties, different ports were opened. This saw not only
the entry of foreign ships for the import-export trade, but also the consequent
foreign control of these places with the setting up of residences,- foreign
consuls and western courts. Through these treaties, the foreigners controlled
institutions like tariff control and customs relating to commerce. In fact,
through a network of treaty ports the imperialist powers ruled China by proxy.
As these treaty were one-sided which became the expression of western
dominance in China, they are better known as Unequal Treaties.
The story begins with the Chinese ignominious defeat in the Opium War
(1840-42). As pointed out by J.S, Galbraith, the Opium War "was a
demonstration that Britain in the free trade era was prepared to use force... to
support trade."
The treat of nanking opened 5 ports along with canton for the western powers
i.e. Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai for foreign trade. Now
the Chinese policy of strict control over Westerners on Chinese soil came; to an
end. The process of extracting concessions and privileges which began with
the Opium War continued unabated. Gallagher and Robinson point to the
frequent use of treaties by Britain as "the most common political technique of
British expansion." The supplementary treaty to the Treaty; of Nanjing was
signed at the Bogue (8 October 1843), which; introduced the first fixed
customs charges and filled up some open holes in the Nanjing document. The
Most Favoured Nation Clause was also incorporated. Now for all practical
purposes China had been transformed into a colony of many vested power
interests.

Closely following the British came the Americans and the French insisting on
analogous concessions. As a consequence, China signed the Treaty of Wangxia
(1844) with the United States of America.
Furthermore, it supplemented the British document in several significant ways.
It made the opium traffic illegal for American citizens— an empty provision
neither ever followed nor implemented. The Treaty of Wangxia also went much
more fully into the right of foreigners to employ Chinese servants for all sorts of
jobs without Chinese interference. The most consequential clause, of course,
was the provision for extraterritorial jurisdiction to Americans and by extension,
under the most favoured nation clause to other foreigners in China. Hence, the
Treaty of Wangxia (1844) like the Treaty of Nanjing, not only provided for the
opening of the five ports for American traders, it also granted them the right to
maintain hospitals and churches in them.
In the same year, France, following the example of Britain and United States,
demanded that China conclude an analogous treaty. Thus, the Sino-French
Treaty of Huangpu (1842) was signed. As its trade with China was not so large
as that of Britain and the United States. France attached special importance to
the privilege of propagating Christianity in China. Both Caholic and Protestant
faiths were recognised by the Qing government as lawful and the missionaries
of the western countries, together with their merchandise, began to infiltrate
into China. In this way. as a result of the treaties signed between 1842 and
1844 the imperialist countries were able to extract a series of concessions from
the Qing government, which in turn enabled them to lay solid foundations of
imperialism in China.

In 1845, the British extracted and agreement from the Chinese of Shanghai,
determining the zone where the British could sell or by land. The British were
able to establish municipal council and autonomous political body on the
territory of their confession. Council had its own budget. It levied tax. It kept
police force and carried out various other municipal and town planning
activities.
The Chinese market was still limited and economy was still largely self-
sufficient in the basic necessities, thus The British and French launched
another war against China called the second opium war between 1857 and
1860 .
As a consequence, treaties of tianjin and Beijing was signed by China with the
United States, Britain and France, other than already open five ports, 11, more
ports were opened . Opium trade was legalised. Western vessels were allowed
access to certain inland waterways. Western missionaries and merchants
secured the right to travel about the country and buy land. Foreign goods were
allowed to circulate in the country and were exempted from the transit tax.
In 1876, another treaty known as a sign of British treaty of Yantai was signed
and four more ports were open. This made a total number of 20 ports available .
through this treaty, Britain succeeded in making further in roads into the valley,
the area covered by the treaty port now extended from Tianjin to China, and to
the Southern most conton

While discussing the origin and the nature of treaty ports, JK Fairbanks
proposes that these treaties were not an innovation on the part of the West,
according to him, the treaty system had its predecessors in the tributary
system and thus had deep roots in the traditional form of government, he views
the treaty port system as a case of collaboration, a kind of alliance from which
both the Chinese and the foreign partners drew mutual benefits. expressing
serious disagreement with Fairbanks TAN CHUNG. Points out that though in
previous time, the foreigners were allowed to manage their own affairs on the
Chinese soil, but the Chinese were not kept under any undue pressure, but now
the foreigners at gun force the Chinese to agree to their terms so this it was an
innovation and a system of this kind had not existed before. the most unequal
aspect of this was complete absence of reciprocity. The real nature of the
treaty port system can be best understood by the fact that unequal treaties
were the weapons used by the Western Power to achieve their aim.

The treat is affected China, the most in the spare of trade, the opium war had
shown the way for growth for Western trade in China . The import of opium
rose from 3 million to 32 million taels in the same period. Foreign rate was
completely carried out in the treaty port under the control of the foreigners,
even the ship had handled trade also belong to the foreigners, even the coastal
trade was under control. The Chinese banking system to which capital came
from small, Chinese deposits was also controlled by the foreigners. They gain
control of over 80 to 90% of the China’s heavy industry, communication,
transport, and commodity markets.
Foreign control over Chinese tire was another feature of the treaty port system .
Oppressive tariff rates and corruption among Chinese custom officials cited by
most western scholars as a reason behind the foreigners demand for tariff
control.
The Christian missionaries got a free hand to medal with the legal dispute
between Christian converts and their non-Christian people. Almost all the
Western scholars have made an attempt to justify the extra territorial on the
ground that the Chinese judiciary backward . China was no longer the centre of
East Asian family of nations, but instead became a member at first only of an
inferior rank of a large family of nations centred around Europe.