SPECIAL ARTICLE

TAN CHUNG

IMPERIALISM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY CHINA (II) The Unequal Treaty System: Infrastructure of Irresponsible Imperialism

We publish below PROF. TAN CHUNG’S second article in the series ’Imperialism in Nineteenth- Century China’. In hisfirst article (CHINA REPORT, vol. xvii, no. 2, March-April 1981), PROF. TAN elaborated Britain’s employing opium as a well-calculated mode in her imperialist aggression on 19th-century China, reinforcing his well-known theory of ’opium imperialism’. In the present article, the author focuses attention on the unequal treaties or the ’Treaty System’ and develops a new theory of ’Irresponsible Imperialism’. The articles are revised and reorganized versions of class lectures which PROF. TAN has delivered to the M.A. students in history over the years. In our future numbers, we shall publish his remaining articles in this series on Finance Imperial- ism, Spheres of Influence and the ’Open Door’ Policy, and Christian Missionary Activities in China. We welcome discussion on the issues raised by PROF. TAN.—EDITOR

JOSEPH STALIN’S maxim that imperialism is Fairbank, retired maestro of Harvard Uni- a universal system which exploits all colonies, versit.y, whose other equally famous in- all races and all nations is included in George vention is the term ’Tribute System’. These Seldes’ Tlre Great Quotations (New York, two systems summarize the Fairbankian 1960), but it finds no place in the memory of perspective of the entire history of China’s Marxist commentators the world over. Was foreign relations, with the Opium War there such a ’universal system’ operating in (1840-42) as the dividing line, and with the history of 19th-century China? This the ’I’reaty System as the Tribute System’s is a pertinent question for students who have successor or replacement. There is hardly witnessed enough of the game of hide and any other specialist on this subject. We must, seek which learned studies are playing with therefore, pay more attention to Fairbank’s the concept of imperialism in China. One has writings. to pay due respect to such studies before Fairbank is not only a prolific writer, venturing an answer. but almost all his writings are studies of Chinese history. Hence they are relevant to our present discussion. His name is associated I with two famous books. The first is East Asia (first published, Boston, 1965) in colla- The term ’Treaty System’ or ’Treaty-Port boration with Edwin O. Reischauer and System’ is an invention of Prof. John King Albert Craig. The second, The United States

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and China (first published, Harvard, 1940), Chinese state. The westerner in this period which has been constantly revised and was a partner in a Sino-western rule over perfected with its fourth edition (Harvard, China, which by degrees came to supplant 1979) in current appearance is indeed one of the Manchu-Chinese synarchy of the Ch’ing the best short surveys of Chinese history. [Qing] period’ (Ibid., p. 467). Yet, the most important of his books Fairbank further characterizes the new concerning our discussion is still the never- Chinese order; i.e. ’the Treaty System’ as a revised monograph Trade and Diplomacy on ’new rickshaw-culture’, with the bicycle the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty wheel of the rickshaw symbolizing the prog- Ports 1842-1854 (first published by Havard ressive western civilization, and the coolie University Press in 1953). The book, being power of the rickshaw puller symbolizing a product of the scholar’s formative years, the resilient Chinese tradition (Ibid., p. 466). is the foundation-stone of the Fairbankian The Treaty System is described as a joint perspective. The edifice raised on this founda- invention of Chinese tradition and western tion includes ’The Creation of the Treaty expansion which were mutually comple- System’ (in Fairbank [ed.], The Cambr-idge mentary. Evidence: western gunboats which History of China, vol. x, pt. i, 1978); exacted concessions from the Chinese govern- ’Synarchy Under the Treaties’ in Fairbank, ment also helped it to suppress piracy. The (ed.), Chinese Thocrght and Institutions, westerners who enjoyed the material value of Chicago, 1957; ’Tributary Trade and China’s China trade much more than their ancient Relations With the West’, Far Eastern tribute-trade predecessors fromArabia, Persia Quarterly, 1 :2, 1942; New Views of China’s and other foreign lands, were also driven Tradition and Modernization, Washington, by their own ’self-interest’ to save the moral 1968; and China Perceived: Images and values of the Manchu rulers in order ’to Policies in Chinese-American Relations, New maintain the shrunken prestige of the regime’ York, 1974. (Ibid., p. 465). The starting point of the Fairbankian A vivid analogy, indeed. Its only weakness perspective is the ’cultural confiict’ between lies in the fact that the rickshaw puller was China and the West, which transformed not his own inventor. And who is the rick- into the contradiction between ’trade’ and shaw rider? Here the missing link is too ’tribute’ in the Chinese scene in recent important to ignore, as both the rickshaw centuries. ’The rub came when the foreign wheel and the rickshaw puller exist for the trade expanded and finally... eclipsed tribute rickshaw rider. - entirely’ (Trade and Diplomacy, p. 33). This Fairbank seems to think of 19th-century is how Fairbank conceives the earth-shaking China as cut out for western domination. changes in China’s destiny during mid-19th- The intrusion of the westerners not only century. What many others might see as the fell in line with China’s historical develop- swallowing of an age-old independent empire ment, but the new Sino-barbarian ruling by the international monster of imperialism system wrought by China.’s European con- is softly defined as a Sino-western ’rub’ querers was also harmoniously wedded with between the Chinese obsession of ’tribute’ the Chinese socio-political reality. ’The and the western obsession of open-door agrarian-bureaucratic state could be headed free trade. What follows logically ’should by Manchus, and the latter could even be make it plain’, says Fairbank, ’that the assisted by Anglo-Saxons, so long as the treaty system gradua.lly became a basic Chinese landlord-scholar-omcial class re- component of the power structure of the tained its customary position’ (bid., p. 468).

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While the Fairbankian perspective hardly an East Asian wing of Europe’s worldwide threatens to chasten the Prince of Imperial- hegem.ony, specially an arm of British in- ism, it has unmistakably taken Chinese formal empire ...’ (China Perceived, p. 86). culture as the whipping-boy. This can be ’The British were able after the Opium detected from Fairbank’s confusion over the War to set forth a new structure of ideas spirit of equality, or the want of it, in the including such elements as free trade and conclusion of treaties between China and the the equality of states, which were all ex- western powers. Here is a typical obser- pressed in the words of the treaties... they vation : ’Although the [post-Opium War] were far from dominant in the day-to-day new treaties were signed as between equal situation and could not dictate Chinese sovereign powers, they were actually quite action. In fact, the path of progress for the unequal in that China was placed against British often lay in a judicious accommoda- her will in a weaker position...’ (U.S. and tion of Western ways to those of the Middle China, 3rd edn., p. 143). If so, how could Kingdom’ (’Synarchy&dquo; pp. 216-17). China be regarded as an ’equal sovereign If the Treaty System was a ‘semipermanent power’ before the victorious western aggres- form of Western intervention in Chinese sors at the time when she was forced to sign life’, how was it that the intervening forces the treaties by the latter at gun point? But, ’were far from dominant in the day-to-day Fairbank seems to have anticipated this situation’? If there was British hegemony question, and wanted to convince his readers in China, how could there be ’judicious that even though the western powers had accommodation’ on the British part to the an edge over China militarily, they were not Chinese ways? We shall return to this point quite China’s equal in diplomatic manoeuvr- later. ing in concluding the post-war treaties, Fairbank’s Treaty System theory is a so much so that the British ’were less certain comment on the nature of imperialist aggres- how to capitalize’ their victories, and ’they sion on China in the first place, but even found themselves in a diplomatic contest more an exposition of China’s absorption which was more evenly balanced’ (Trade of imperialist aggression. The latter aspect is and Diplomacy, p. 83). How easily said than embodied in his well-known theory of done that the Chinese could surface them- ’Synarchy’. He coined this term partly to selves as equals in the diplomatic contest draw a parallel and partly to distinguish every time after they had gone under in the between the ’intricate institution of joint military combat! Later in this essay we shall Sino-foreign administration of the govern- illustrate how the British diplomats prevailed ment of China’ and the ’dyarchy’ of British over their Chinese counterparts at negotiation Indian history. tables with the same ease as British fighters There is a third eye in the Fairbankian did in the battlefields. vision to detect the presence of a foreign The fact that Fairbank has used the terms force in China’s internal governance. ’Alien ’Treaty System’ and ’Unequal Treaty System’ rule is one of the commonplaces of the alternately betrays his lack of clarity in Chinese political tradition’, comments Fair- which can be further illustrated mind, by bank. ’Throughout East Asian history runs comparing two of his observations about this motif of the marriage of the steppe and the subject: ’The unequal treaty system the sown.... Inner Asian barbarians... in China lasted a full century from 1842 to always in one or another in the 1943 as a semipermanent form of Western participated way intervention in Chinese life .... It was also government of the Chinese empire’

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(’Synarchy’, p. 204). This over-generaliza- the true meaning of his condemnation of tion has been extended to the point of imperialism which is a recent development the dominant Soviet of Fairbankian In his latest

_ absurdity by equating scholarship. influence in China in the early 1950s with essay on Treaty System in the Cambridge the ’steppe barbarians’. When he was penning History, Fairbank seems to move away the conclusion of Trade and Diplomacy, from the earlier beat-the-whipping-boy atti- he saw the ’vestiges of the past’ ’even in the tude. He comments that from the western midst of the continuing [communist] revo- point of view, the Treaty System was ’an &dquo;lation’. ’Once more, a foreign element, again institutional structure’ which gradually grew from the north, plays a leading part in China’ into ’the Chinese state and society’. From (Trade and Diplomacyf, p. 468). the Chinese point of view, ’the treaties were What Fairbank wants to drive home is vehicles of imperialist invasion’ (p. 214). that ’the Chinese state, from its rich cx- He thcn unfolds the phased development of perience with the barbarians of Inner Asia, the Treaty System, which may be summarized had no lack of institutional devices by which as follows: to accommodate foreign intruders in the Phase I : the first two decades ( 1840s domestic power structure’ (Ibid). ’The role and 1850s)-emergence of ’a new order in played by non-Chinese in the Chinese state China’s foreign relations’. during the Northern Wei, Liao, Chin [Jin], Plruso II : the second generation (1860s to Yuan [Mongol] and Ch’ing [Qing, i.e. 1890s)-treaty ports becoming ’urban centres Manchu] periods... had some sort of histori- of a Sino-foreign condominium and hybrid cal relationship to the role played ... by the culture’. British and other Western powers under the Phase III : the third generation (I 890s to unequal treaty system, by the Japanese 1920s)-foreign, influence transforming into invaders in their &dquo;co-prosperity sphere&dquo; sub- ’an invading flood’ changing and damaging sequently, and perhaps by the Russians ’China’s traditional state and society’. under communism most recently’ (‘ Synarchy’, Phase IV : the fourth generation (1920s to p. 205). Under ’Synarchy’, says Fairbank, 1950s)-’the treaty system first largely ’both the Manchus and the British sought supplanted by Japanese aggression and then to make their new order work and foster its supplanted by the Communist-led revolu- economic prosperity. Where the Manchu tionary order of a new day’. emperors became the patrons of agricultural This ’treaty system interlude’, observes development... the British... sought to foster Fairbank, existed throughout a century of international and local free trade’ (Ibid., ’dynastic interregnum’. He adds: ’... the p. 221). treaty century saw the onset and then the Here the cat comes out of the bag. To height of imperialist penetration of China Fairbank who thinks ’the theory of imperial- as well as the phases of the Chinese people’s ism is not the only avenue of approach’ increasingly revolutionary response to it. to the study of Chinese history, Britain and Under the treaties, China’s sovereignty was other western powers were no imperialist increasingly impaired; with the rise of intruders, but only partners of the Chinese nationalism and revolution, it was by degree rulers in thc Sino-barbarian institutions of reasserted (p. 214). ’Synarchy’ to work jointly for the economic All these quotations from Fairbank con- prosperity of China!t tradict his theory of ’Synarchy’ and his With this theory of ’Synarchy’ at the apology for western, particularly British, back of our mind, we are able to understand imperialism in China which we have cited

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earlier. It would be interesting to hear the of rights primarily for merchants’ (pp. 216- latest comments of Fairbank who is bitten 17). By now we get tired of pointing out by the bug of the perspective of imperialism Fairbank’s self-contradiction. If British im- on all he had written earlier about the Treaty perialism had any respect for the rule of law System. Not a single word of this in the in China, it would not have pushed the Cambridge History article. Has he abandoned ’Indian opium exports’ to the point of mad- his earlier position? ness, as shown in my last article (see China Stray observations do seem to indicate a Report, vol., 17, 2 March-April, 1981, departure from the classical Fairbankian ’Foreign Mud on Good Earth: British Opium perspective. For instance, he now thinks that Enterprise’). But Fairbank paints 19th- ’the treaty system had been set up by gunfire century Britain as a champion of both the and had to be maintained by gunboat diplo- rule of law and also the most notorious macy’. Again, ’gunboat diplomacy betrayed international narcotic traffic in modern civili- the unsolved struggle as to who should call zation ! In any case, Fairbank’s stand vis-a- the tune in Sino-Western contact’ (p. 232). vis the British aggression on China is fairly But the thrust of the new article is still the clear. It is summarized in these words in the reiteration of the ’Synarchy’ theory, albeit Cambridge Hi.story: ’Britain wanted, not in a new garb. The statement below in the to rule the Chinese empire as a colony, latest essay removes any doubt: ’One secret but to get it to follow British ways of inter- of the British success in China was the tacit national contact and free trade under the community of interest between the British rule of law, which open the door to British and Ch’ing [Qing] administrators. Each side commercial profit’ (p. 232). represented a conquering power that had Even while using terms like ’imperialism’, learned to rule its conquests by qualities of ’domination’, ’hegemony’, ’gunboat diplo- moral commitment and administrative skill.... macy’, the Fairbankian perspective essentially The treaty settlement was thus a modus negates the theory of imperialism which is vivendi worked out between the, representa- generally understood as a system of colonial tives of two aristocratic, British and Manchu, oppression and capitalist exploitation of empires’ (p. 217). foreign peoples. But the Treaty System To get to the bottom of Fairbankian conceived by Fairbank was a kind of inter- analysis about the nature of the imperialist national alliance, or an international com- domination in 19th-century China, the latest munity in which the native (Chinese) and article, in keeping with Fairbank’s consistent foreign partners drew mutual benefit from stand, says that Britain wanted the Treaty each other. Such a perspective cannot provide System partly ’to foster the established any basis of understanding imperialism in interests’ and partly to express ’Britain’s l9th-century China. worldwide commercial expansion’. He adds: ’Specially, the British aim was to give stability and opportunity to the triangular trade ’ between British India, China, and the British II Isles. This meant safeguarding the China market for Indian opium exports and the Paradoxically, the alternative to the Fair- Chinese supply of teas and silks for London.’ bankian perspective is envisaged unwittingly He adds further that ’the British treaty in Fairbank’s own writing. I have already makers’ were meant to ’find security for quoted from his Cambridge History, two trade in the rule of law’, offering a ’charter sets of views: the Treaty System as a western

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’institutional structure’ gradually growing this oppression is to squeeze out super- into ’the Chinese state and society’ (which profits.’2 is the western viewpoint), and the unequal One need not be ideologically committed treaties being regarded as ‘vehicles of imperial- to concede the superiority of Stalin’s analysis ist invasion’ (which is the Chinese viewpoint). as compared to Fairbank’s. Why did Britain While Fairbank has pursued neither view- and other western powers employ gunboats point, the combination of them would seem and treaty diplomacy in 19th century’? Super- to provide an understanding of the Treaty profit is definitely a better answer than System. ’Synarchy,’. As the Chinese intellectuals carried out a When Lenin talked about the epoch of relentless struggle against the imperialist imperialism as the highest stage of the deve- Treaty System right from the end of the lopment of capitalism, he had in mind a 19th century, there is a near-unanimous time-scale beginning from the last couple of viewpoint which is anti-treaty oriented and decades of the 19th century. This has created considers the Treaty System an imperialist a widespread impression among scholars yoke. Jiang Jieshi and Mao Zedong were that there had been different stages of im- united on this point. Mao and his comrades perialist domination in China. Parker T. conceived the 19th-century imperialist do- Moon, who also subscribes to the theory of mination over China as one of the two imperialism, observes: ’The Nanking mountains which had crushed the Chinese [Nanjing] Treaty and its supplements were people underneath (the other being ’feuda- inspired, clearly, by a British desire for free lism’). Mao’s anti-imperialist patriotism was access to the Chinese market, but not by also wedded with his belief in Marxism- latter-day imperialism. Great Britain could Leninism, which subscribes to the theory have taken a large slice of territory; she of imperialism jointly propounded by J.A. was content with the tiny island of Hong Hobson and Lenin. Both Hobson and Lenin Kong. She could have asked for exclusive have traced the growth of imperialism in privileges; she was willing that other nations Europe, and its spread all over the world. enjoy the same rights.&dquo; Moon further adds: Hobson’s analysis of the phenomenon of ’Why Europe invaded the Far East?... imperialism has a weighty economic content: European industrial nations desired first -‘The chief economic source of imperialism of all an open door for their merchants, has been found in the inequality of industrial marines, and missionaries.... This was not opportunities by which a favoured class true imperialism; on the contrary, the open accumulates superfluous elements of income door is almost the opposite of imperialism. which, in their search for profitable invest- But the opening of the Far East led in- ments, press ever further afield....&dquo; Lenin and evitably to a desire for monopoly of markets, Stalin developed Hobson’s imperialism into mines, and railway-building, hence for mono- ’the contradiction’, as Stalin says, ’between polist spheres-of influence, and also for naval the handful of &dquo;civilized&dquo; nations and the bases, and in some cases, territory. This was hundreds of millions of the colonial and genuine imperialism....44 dependent peoples of the world’. Stalin John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson adds: ’Imperialism is the most barefaced in their famous essay ’The Imperialism of exploitation and the most inhuman oppres- Free Trade’ in TlTO Ecohomic History Review, sion of hundreds of millions of people in- (Second Series, vol. vi, no. 1, August 1953), habiting vast colonies and dependent coun- point out that Hobson, Lenin and Moon, tries. The purpose of this exploitation and of the exponents of the imperialist theory,

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actually agreed with their liberal opponents supposed to be ’dominated by a merchant- that ’late-Victorian imperialism was a quali- industrialist aristocracy dedicated to efficiency tative change in the nature of British ex- and laissez faire’. ’Yet’, says Galbraith, pansion and a sharp deviation from the ’in an era of anti-annexation the Empire innocent and static liberalism of the middle continued to grow in India and elsewhere.’ of the century.’ They further add: ’For all He adds: ’When profitable markets were their disagreement these two doctrines [of disrupted by the breakdown of order or by imperialism and non-imperialism] pointed the hostility of a government, this apparent to one interpretation; that mid-Victorian indifference[to empire and conquest] abruptly &dquo;indifference&dquo; and late-Victorian &dquo;enthu- ended. The &dquo;Opium War&dquo; of 1839-1842 was siasm&dquo; for empire were directly related to a demonstration that Britain in the free- the rise and decline in free-trade heliefs’ trade cra was prepared to use force... to (p. 2). support trades The two scholars halve put forward the While Galbraith mentions the Opium War theory of ‘imperialism of free trade’, pointing as a demonstration of imperialist expansion, out the fact that imperialist territorial ex- Gallagher and Robinson point to the frequent pansion started long before the end of the use of treaties by Britain as ’the most com- l9th century, hence exposing the myth of mon political technique of British expansion’ the so-called anti-imperialist mid-Victorian (EcHR, p. 1 1 ). The Gallagher-Robinson free-trade era. A critic, D.C.M. Platt, sum- definition of imperialism reads thus: ’Im- marizes the Gallagher-Robinson thesis in perialism, perhaps, may be defined as a the following words: ’They claimed that sufhcient political function of this process of from the beginning of the last century British integrating new regions into the expanding officials. were spreading the rule of free trade economy; its character is largely decided from Buenos Aires to Constantinople, by the various and changing relationships from the Niger and the Oxus to the Yangtse- between the political and economic elements kiang [Yangzijiang]. The British political of expansion in any particular region and arm had first to brcak open each area to time’ (Ibid., p. 5). trade before the technique of central control This definition provides food for thought. through collaborating classes could operate, The essence of imperialism lies in the ex- and this, in official thinking, was necessary pansion of the metropolitan economy into work for diplomats with gunboats in the other regions-colonies and other dependent offing.’5 Both Platt and W.G. Hynes think areas, in the words of Stalin. The expansion that the Gallagher-Robinson theory provides takes place by unfolding a ’process of in- a bridge between the apparently disparate tegrating’ the latter into the economic forces periods of mid-Victorian anti-imperialism of the metropolis. But mere economic and the &dquo;New Imperialism&dquo; of late-Victorian force would not accomplish the economic Britain’, and also ’the governing principle goal of imperialism. It has to be helped by and the unifying factor in a century of British the political process, which includes the policy no less in the &dquo;informal empire&dquo; ’than use of armed forces. Gallagher and Robinson in the of formal rule.’6 Empire are right in identifying such political process Prof. John S. Galbraith lends support to as the mechanics of imperialism, for it is the the Gallagher-Robinson theory in his own presence and absence of this way, refuting the existence of a ‘Little England political Era’ (in contrast to the great British Empire) mechanics which distinguishes an imperialist between Waterloo and the 1970s which was metropolitan-peripheral economic linkage

Downloaded from chr.sagepub.com at INDIANA UNIV on March 16, 2015 10 from free trade between two independent political techniques, such as the ’mercantilist sovereign countries. techniques of formal empire’ and the ’in- In the case of China, as long as she was formal techniques of free trade’, etc. They her own master in her economic intercourse add: ’... in a particular region, if economic with Britain and other western powers she opportunity seems large but political security was not under the impact of western imperia- small, then full absorption into the extending lism. A qualitative change first took place economy tends to be frustrated until power in 1821 with British opium traders embarking is exerted upon the state in question. Con- upon armed delivery of the drug under the versely, in proportion as satisfactory political protection of the Union Jack, and with frameworks are brought into being in this British men of war standing by. So the way, the frequency of imperialist intervention political process of British imperialism had lessens and imperialist control is corres- already been initiated two decades before the pondingly relaxed’ (~r//7?, p. 6). outbreak of the Opium War, symbolizing The insight provided by this perspective the beginning of British opium imperialism. helps us look at the problem of imperialism Though no Chinese territory was lost, there in China in a new light. First, since the was illegal occupation of small off-shore crux of the imperialist strategy vis-a-vi.s islands and also China’s territorial waters China lay in the integration of China into the by British war ships and armed opium expansive imperialist economic order, the carriers. imperialist devices to achieve this integration With the launching of the Opium War on had to depend upon their rational employ- China and binding her by the Treaty of ment and optimum effect. Complete sub- Nanjing, Britain certainly went a step further jugation of China into a colony could not in integrating China into her expansive be on the agenda of any western government.. economic order. The inauguration of British Here we may pause for a moment to imperialism in China was three-pronged: reflect on Moon’s proposition cited earlier. (a) the threat of use of force, (b) the war, By saying that the first Opium War and the and (c) the treaty. Britain followed this Treaty of Nanjing did not constitute an pattern in almost all the areas which ulti- imperialist aggression on China, Moon mately fell victims to Pax Britannica. What restricts the definition of imperialism within was peculiar to the Chinese scene was that the narrow confines of territorial occupation, whereas in other areas, like India, Britain building of naval bases and carving out had escalated the political process until spheres of influence in other countries. The complete take-over of the colonial admini- Gallagher-Robinson definition of imperialism stration, in China the process was never has deeper insight than Moon’s perspective escalated but only repeated. This peculiarity and treats the acquisition of territories, has led many scholars to exclude China from naval bases and spheres of influence as the the history of imperialist domination, or to means, not the goal. On the other hand, the assign non-imperialist patterns to modern Gallagher-Robinson perspective looks upon Chinese history, as Fairbank does. the so-called ’free-trade’ offensive as a part Once again, the Gallagher-Robinson pers- and parcel of imperialist devices for the pective can be used to fit the peculiarity of expansion, viz. integration of other regions the Chinese case into the general pattern of into the economic order of the metropolis. western imperialist expansion. Discussing In this way, both the early British presence the British imperialist expansion, they notice in China under the umbrella of the Treaty the flexible use of various economic and of Nanjing and the late 19th-century British

Downloaded from chr.sagepub.com at INDIANA UNIV on March 16, 2015 11 participation in the scramble for territories, formal techniques of free trade were being navel bases and spheres of influence bore used in Latin America for the same purpose’ the same birth mark of imperialism. (Ibid., p. 6). The reasoning here is that what- That Britain never intended to make ever be the strategies or combinations of China a second India is a historical fact political and economic devices the imperialist recognized by historians of varying pers- powers might adopt in varying situations, pectives. In other words, Britain’s ultimate their ’purpose’ was the same-economic goal was not to conquer China and subject integration. The logic of this argument her to direct British rule. This was the con- implies that there was one model of im- sistent British strategy vis-a-vis China from perialist domination in India, and another the early treaty days to the end of the 19th in China. And the nature of imperialist century. Yet this does not exonerate Britain domination, whether in India or China, from imperialist aggression against China, remained identical. By the same logic, im- as China was very much a target of the perialism was capable of both assault and imperialist process of absorbing her into retreat. Then, even when Britain restrained the fold of Pax Britannica. itself, considering the growing tensions with- Paradoxically, in their article in The in the Chinese society caused by British Economic History Review, Gallagher and economic assault, this should be treated Robinson have not applied this logical only as a tactical halt or retreat and not proposition on Chinese history. Hence, when as a moral attitude of self-denial. We hasten they discuss British expansion vis-a-vis China to add here that during the treaty period in they employ a very un-Gallagher-Robinson 19th-century Chinese history, the self-re- prism to project an anti-Free-Trade-Imperia- straint of British imperialism was a rarity, lism spectrum by echoing the 19th-century if not a total non-event. Everyone knows British complaint about the unbreakable that when internal tension rose to a climax Chinese economic self-sufficiency B’is-a-vis with the Manchu government crumbling British economic penetration. This led to down under the weight of Taiping Revolution an un-Gallagher-Robinson conclusion that at the end of 1850s, Britain launched two Britain felt embarrassed by the strain in wars against the Beijing regime, occupied Chinese society (resulting in the Taiping and Beijing, and exacted two treaties from the other rebellions) caused by the British eco- Chinese government-the Treaty of Tianjin nomic assault. Subsequently, Britain adopted in 1858 and the Treaty of Beijing in 1866. an attitude of self-denial, and the later part In view of the unsatisfactory analysis of the 19th century saw Britain playing the by Gallagher and Robinson for our purpose ’honest broker’ by which she won over the of analysing the nature of imperialist do- Chinese government (EcHR, pp. 10-ll). mination on China, let us name the new We shall discuss the inaccuracy of this perspective emerging from the above dis- assessment a little later. cussion as the ’integration theory’, viz. Secondly, the Gallagher-Robinson defini- treating imperialism as a combination of tion of imperialism points to the flexibility political and economic processes to integrate of the economic and political devices of the another country or region with an expansive imperialist powers, particularly Britain, metropolitan economic order. This Integra- according to the situation they faced. ’Thus tion Theory treats all efforts at achieving mercantilist techniques of formal empire such an integration as imperialist actions. If were being employed to develop India in the it can be proved that the unequal treaties mid-Victorian age at the same time as in- concluded by western powers with the

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Chinese government during the 19th century believe or otherwise. Gallagher and Robinson were instruments of integration, then the have indicated the contrary by enumerating Treaty System was surely a form of imperia- the British-imposed treaties ’of free trade list domination. and friendship’ on ’weaker’ countries: ’The treaties with Persia of 1836 and the ~ 1857, Turkish treaties of 1838 and 1861, the

III . Japanese treaty of 1858, the favours ex- tracted from Zanzibar, Siam and Morocco, We need an empirical study to test the the hundreds of anti-slavery treaties signed validity of this Integration Theory. Space with crosses by African chiefs...’ (Ec~IR, allows us to highlight only the British actions p. 11). While signing treaties with other in China as an illustration. The importance countries was a global strategy of Britain, of Britain in the Treaty System need not be the Chinese government had very little stressed. First of all, Britain was the main experience in treaty diplomacy, and could actor on the China stage. Not only had she not comprehend the implications of the inaugurated the Treaty Era in Chinese documents on the dotted lines of which they history, all the unequal treaties signed bet- were forced by Britain to sign. ween the Chinese and other governments Let us begin by briefly recounting the also bore the British stamp. The non-British events that led to the conclusion of the treaties were either replicas of the British Treaty of Nanjing which inaugurated the treaties or their mini-versions. This was not Treaty Era in China. I have observed else- because other imperialist powers were less where the extraordinary feature of the British inventive, but Britain was, in a way, the expeditionary force in China in the Opium sole arbiter in China’s foreign affairs. No War. It had no commandcr-in-chief by country could conclude a treaty with China designation, but the fighting machine was during the 19th century without the explicit placed under the exclusive control of an or implicit approval of Britain. Secondly, officer who was appointed by London as British interests and involvements in China Minister Plenipotentiary and Envory Ex- in the 19th century far exceeded those of traordinary. Clearly, the purpose of this war other imperialist powers put together. Britain was to conclude a treaty with China. This had the lion’s share of the imperialist pre- war was unfamiliar to China, the past master sence in 19th-century China. Geographically of Synarchical Sino-barbarian equations of also British hegemony was a fact. While Fairbank’s descriptions. We know that it Britain’s serious contenders were only nibbl- was out of a sense of despair and disgust ing offChina’s border regions, Britain was the that the Chinese government agreed to sign only power which had penetrated into the the Treaty of Nanjing at the end of two interior of China _ proper. Thus, by singling years of stubborn resistance. This sense of out British involvement in the Treaty System disgust was reflected in an edict issued by we are in a position to grasp the main stream Emperor Daoguang during the Opium War: of developments with minimum risk of ’The English are like whales and crocodiles omission. of the sea.... But, seven of our provinces In tracing the genesis of the Treaty System, have to be alerted to face the menace. All let us first ascertain whether the evolution the counties and prefectures adjacent to of the treaties was the outcome of Chinese the coast have to make defence preparations. efforts to neutralize British military victory, Yet our might and power cannot be em- as the Fairbankian perspective wants us to ployed in storming the enemy forts and

Downloaded from chr.sagepub.com at INDIANA UNIV on March 16, 2015 13 conquering the enemy grounds. Can there privilege of revising the trade a.grccmcnt be any justification for our wasting the under the Treaty of Wangxia. S.G. Bonham, energy of the military and the civilians as British Ambassador to China (1848-54), well as the resources of the nation in this was instructed by London in May 1853 to manner? ... Is it not far better to use a word take up the matter with Beijing, demanding: and a sheet of paper than to deploy millions (i) all Chinese cities and ports be open to of troops?’8 This edict ciearly proves that the British traders without reservation, and (ii) Treaty of Nanjing was forced on China by British citizens be allowed to travel through- Britain’s gunboat diplomacy, a fact even out China without restriction. Seeing the Fairbank has conceded in his Cambridge difficulties faced by the Manchu govcrnment History article. It is but fair to say that in tackling the Taiping Revolution which was the first Sino-British Treaty was a British merching t.owards Tianjin at the time the design to expand her economic order in instructions were received, Bonham exercised China. As for the Chinese government, far his discretion to place the matter in from gaining an upper hand in the game of abeyance.9 diplomacy, they were lured by the illusion Bonham was succeeded by the notorious- created by the British aggressors that with ly aggressive former Consul to Guangzhou, the conclusion of the treaty and the grant John Bowring, as British Ambassador in of political, economic and territorial con- 1954. Shortly after his promotion, Bowring cessions to the invaders they could live in sailed from Hong Kong to the port of Dagu, peace with Britain for ever. It was this illusion the gateway of Beijing, in the company of that made them name the Treaty of Nanjing the US envoy, R. M. Mclane, and the sec- ’Wannian heyue’ (Peace Treaty for Ten retary in the French Embassy, Kleczkowski, Thousand Years). and laid a charter of 18 demands before ’ It did not take them long to realize their the Chinese government, which included: miscalculations. In ten ycars Britain began (a) the opening of entire China, (b) legali- to pick up the dust of dissatisfaction over zation of opium. trade, (c) abolition of excise the implementation of the treaty and of the and all additional levies on British goods necessity for its revision. A provision for after the payment of import duty, and (d) revision of the trade agreement was written permanent residency of the British envoy in Article 34 of the Sino-American Treaty of at the Chinese capital, Beijing.l° Bowring Wangxia (Wanghsia) in 1844. But the Treaty made two fruitless northward trips to demand of Nanjing was a political treaty. It was a what was termed in British circles ass the peace treaty intended to stabilize and per- ’second settlement’. Annoyed by Chinese petuate a peaceful and friendly atmosphere indifference he declared that ’negotiations between Britain and China. Neither was the unsupported by a considerable Neca will treaty meant for future revision, nor was terminate in disappointment and discom- there any provision i-or revision in it. Yet, fiture’.l1 He, then, picked up the arrow British diplomacy in those years of ’might incident’ and started the second war against is right’ was unscrupulous, having little China in 1856. regard for propriety and fairness. British This ’second settlement’―with the con- diplomats in China raised the question of cltision of two Sino-British treaties at Tianjin revision of the Treaty of Nanjing on the (1858) and Beijing (1860), the brief Anglo- pretext that the most favoured nation clause French occupation of Beijing in October of the treaty granted the right of revising 1860, the barbarous destruction of Yua.n- the Treaty of Nanjing to equalize the US mingyuan, the luxurious imperial summer

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palace, and the captivity of the Viceroy of better understanding of Britain’s non-empire- the Two Guang provinces, Ye Mingchen building strategy in furtherance of her in Fort William, Calcutta, as a precious economic gains in China, than the analyses piece of war booty by Britain-was apparent- of Fairbank, Moon, and even Gallagher and ly a much more cruel version of the ’first Robinson. Edmund S. Wehrle, who has settlement’. In content, the Treaty System also attempted to see British imperialism which was fortified by the Treaty of Beijing in China through the spectrum of the Free- was a substantial escalation of the System Trade-Imperialism perspective, has made founded by the Treaty of Nanjing. The the following significant observation in his legalization of the opium trade, the British book Britain, China, and the AntimiSrior~ary access to the Valley of Changjiang, the Riot,s 1891-1900 (Minnesota University, additional treaty ports both along the sea 1966): ’Clearly, Britain’s primary interest in coast north of Changjiang and along its China was commercial. It wanted the Manchu banks, lighter taxation for imported British regime to keep an open door for the trade goods, permission for Chinese workers to of all-which meant, in practice, continued settle down in British colonies, and the economic dominance by Britain. There was mortgage of tariff control to a foreign cadre no desire on Britain’s part to undertake the under the leadership of a British nation- expense or risk the danger involved in the all these marked greater integration of China creation of an &dquo;Indian Empire&dquo; in the into Pax Britannica than ever before. Valley of Yangtze. The result was that China Here, then, was a typical case of Free- provided a classic example of that type of Trade Imperialism or Integration Imperia- &dquo;informal imperialism&dquo; which characterized lism. A great leap forward was achieved by nineteenth-century British economic expan- Britain’s colonial economic expansion in sion from South America to Asia’ (p. 6). China by moderate use of force and a tighten- By using the term ’informal imperialism’, ing of treaty control in lieu of direct involve- Wehrle has implicitly suggested the impor- ment in China’s internal governance by the tance of the supra-territorial element in British Crown. The treaty, thus, played a imperialism-formation. Economic exploita- role of central in the advancemcnt British tion is the essence of this element. Here, we imperialism in China m’lking a special brand see the subtle distinction between empire- of imperialist domination of the world, formation and imperialism-formation. While which we n1’lY call ’Treaty Imperialism’. empire-formation is territory-based, imperi2.- Here, we have applied the Integration Theory lism-formation can include or avoid empire- to show that the Treaty System was most formation. Territorial acquisition is important effective in Britain to semi-colonize to helping imperialism only when it registers a gain China. i.e. to milk her resources for the in the acquisition of super-profits. Otherwise, growth of the same British Empire which it becomes a burden. British politicians in India and other colonies had laid the founda- the 19th century often talked about this tion of. I have illustrated in my last article burden in India to ward off criticism of in this series the vital importance of China Britain’s colonial policies in India. India, to British prosperity due to her consumption the brightest jewel on the diadem of British of British-Indian opium alone. I shall further Empire, could not have been a burden in illustrate the Chinese contribution in other the general sense. However, it would be fields to British empire-building in my next unrealistic to deny the British entailment of essay. administrative expenses and risks in running The Integration Theory can furnish a an empire of India’s size. Thus, the British

Downloaded from chr.sagepub.com at INDIANA UNIV on March 16, 2015 15 experiment in China-the advantages of an ordinary monk-scholar. The monkey was ’informal imperialism’-constituted a higher assigned the duty of escorting the monk on stage of imperialism-formation. the perilous journey to India, passing through The eternal theme of ’ledger and sword’ lands of various devils. Sun Wukong proved has shown the interconnection between profit to be an intelligent and able escort on the and conquest, the pros and cons of which whole, but the brute’s nature occasionally had always been weighted in the minds of got the better of him making things difficult the imperialist strategicians in the 19th for the pilgrim. Lord Buddha, who had century. Michael Edwardes has picked up visualized this, tied a ring in the monkey’s the supra-territorial thread in the British neck which the latter could not get rid of. mind, voiced in the British Parliament by the And Xuanzang was armed with a spell famous British minister Thomas Babington which would make the ring shrink in size Macaulay: ’To trade with a civilized man to suffocate the monkey. The spell was cast is infinitely more profitable than to govern whenever the monkey became disobedient. a savage.’ Quoting this in his book The It made him do whatever the master bade West in A yia 1850-1914 (New York, 1967), him. The ’Treaty System was such a magic Edwardes humorously summarized the British ring which Britain had put round China’s strategic thinking as: ’To civilize a native neck. Whenever the Chinese government was to create a customer. To oppress him did not concede British demands, Britain merely cost money’ (p. 167). Edwardes has tightened the Treaty ring and Beijing had underlined the inner connection between to be obedient. ’free trade’ and imperialism. In summing Events leading to the conclusion of the up what Fairbank, Moon, Wehrle and Sino-British Treaty of Yantai, better known Edwardes have said about Britain’s interest in history as the Chefoo Convcntion in in expanding trade in China and the non- 1876, provide an example of Britain tighten- establishment of another Indian empire in ing the treaty ring round China’s neck. One the British sphere of influence in China, and a half decade had passed since the Treaty we can see the profit-acquisition propensity of Beijing was signed. There had been a of British imperialism eclipsing the territory- revision of agreement between the two acquisition propensity when she marched countries in 1868, according to the provision into the Treaty Era in China. Treaty Im- of the Treaty of Tianjin. There were perialism or Informal Imperialism was no differences between various pressure groups inferior to its classical form exemplified by in England about the concessions to be the British Raj in India. exacted from China, and the revised treaty The history after the conclusion of the was signed by Britain with a delay of almost Treaty of’ Beijing demonstrates the fact that a year (Britain signed the treaty on 23 the Treaty Svstem was the bcst guarantee October 1869). Having tasted blood a for the expansion of British economic in- tiger becomes for ever greedy for animal terests in China. There is a famous Chinese flesh. British imperialist interests always novel by Wu Cheng’en (d. 1582) entitled Xi felt that the Chinese concessions were not you ji and known in the English circles as adequate. In July 1870, London declared its The Monkey, depicting two heroes, the refusal to ratify the revised treaty, and the famous Chinese pilgrim to India, Xuanzang matter hung in the air. Britain was beginning and his assistant, the monkey king, Sun to tighten the ring. Wukong. While the monkey was an immortal Just as the Arrow incident in 1856 provided with supernatural powers, the pilgrim was the pretext for Britain to pressurize the

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Chinese government for the second settle- stration of Chinese maritime customs amount- ment, the murder of a British interpreter, ed to a British control over the Chinese A.R. Margary, in Yunnan in February 1875 tariff, demolishing any protection to in- was another godsend. The British Ambassa- digenous industry. Meanwhile, opium trade dor, Thomas F. Wade, used all the cold war was legalized, and China officially converted tactics. He half closed the British legation into a Nation of Opium Smokers. The Chefoo in Beijing, unfurled the Union Jack and Convention which represented the third retreated to the sea coast, along which the settlement enabled Britain to further pence- British fleet menacingly manoeuvred. The trate into the Changjiang valley, the richest Manchu government got frightened. It sent region in China. senior courtier Li Hongzhang to chase From the political angle, the evolution of Thomas Wade, and finally, the two sides the Treaty System in China moved along a signed a new treaty at Yantai. The Chefoo cycloid periodically passing through the Convention virtually transformed Changjiang three directions of (i) threat, (ii) fight, and into the Thames by opening new treaty (iii) agreement. The Chefoo Convention can ports, and allowing anchoring facilities at be regarded as the apogee of the cycloid at other havens. The treaty ports, old and new, which the distance between threat and agree- were given exemption of the Lijin levies, ment got substantially shortened, escaping and new regulations were provided for the fighting. Britain stabilized the Treaty System levy of duties on opium in China. Beijing at a moderate cost of two Opium Wars. agreed to send an ambassador to London, If there had not been the Boxer Movement whose first protocol obligation was to tender at the end of the 19th century, China and an apology on behalf of the Chinese emperor Britain would not have become belligerents for the murder of Margary. once more. A durable peace was wrought by The Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, the chain- the Treaty System, albeit a very different treaties of Tianjin (1858) and Beijing (1860) kind of peace from the dream of the Manchu and the Chefoo Convention (1876) stand rulers. The Manchu rulers found that they out as the three landmarks of the Treaty had bought peace only by obeying the orders Era. In a way they also mark three different of the British diplomats. The arrogance of stages of integration of China into the eco- the British officers in China was comparable nomic order of Pax Britannica. In the first to the British Nabobs in India, which indi- sittlemint, Britain consolidated the victory cates that the Treaty System in China was of the Opium War by establishing in the only a variation of British Raj in India. eyes of the Chinese government the dignity Treaty Imperialism or Informal Imperialism and touch-me-not-ness of the opium trade was a fact beyond dispute. on the one hand, and on the other by com- mencing a new economic order in China with Hong Kong and Shanghai and other treaty ports controlling the lion’s share of China’s external trade. In the second settle- IV . ment, this new economic order was further consolidated with British outposts (the treaty Let us now examine the components of the parts) forming a network to control the Treaty System. It combined the following Chinese economy according to the needs of political devices to facilitate imperialist British industrial and commercial expansion. interests to fasten their tentacles on the -A British national’s taking over admini- Chinese economy: (a) treaty diplomacy, (b)

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treaty ports, (c) tariff control, (d) inter- characterized as, from the British stand- ference in Chinese jurisprudence, and (o) point, a.nattitude of you-should-never-touch- interference in China’s foreign affairs. me and 1-should-always-touch-you. The We haze likened British treaty diplomacy Opium War chopped off the Manchu govern- in China to the legendary tightening of the ment’s prohibitory hand on opium to give magic ring around monkey Sun’s neck. immunity to an interna tional crime w hich The Fairbankian perspective would think no modern government can tolerate. While this a necessity as the Chinese diplomatic the Chinese government was taught by the tradition was as unmanageable according to Opium War to refrain from curtailing the modcrn norms of internationa.l intercourse ’freedom’ of British and other ’foreign devils’, as the monkey’s indisciplined behaviour. it discovered to its regret that western. Superficially this has a point. But when we particularly British. interference was close cross-examine the international behaviour on its heels like a shadow. While before the of Britain and other WCStC’1’f1 powers, we Opium War foreign traders used to be advised can see that the only norm in international by the Hoppo [Customs Superintendent] relations was ’might is right’. The most at Guangzhou to ’mind your own business’, unequal aspect of the unequal treaties was the Chinese defence line of touch-me-not the absence of reciprocity. There was only crumbled against British gunfire and had one-way traf~’lc, although on pa.per ii did not to put up with the intervening hand from look so. The treaties were in no w2y binding abroad. Ye Mingchen, the last Mohegan of prodigal China to international behaviour. Chinese anti-interfcrerce resistance. died in They rather wrought the tradition of direct captivity in Fort William in 1859. interference in a sovereign country’s affairs. Contrary to Fairbank’s observation, the The western powers’ treatment of 19th- Chinese government was utterly unprepared century China can be compared to present- for the western treaty diplomatic offensive. day international attitude towards South There was no foreign ministry in Beijing, Africa. For its minority regime apartheid, the and foreign affairs had always been entrusted South African government is not endeared to the Viceroy of thc two Guang provinces, to the majority of the international com- because Guangzhou, where the Viceroy’s munity. But no country is waging war on office was based, was the only Chinese port her and concluding treaties with her to where European traders (except the Russians) prohibit her from various commissions and were admitted during the ’Canton [Guangz- omission. China in the 19th century did houl Trade Period’. One of the results of not seem to be so unreasonable as South the ’second settlem.ent’ was the establishment Afric a is today. Even if she was. Britain and of 7ol7/li ralilC!n in the imperial court which other western powers fit they were genuinety was China’s first modern foreign ofhce. committed to international norms and justice) Characteristic of imperialist treaty diplo- should have only severed relations with her macy was the westcrn powers’ preference and imposed economic sanctions on her. to de~lI with certain courtiers who were To use war and treaty pressure to uphold prone to submission. One such courtier was norms of international behaviour only com- Li Hongzhang (1823-1901), virtually China’s pounds the sin. Secretary of State and roving ambassador It was not just the treaties, but a pattern in the last three decades of the l9th century. of international behaviour had been woven The foreign powers liked him because not along with the conclusion of the Treaty of only they could bend him to the maximum; Nanjing. This pattern of behaviour may he but he also wielded enormous power in the

Downloaded from chr.sagepub.com at INDIANA UNIV on March 16, 2015 18 imperial court. Besides, a large number of marked by the arrival of one hundred British foreign nationals were employed by him as nationals at the port representing 25 British assistants, agents, and zi(tvisors.12 1 n Lii firms in November 1843. Although the there was a buih-in mechanism in Chinese Chinese government was adhering to both society for collaboration with foreign ~1 gres- the letter and the spirit of the Treaty of sors. On many occasions. the Foreign powers Nanjing, Britain raised new problems in made it clear to the Beijing rulcrs that they 1845 by demanding a permanent leaschold would enter into negotiations only it’ the of land in Shanghai, which was never pro- Chinese side was represented by Li vidcd in the trcaty. No modern government, Hongzhang. When Thomas Wade was however small, would yield to such a demand blowing hot and cold with Beijing before the even if it were from a superpower. At that conclusion of the Chefoo Convention, he time, the British argued: since you have ultimately raised the condition for treaty conceded my right to frcc trade on your negotiation. i.e. the Chinese government soil you have to provide me with an exclusive should appoint a plenipotentiary who could place to stay, for I cannot live with your be trusted by the British to talk with him. filthy and uncouth people, and I need the making it amply clear that the lic had exclusiveness as my security. The Manchu in mind was Li Hongzhang.13 This mode of government which did not know how to treaty diplomacy does not befit international defend China’s national interest conceded dealings between equal sovereign countries. the demand. It amounted to interference by Britain in Britain established her settlement in China’s internal affairs. Besides, for a pro- Shanghai in 1 ~4~. The Americans followed tocol-conscious Briton to name a top-ranking suit, as if to flock together with birds of the Manchu courtier to sit at the negotiation same feather. But, to their chagrin, when the table with a much junior ranking ambassador Americans hoisted the Stars and Stripes from Britain is unthinkable. But the truth emulating their imperialist elder brother, was that undcr the Treaty System. the status they got a rebuff from the elder brothcr- of China was no better than a British ,,assjl. that the land on which they had set their The treaty ports constituted an important feet was exclusive British territory, hence part of the Treaty System. The abnormality no nag other than the Union Jack could be of such ports violated all norms of inter- put up. The British protest was extraordinary, national behaviour. In 1981. if all the Indian because the leased land had never been ports are closed to ships from Israel. the ceded to Britain. Anyway, the Americans latter can do nothing except protest. Naming learnt their first lesson in Treaty System, and specific Chinese ports to be opened to British promptly got a separate American settlement shipping in Sino-British treaties on the created. A year later, in 1849, the French pretext that China should open to the ’free also got a similar settlement. This was how trade’ of Britain was alreadv imperialist the famous ’foreign concessions’ in Shanghai aggression. But this was not all. acquired their legitimacy-hy grabbing. The In the beginning, the Treaty of Nanjing Manchu governnient was so innocent that only prescribed that five Chinese ports should the imperialist powers did not have to invoke be open to British trade. Shanghai was one. arms to obtain such a vital concession. But the history of Shanghai illustrates what Pressure within the Treaty System was all British impcrialism was up to in giving pro- the imperialist powers needed to achieve minence to the opening of ports in a trium- it. phal treaty. The opening of Shanghai was In 1854, the three foreign ’concessions’

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(settlements) formed a Municipality and Arab after fully entering into the tent that forced the Chinese government to grant the tent was just h:g enough for him and new Land Regulations which virtually gave had no room for the Arab. away Chinese sovereignty for a song. The This ,Arab-camel relationship in the growth Regulations empowered the foreigners to of treaty ports helps us understand the administer Shanghai proper (i.e. the foreign true nature of the ’free trade’ expansion. settlements) by themselves with the power In the name of free trade, western powers, of taxation and right to maintain a police particularly Britain, carved out exclusive - force. The Municipal Council of Shanghai pockets on Chinese soil which are generally split into two in 1863: (i ) the International described as imperium ill imperio (empire Settlement (British and US), and (ii) the within empire). The treaty ports were not French Concession. only mini-empires of the foreigners within In 1869, Britain and other powers further the Chinese empire, but -also outposts of the forced the Chinese government to revise imperialist powers in China. It was through the Land Regulations to empower the these outposts that the imperialist powers foreigners to establish a Court of Consuls could exercise remote control over Chinese in the foreign concessions. By this act, the affairs, to regulate the ’semi-automatic switch- powers removed any claim of Chinese juris- board’, to borrow E. J. Hobsbawn’s des- diction over Shanghai. The Municipal Council cription. Indeed, it was British ingenuity to (International) also expanded the limits settle for the treaty ports in China to make of the settlement. By the end of 19th century, super-profits but avoid governing the savages. Shanghai [the foreigners’ Shanghai] became In other words, a comprehensive network one of the few great cities of the world with of treaty ports in China was a much im- immense wealth and a population of one proved version of the British Raj in India. million, the overwhelming majority being This explains why Britain was demanding Chinese. more and more treaty ports in the three The story of the growth of Shanghai reads settlements of treaty history, five in the first like the proverbial story of the Arab and the (Nanjing) settlement, eleven more in the Camel. When the imperialist powers first second (Tianjin and Beijing) settlement, demanded the port to be opened for ’free and four more in the third (Chefoo) settle- trade’, it was like the camel beseeching sym- ment making a total of twenty treaty ports pathy from the Arab to allow him to put extending from Tianjin, the main entrepot his head into the Arab’s tent for warmth. in the north to China’s southernmost haven When the imperialists asked the Chinese Guangzhou, and from the upper stream of government to lease some land for forcign Cha.ngiia.ng in the west to the coast of Taiwan traders to have a settled life in Shanghai. in the east. it was like the camel asking the Arab to With a network of treaty ports the im- allow him to put his front legs into the tent. perialist powers ruled China by proxy. When the imperialists asked for the right of This f8ct is taken cognizance of by Fairbank, municipal administration, including revenue who sees the emergence of a new ruling elite and police, it was like the camel further asking whom he calls the ’treaty port mandarins’. permission to get his back into the Arab’s Had the Synarchy theory not preoccupied tent. Finally, when the imperialists establish- his mind, Fairbank could have given us a ed a Court of Consuls at Shanghai and com- vivid picture of the treaty port governance pletely excluded the place from Chinese of’ China through these ’treaty port manda- jurisdiction, it was like the camel telling the rin’ colla.borators. Here our difference lies

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in that while Fairbank is more interested in vitiated by the political dominance radiated the aspect of Chinese collaboration in this from the treaty ports. If, in times of hostility, governance, we are concerned with the im- Britain and other Imperialist powcrs could perialist rule in it. This rule through treaty divide the loyalty of Chinese top-ranking ports can be seen in both the political and politicians, the former’s politico! influence economic fields. during peace time would he much greater. Politically, the centre of gravity in e~c’: The treaty ports had played an important role treaty port lay in the administrate c apparatlls in forming an undeclared British sphere of which the foreign powers (mainly Britain) influence in the Changjiang valley much had established around the personality of before the notorious scramble for ‘cutting the foreign consul(s). These consuls of the Chinese nielon’ took place at the end young age and low ranking (according to of the l9th century. their home hierarchical structure) wielded That top-ranking Chinese ofhcials were no less political influence than their colleagues amenable to the treaty port influence had a in other countries, say India. By political deep-rooted cause. Here I regret to have to influence we exclude direct participation in use the word ’ex-patriots’ to describe Li routine domestic Chinese affairs. which is H ongzhang and other two Viceroys, for at what Fairbank means by Britain being ‘far hcart these mandarins sincerely wished awav from dominant in the day-to-day China to be strong and all of them had been situation’. Rut the day-to-day situation in in the forefront of the ’self-strengthening’ the political field was gradually being altered movement. However. since they were all through imperialist influence resulting in seasoned careerists, they knew how to swim a centrifugal tendency which culminatcd in with the tide. The examples of anti-imperia- the famous declaration of neutrality by six list hard-liners like Lin Zexu [Lin Tse-hsu]. southern Chinese provinces at a time when Dung Tingzhcn, Ye Mingchen projected a the allied army of eight foreign countries ncar-tragedv of individual imperial careers. attacked Chinese capital in 1900. The im- The lesson of such characters conveyed perialist powers’ ex-patriots in question to Li and company the truth that the foreign were Liu Kunyi, Viceroy of Jiangsu and powers could he humoured but not challeng- Jiangxi provinces, Zhang Zhidong. Viceroy ed. Moreover, any politician of vision could of Hubei (Hupeh) and Human provinces, see that the Manchu rulers were like the and Li Hongzhang, Viceroy of Guangdong setting sun, while the pro-western forces and Guangxi provinces, who declared that were like the rising stars in China. The they would not abide by the Imperial Court’s treaty ports symbolized the superiority of edicts declaring war against the foreign the economic, political, and military power powers. Liu Kunyi disobeyed the order of of western imperialism, and also a daily Beijing to send reinforcement northwards reminder of the disastrous wars and humi- to fight the foreign invaders, while Li liating defeats to Li Hongzhang and others, Hongzhang did not respond to the Empress who seemed to be warned by the intruders Dowager’s call to return to Beijing. Further- with the ancient Chinese maxim: ’If you more, the famous ’treaty port mandarin’ obey me. you prosper; if you defy me, you Sheng Xuanhuai (Sheng Hsuan-huai) nego- die.’ (Shrnr it-o =Ire chang, ni it-o zhe wary.) tiated with foreign consuls on behalf of the They were coerced and coaxed to do the im- neutral viceroys a protocol to protect the perialist bidding. south-eastern provinces in China.. The day- Here, I must draw the readers’ attention to-day situation of those crucial years was to a perspective projected by Nathan A.

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Pelcovits in his famous book Old China backwardness’, if by this Pelcovits means to Handy and the Foreign Office (New York, describe British economic exploitation of 1948, reprint, 1969). Pelcovits has gained China. Pelcovits’ presentation of the ‘struggle’ an insight from his study of conflicting between British doves and hawks, in fact, interests within Britain vis-a-vis her ex- has mixed up two difJ’erent issues: direct pansion in 19th-century China, and charac- rule of China and an all-out economic terized British politicians presiding over offensive. Regarding direct tule, there was Britain’s China policy as a restraining force conflict between the government lobby and against the greedy commercial expansionists. the ’Old China Hand’ lobby, while the On the one hand, British merchants demand- two were united in the effort to bleed China ed that their government ’force open the white. I venture to say that British economic Chinese oyster with a sword’ and ’gather onslaught against China which was not the pearl’. On the other hand, the British under her direct rule was even more ruthless government adopted a ’policy of piecemeal and intensive than that against India which and gradual extension of’ the frontiers of was under her direct rule. Just to mention economic opportunity in China’ (p. 3). The British export of Indian opium and Indian treaty ports and corresponding arrangements, cotton yarn to China is evidence enough. he adds, were the result of the ’constant British opium policy not only saved India struggle between thc mercantile demand for from being ’poisoned’, but allowed her an all-out attack on Chinese backwardness some residual profit, so that from out of the at whatever cost, and governmental rc- Indian opium traders in China emerged one luctance to undertake the responsibility even of modern India’s top-ranking family of of quasi-sovereignty in China’ (p. 2). While national bourgeoisie, the Tatas. On the other the British government was forced by cir- hand, the dumping of large quantity of cumstances, says Pelcovits, to scramble for Indian mill cotton yarn in China served to spheres of influence and to grab Chinese promote industrial growth in India while naval bases at the end of the l9th century nipping Chinese entrepreneurial initiatives in order to ’counterpoise’ Russian and in the bud. British indirect rule and all-out . German expansions, it resisted the deamnds economic exploitation in China fitted each of dealing ’directly with the Yangtse viceroys other like hand in glove. Britain’s treaty- as the Government of India with the Maha- oriented policy was certainly not the ’piece- rajas’, and ’China never became another meal’ expansion of British economic order India’ (pp. 30002). in China. Nor can the treaty ports be regarded There is no gainsaying that the Foreign as a compromise arrangement so far as Ofhce in London showed insight and pru- the ’opening of the Chinese oyster’ is con- dence in its China policy vis-a-vis the lobby cerned. for naked aggression on and blatant ex- Before we take up the economic aspects of ploitation of China. But the difference the treaty ports, let us discuss an ugly spot between the British government policy and allegedly associated with China’s treaty commercial war cries was only that between ports, viz. there were prohibited areas with sophistication and the want of it. To conceive open notification that Chinese and dogs British government prudence as a counter- were denied admission. This was vehemently weight to her economic aggression on China contested by an English writer who says: is not viewing events in their true historical ’One may take this opportunity to try to perspective. The treaty ports were the very nail down another particularly mischievous expression of an ’all-out attack on Chinese and persistent slander-that at the gates of Downloaded from chr.sagepub.com at INDIANA UNIV on March 16, 2015 22

the Public Gardens in Shanghai there used archaeologist who knew how to distinguish We need not to be a notice &dquo;Dogs and Chinese not ad- historical fact from legend. mitted&dquo;. During the First World War, after guess whether his reference to ’Chinese and the entry into it of both China and America, dogs’ had the backing of archival inquiry. the United States Government sent an in- Even without it we have proof that Guo quiry into the Municipal Council of Shanghai himself as a Japan-returned highly educated as to the truth of t his legend. The Council Chinese had the feeling that Chinese were made a thorough investigation right back treated by the treaty ports as no better than to the beginning of the Gardens and was dogs. There is an even more significant able to show conclusively that the alleged aspect to Guo’s grievance, viz. China’s notice was a myth. Nothing of the kind ever semi-colonial status or ’informal’ member- existed. A full statement on thc subjcct was ship of Britain’s colonial order was even published in the /Blunicipal Gazette and the more unenviable than that of thc Indian local papers. Yet it seems impossible to colony in the political structure of the British kill that story, which in recent years I have Empire. Chinese remained ’savages’ in the seen repeatedly in books on China....’14 eyes of the imperialist powers cvcn if they The feeling echoed above is like the lamcnt were not directly governed, and were suppos- of a hardened thief who, for once, has been cd to have becn dealt with ’free trade’ charged with a theft he has actually not com- politics. Free Trade Imperialism was a pill mitted. However, it has been common which tasted even more bitter than imperia- knowledge and an undeniable fact that the list direct rule. Chinese who had actually contributed to the Economically, the treaty ports’ first and prosperity of Shanghai was never treated foremost role was to integrate the Chinese with dignity by the imperialist Municipal economy into the imperialist world order. authorities of the city. Even in the 1930s, ln this aspect, the differences between ’formal’ long after the First World War, Chinese and ’informal’ empires was even thinner were not admitted into the public park on than in the political aspect. In the formal while thcir . the Bund, yellow-skinned brothers empire, say India, metropolitan Britain from Japan were admitted, and so were became her landlord and collected land their brown-skinned Indian brethren. Below revenue from Indian soil. This was not done is evidence furnished by no less a person in China, and here was a major difference. than Guo Mojo (1892-1978), one of China’s However, as I have dealt with elsewhere, eminent modern writers, scholars and states- the Indian goose was kept alive and fat to men, and the first President of the Chinese lay golden eggs for Britain permanently by Academy of Sciences of the People’s Re- diverting the relentless drain onto China public of China till his death. Guo narrated through ’opium imperialism’. The result was his experience in the thirties: ’Unable to that the informal British empire in China enter the Park on the Bund. All right. I put shared the burden with the formal Indian on a Western suit to enter it as an impersona- colony to ensure periodical remittances of tion of Japanese. The pitiable Stateless surplus revenue from India to Britain. Opium that we are not even as Slaves! Pity good as imperialism had, thus, equalized the dis- the Stateless Slaves. Even the Indians can parity between the ’informal’ China and enter it freely. Only we Chinese are dogs.’15 ’formal’ India, both of which became The last sentence is clearly a reference to ’equal’ the insulting notice. Incidentally, Guo Mojo partners in paying annual tribute to the was a renowned historian and also an Exchequer in London. Only the nature of

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the tribute remained different-Indians pay- raw silk from silk-worm farmers in the ing land revenue, Chinese opium revenue. Changjiang valley, and British and Indian Coming to exploitation through com- cotton yarn was delivered directly to Chinese mercial and financial avenues, there was no handloom weavers in the vicinity of treaty inherent disparity between the formal and concessions. In this way, the economic in- informal situations. Britain, for instance, tegration of China into international finance could exploit informal China and formal and commercial capitalism was as complete India with equal ease if she could neutralize as that of India. interference from the Chinese political autho- By providing bases for internaiional eco- rities which were not under the direct control nomic forces, the treaty ports themselves of Britain. Here comes the relevance of the emerged as new economic centres in China. treaty system. Every treaty concluded bet- The Chinese economy became an export- ween Britain and China bore a central theme, import-oriented treaty port economy, while i.e. to neutralize Chinese political inter- the treaty ports became economically, even 1’erence in British trade to the maximum more than politically, China’s centres of possible extent. The meaning of ’free trade’ gravity. lies in freedom from Chinese political inter- About tariffcontrol, one of the characteris- ference. Having achieved this, the disparity tics of the Treaty System, it was a repetition between the formal and informal situations of the story of the Arab and the camel. became non-existent. For, we know that First, foreign traders complained that the Adam Smith (1723-90) and his disciples Chinese customs duties wcre too high during had already gifted to mankind a global the Canton Trade period. Hence the proviso exploitation system through the manipula- of limiting them to 5 per cent ad ialorei7i tion of moncy and goods. This system can (according to invoiced value of the goods) effectively employ the talents of the whole in the treaties ol~ the first settlement. Then world to earn super-profits for a handful efforts were made to interfere in China’s of people who only exercise remote control. internal taxation structure, which resulted On-the-spot presence is not required for in the foreigners’ taking over the maritime financial, industrial and commercial mono- custom services of China. Two peculiar monu- polists to exploit a far-flung area. The ments of the Treaty Era were: (a) the Jardine-Matheson Company could achieve foreign cadre of China’s customs office, and optimum operation both in British India (b) Robert Hart (1835-1911) who remained and ’informal’ British-China. chief of this custom services for 46 years The treaty ports played a dual role in from 1863 till he retired in 1908. Hart was facilitating the above mentioned universal not only Inspector General of Manchu exploitation in China. First, they acted as government’s Directorate of Maritime Cus- protectors of the freedom of such an ex- toms, he was at time virtually China’s finance ploitation, warding off local political inter- and foreign minister. His interference in ference. Second, they provided bases of China’s external and internal affairs could operation for international enterprises. The only happen in the jungle of treaty imperia- treaty ports facilitated the establishment of lism, so that Fairbank has named him as commercial and financial networks which one of the triumvirate in China along with linked individual Chinese small-scale pro- Empress Dowager and Li Hongzhang to ducers and consumers with economic head- prove the case of Manchu-Chinese-Western quarters in the Atlantic. For instance, the ‘Synarchy’ (Trade and Diplomacy, p. 465). Jardine Company could get direct supply of Here Fair bank very tactfully uses Hart as

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a scapegoat for the real culprits of imperia- in the second half of the first millennium lism. As the western pillar of the Synarchy A.D., Arabs, Persians, Indians, Sri Lankans found its personification in Hart (just as and traders from South-east Asia had stayed Empress Dowager represented the Manchu in China, particularly at Guangzhou and pillar and Li Hongzhang the Chinese), Quanzhou (Marco Polo’s ‘Zayton’). The Fairbank’s Synarchy virtually transformed Chinese government, for the convenience into a personal alliance, with the larger of both administration and the foreigners, international issues being pushed to the back- accommodated them in separate colonies ground. We may ask: how an ordinary called fcrnfang (foreign colony), and asked Englishman like Robert Hart could rise to the foreign settlers to nominate their own such importance. And even if it was true chiefs called fanz/1ang (foreign chief) that imperialist forces were operating only who were treated as Chinese government in the background, in whose boat was Hart officials. The ’foreign chief’ enjoyed limited standing’? There is no doubt that Hart was judicial authority as arbitcr of civil disputes the very instrument of treaty imperialism, among foreign settlers, but had no jurisdic- particularly British treaty imperialism. tion over penal law. There was a sea of Hart and his Maritime Customs Services difference between this ancient foreign auto- were like a double-edged sword of imperia- nomy and the modern extra-territoriality. lism. One edge protected the competitive Ancient Arabs and other foreigners did advantages of western, particularly British, not reach China by gunboats or other deter- imports, including opium, and the other rent means. Their exemplary behaviour and pushed China deeper and deeper into in- respect for local authorities won Chinese debtedness to western, particularly British, good-will and trust. Hence the grant of financial oligarchy. China’s maritime cus- autonomy to them. But the ]9th-centLiry toms revenue was not only used as mortgage European visitors were notorious trouble- against foreign loans, but was also made to makers, who won for themselves only the pay war indemnities which the imperialist Chinese nickname of yang giiizi (ocean powers had imposed on China through the devils). The extra-territorial rights they treaties. Thus by allowing foreigners to enjoyed in China were not granted to them control the tariff, the Chinese government on China’s own accord, but were the booty had not only mortgaged China’s tariff auto- of aggressive wars. By making the two cases nomy, but mortgaged the maritime customs analogous, Fairbank only reveals the identical revenue itself. Chinese hand giving autonomy to foreigners, Imperialist interference in China’s juri- but conceals the pistol which modern sprudence was effected through the treaty Europeans struck at the back of the Chinese provision of extra-territorial rights to foreign- in sharp contrast to their ancient Arab ers in China. Fairbank traces this provision predecessors who held out only olive branches ’back to the custom whereby Arab headmen towards their Chinese hosts. at medieval Zayton and Canton had taken The genesis of extra-territoriality can only personal responsibility for their countrymen’ be traced to the arrogance of the imperialist (Trade and Diplomacy, p. 466). Let us put culture and social Darwinism. Those the record straight. Europeans who were law-abiding at home True, western traders, admitted to the had the propensity to defy all laws abroad treaty ports, were not the first foreigners to under the influence of imperialist culture. settle in Chinese ports in large numbers. For Social Darwinism made them disrespect centuries during Tang and Song dynasties non-Christian and non-white authorities.

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Even during the Canton Trade period, nationality. China under the Treaty System British traders had developed the touch-me- was a paradise for foreign criminals. not attitude before Chinese justice. The idea Treaty of extra-territoriality was not only of extra-territorial jurisdiction in China exemption of foreign offenders from lawful originated from a proposal to the British punishment of the land, it also constituted government by the East India Company’s a foreign interference in China’s internal Canton Council headed by W.H. Pigou in affairs because of the invocation of extra- 1784 after a European (perhaps British) had territorial rights to protect the ’proteges’. been executed by the Chinese government in Foreigners could name naturalized persons the well-known Lady Hughes incident.&dquo; and even Chinese as their proteges, who Although it took sixty long years for Britain could then enjoy the same judicial immunity to put the proposal into practice in China, as the foreigpers did. This protege clause of ’ the Lady Huglze.s incident was the fountain- the Treaty System gave green signal to the head of British defiance of Chinese justice, missionaries to meddle with legal disputes which grew stronger with the expansion of between Christian converts and their non- British commercial and military power. Christian compatriots. Such interventions That extra-territoriality was an expression were mainly responsible for the rise of anti- of imperialist touch-me-notism can be proved Christian riots which were widespread in by Article IX of the Sino-British Treaty of China at the end of the l9th century. Tianjin (1858), which says that Chinese . The authority of the Chinese government government ofhcials can arrest unlawful was further eroded with the protege pro- Britons on Chinese soil but should not vision in the treaties. As the famous US subject them ’to any ill-usage in excess of missionary, diplomat and scholar, S.W. necessary restraint’ (italics added). This was Williams observes in his classic, The Middle deterrent enough for Chinese officials. Let Kingdom (vol. ii, London, 1883):’... Chinese] us imagine how difficult it was to apprehend rulers, ignorant of the real meaning of these . a violent foreigner gently. Few criminals principles of ex-territoriality, were tied down would encounter arrest without resistance to observe them, and found themselves within or an attempt to escape. When a scuffle a few years humbled before those of their took place, how could it be guaranteed own subjects who had begun to look to that no trace of it,would remain on the body foreigners for protection’ (p. 657). of the defying foreigner? As the Chinese With the treaty powers putting the magic ofhcials had no power to punish a foreign ring around the neck of the Chinese govern- offender, but had to hand him over to the ment and every now and then invoking the nearest foreign consul of the offender’s spell to tighten it, China maintained her nationality, they were not too sure what the sovereignty in foreign affairs only in name. foreigner might report. If he complained The treaty powers not only dictated terms about ’ill-usage’ (a very ambiguous term) to the Chinese government when they dealt to the British Consul, and the latter in turn with it in bilateral matters, they also did not accused the Chinese officials of violation remain indifferent while watching China’s of treaty provisions, the result would be transactions with others. We have quoted disastrous for the concerned Chinese officials. P. T. Moon in the second part of this essay This explains why during the Treaty Era, in pra.ise of British initiative in introducing few Chinese ofhcials dared apprehend foreign the ’most favoured nation’ clause in the offenders. Even if they did, few offenders treaties. It is easy to see how shallow the got punished by the authorities of their own British claim was for sharing their rights in

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China with other nations. Indeed, Britain in favour of British interest. We may cite was the first treaty power to claim the most a couple of instances to prove this. favoured nation status in China, and re- On 17 July 1876 Hart addressed a con- mained so throughout the l9th century. fidential dispatch to his subordinates at the While Britain could claim parity with what- Maritime Customs Office at Tianjin, the ever new concessions other nations had ex- contents of which were ultra-political. It acted from China, the other powers could starts with a reference to Hart’s meeting with never equal what Britain had obtained. the British Ambassador Thomas Wade, who There was only one Hong Kong to hoist informed Hart that he would leave for the Union Jack along the entire China coat. Yantai after a week’s stay at Shanghai. The The treaty ports in China were all controlled dispatch then says (I give below my own by British consuls, who only tolerated paral- English translation of the Chinese version lel control by the French in Shanghai but of the dispatch): ’If China is to depute an nowhere else. officers to negotiate [with Wade] ... the officer There was a peculiar British relationship must have the imperial edict appointing him with Beijing which other powers could not as plenipotentiary. The officer must have emulate. The Treaty System was a British new ideas, must be generous in negotiations, strategy to integrate China into Pax Britain- should not go a step forward after retreating iiica according to the dynamics of British a step. If [the Chinese government] does not economic expansion, while her European follow this instruction, it would be in vain counterparts came to China only to claim in sending a negotiator. a share of the spoils. Treaty diplomacy, ’Judging what Ambassador Wade has told, treaty ports, treaty tariff control, and treaty when imperial officers go to the British . extra-territoriality were all British political embassy to announce the imperial edict, it mechanics of, by and for British interests. should not just be one officer with a deputy. Others who came to share the spoils only There must be more people to make the obtained fringe benefits. British side feel honoured. There was another peculiarity in Sino- ’Judging what Ambassador Wade has told, British relations which brooked no imitators, Britain has, indeed, attached great impor- i.e. Robert Hart and his Maritime Customs tance to the matter [dispute out of the murder Service. Hart provided an additional gear of Margary], which may not be easily settled. to Brit:lin’s engine of interference. Apparently The Inspector General [i.e. Hart himself] Hart was a faithful Chinese offi~ial, enjoying had earlier told Zongli )’al11cn repeatedly the trust of the Beijing government. At heart about sending an ambassador to Britain. he had divided loyalty between his employer- Generally, all countries send ambassadors country and his own country. Hart’s pro- to every other country. section of British interests was two-fold: ’After prolonged deliberation the Inspector (i) in every important Sino-British nego- General intends to request His Excellency tiation Hart not only supplied vital infor- Li (Hongzhang) to memorialize His Majesty mation about Chinese intentions, calculations, either to depute His Excellency alone, or to strength and weakness to the British side, depute His Excellency Li along with other but also mobilized influence at his command courtier to go to Yantai to negotiate with to persuade the Chinese side to accept British Ambassador Wade.... Although the Inspector terms; (ii) in a multi-cornered contest among General cannot guarantee its surety [of a western powers in bidding loans, railway settlement] he wholeheartedly wishes His contracts, etc. Hart always threw his weight Excellency Li would do accordingly. Other

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courtiers going to Yantai would not be as in sending more British advisers into the effective as His Excellency Li personally new Chinese army, and in getting more taking the trip. In case the imperial per- British armaments and naval ships sold to mission is obtained, he should kindly reach China than Germany could. Again it was Yantai by August 1 st or 2nd. Any delay is through Hart’s good once that an English- undesirable and would spoil the chances of man, W. M. Lang, took charge of training success.’ 17 in 188~ of the North Sea Fleet, which was A curious document! An internal directive virtually Li Hongzhang’s personal pro- from the Inspector General of Maritime perty.18 Customs to his subordinates sounds like an We should not leave out the intermediary indirect British ultimatum to the Chinese role of Hart in peace-making at the end of government. That the Chinese version of the Sino-5rench War (1884-85) which was the communication was preserved in Beijing’s a classical example of imperialist interference imperial archives shows that it had not only in China’s foreign affairs. In July 1884, been read by Li Hongzhang who was the Zongli yaman instructed Hart to get in unnamed addressee of the letter but must have touch with J. Patenotre, French Ambassador, also been read by the imperial court, if not at Shanghai to negotiate a peace settlement by Empress Dowager herself, after it was with France. This instruction made Hart forwarded to Beijing by Li Hongzhang. arrogate to himself the role of China’s Pleni- And it worked. Li was appointed Pleni- potentiary. A large number of people in- potentiary to negotiate with Wade by im- cluding foreign representatives were in the perial edict of 28 July, and he left Tianjin field as peace-makers. But Hart manoeuvred for Yantai on 17 August-a two weeks’ over others and sent, in January 1885. his delay to impress the British that he, a top- officers in the Maritime Customs Service, ranking Chinese courtier could not be James Duncan Cambell, to the French shuffled around by foreign powers like a capital to conduct negotiations with the pawn. French Premier, Jules Ferry. Cambell finally Hart, as a private British citizen and an signed a cease-fire protocol in Paris on employee in Chinese government service, behalf of the Chinese government on 4 April had the audacity to tell the imperial court 1885 which laid the ground for the final of China what to do, who to appoint nego- conclusion of the Sino-French Treaty of tiator, and what attitude he should adopt, Tianjin signed by Li Hongzhang and Pateno- etc. when there was high tension between tre.l9 I may recount the well-known fact Britain and China. Obviously, it was not that the Chinese fought weil during the Sino- any kind of Synarchy which made it so French war, and that the Manchu govern- ridiculous. The plain truth behind all this ment demonstrated total imbacility in was the powerful imperialist treaty system, concluding an unequal treaty with France which greatly restricted Chinese initiatives while China was emerging a winner in the in foreign affairs. Hart constituted an im- war. Hart was partially responsible for de- portant component of this treaty system. ceiving the Manchu court. in About Hart’s role building up British Treaty diplomacy, treaty ports, treaty influence in China over and above other tariff, treaty extra-territoriality and the treaty imperialist powers, we can cite one instance. overall in China’s Britain and Germany vied with each other system’s interference in penetrating into China’s newly organized internal and external affairs are the in- modern military force. Hart was instrumental disputable evidence of the existence of a

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well-conceived and comprehensive infra- separate device, was simply a change from structure of governance which the imperialist direct to indirect methods of maintaining powers, particularly Britain, had imposed on British interests. By slackening the formal China. Whether one calls it’treaty imperialism’ political bond at the appropriate time, it or ’integration imperialism’, or ’informal’ was possible to rely on economic dependence imperialism, or ’free trade’ imperialism, or and mutual good-feeling to keep the colonies even Synarchy, makes little difference. bound to Britain while still using them as agents for further British expansion’ (Fr7//?, p. 4). V In this paragraph are packed a lot of concepts which need to be sorted out to Throughout this essay we have borrowed the reinforce our new perspective. First of’ all, idea of integration imperialism from the Gallagher and Robinson have suggested two Gallagher-Robinson perspective to trace the kinds of British overseas governance. One vertical evolution of the Treaty System and was ’responsible government’ or ’direct the horizontal components of it. The in- method of maintaining British interests’. tegration perspective has helped us ascertain This involved Britain assuming ’full res- the true nature of imperialism in the various ponsibility’ of governance of the colony stages of treaty-formation and various in- concerned, especially ’financial’ responsibi- stitutions under the treaty umbrella. From lity. The other was of British overseas the British angle, particularly, it is crystal governance which the two scholars have clear that every step taken from Nanjing to hinted at as an ’indirect method of main- Yantai, and every institution built up from taining British interests’, but have not given treaty port municipal council to the Inspector a name to it. This unnamed governance General’s office had its eyes set on super- relied on ’economic dependence’ of the profits-the pearl from the Chinese oyster- colony concerned on Britain, and on ’mutual the increasing flow of which could only be good-feeling’ between the British metropolis permanently ensured by integrating China and the colony to keep it ’bound to Britain’. securely and soundly into Pax Britannica. The governance unnamed by the two Once again, let us reiterate that the gover- scholars can most appropriately be called nance of Pax Britannica was a sophisticated ’irresponsible’ as distinguishable from ’res- and complicated international edifice, which ponsible government’. The difference between involved ’responsible’ or other types of the two does not lie in the presence or absence government, as 6bserved by Gallagher and of moral responsibility. Since we have already Robinson: ’...throughout the Victorian a definite notion of imperialism, which is period responsible government was withheld one of the worst forms of human aggression from colonies if it involved sacrificing or and exploitation. there is no question of endangering British paramountcy or interests. its ever having a sense of moral responsibility. Wherever there was a fear of a foreign What we mean by ’responsible government’ challenge to British supremacy in the con- in British imperialism, or call it ’responsible tinent or sub-continent concerned, wherever imperialism’ for short, is the imperialist the colony could not provide financially power taking up full responsibility, especially full responsibility, or, if they had already financial responsibility in the governance of devolved it, intervened directly to secure a colony, as Britain did in India. The term their interests once more. In other words, ’irresponsible governance’ or irresponsible responsible government, far from being a imperialism’ means the abstention from

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assuming such full responsibility on the in ’cooperative pillage’ in China without the part of the imperialist power. Yet there is ’risks of attempting domination’(pp. 113-14). an ’indirect’ devide which binds the colony He further observes that in the era of ’highly concerned with the metropolis. The treaty developed imperialism’, the ’weapons were system in l9th-century China was a version no longer armies and navies, but loans and of this irresponsible imperialism. The Treaty concessions’ (p. 114). Edwardes has suggested System was the indirect governance with that in its highly developed stage, imperialism which Britain not only maintained but has outgrown the old methods of territorial developed heir interests in China. annexation, political domination, and the Hobson, father of the theory of imperia- dependence of armies and navies for colonial lism, has also conceived three different supremacy. New or ’indirect’ methods, such types of British colonies: (a) &dquo;Crown colonies’ as loans and concessions could do as ef~cient- in which thc British Crown conti-olle(I the ly a joh as the old in achieving the goals of responsible government of the colony, (f~) impcrialism in China. ’colonies possessing representative institu- Taking off from the perspectives provided tions’ in which neither the Crown nor the by Gallagher and Robinson, Hobson and colony assumed ’responsible government’ Edwardes, we shall conclude that China in or full control of governmcnt, and (o) the l9th century was dominated by British ’colonies possessing representative institu- and other western irresponsible imperialism tions and responsible government’ with the which was a highly developed and sophisti- British Crown maintaining only a veto on cated form of imperialism distinguishable colonial legislation, and control over the from the classical form of imperialist domi- ’governor’ of the colony.10 The last type is nation as propounded by Hobson, Lenin, a reference to British colonies like Australia Moon and others. The characteristics of and Canada. China in the l9th century fell this irresponsible imperialism can be high- into a different category, in the sense that lighted according to its manifestations in on the one hand there was less freedom 19th-century China. than it appeared for China to run her own In the first place, irresponsible imperialism, ’responsible government’, while on the like absentee landlordism, was a form of other, Britain had a complex network of domination characterized by its deliberate control which might even exceed British omission. This form of domination skips control over Australia or Canada through responsible government, refrains from terri- the British-appointed govcrnor-. Hobson did torial annexation but does not totally give not intend to use the term ’irresponsible it up, a.nd restricts the use of armies, navies, governance’ to describe the British position and police forces but maintains them as a in the second and third category of colonies. deterrence while occasionally using them But he has implicitly highlighted the existence when things go beyond control. In l9th- of alternative forms to Britain assuming century China, people did not sing ’God responsible government in the colonies. save the king/queen’ as national anthem, This encourages us to develop the ’irres- the Union Jack did not fly over government ponsible imperialism’ perspective. buildings, government orders and corres- Michael Edwardes in his book, already pondence were not in the name of His/Her referred to in the third part of this essay, Gracious Britannic Majesty but in the name describes China in the 19th century as ’the of the regning title of the Manchu emperor, victim of imperialism without annexation’ and the armed forces and other para-military (p. 113j. He adds that Britain had indulged personnel did not wear British insignia and

Downloaded from chr.sagepub.com at INDIANA UNIV on March 16, 2015 30 did not unfurl British standards. A visitor together. With the Fairbankian perspective to China and India during those days saw prevailing in Chinese history circles, we have the apparent presence and absence of the forgotten the genius of imperialist gover- British Raj in the two countries. Yet those nance, i.e. Britain. who knew the details of Britain’s overseas Here I am tempted to quote the obser- interests could tell in general terms that vations of a renowned personality in 19th- as many British ships sailed to China as century China, Liang Qichao (1873-1929) to India, that Britain had as great a stake who wrote in the early 20th century: ’As in China as she had in India, as much super- the proverb goes: ’Ten thousands of kites profits flowed from China to Britain as they are not worthy one osprey’. This explains were from India. The term ’irresponsible why several tens of thousands of Britons can imperialism’ combines both omission and rule over three hundred million Indians. commission. The first part of the term sug- There are no less than several millions of gests the omission of ’responsible govern- my countrymen settling abroad, but they ment’ the second part suggests the com- are only the oxen and horses to the other mission of exploitation and domination. peoples. There are no more than ten thousand It was a paradoxical situation, but very much foreigners in my country, but they control a historical fact in China during the l9th our sovereignty.’2’ I do not subscribe to century. Liang’s social Darwinism, exalting the superi- Secondly, as the experience of China ority of the Anglo-Saxons. But the pheno- shows, irresponsible imperialism is neither menon of less than ten thousand Britons an accidental happening nor a short-lived perpetuating an irresponsible imperialist phenomenon. It is a well-conceived and well- treaty system in China, a country of four designed system, and a permanent form of hundred million, for more than half a century governance. It is a higher stage than classical (comparable to less than a hundred thousand or ’responsible’ imperialism, a master-piece Britons perpetuating the British Raj in in the history of imperialism. Only a highly India for nearly two centuries) should not experienced metropolis and a highly so- be so quickly forgotten. Indeed, it deserves phisticated imperialist culture can conceive an inquiry as to how such a miracle was and practise it. Fairbank has devoted years possible. of study to present an example of sophisti- British irtesponsible imperialism over China cated, though pathetic and Quixotic, pattern represented the magic power of universal of the Chinese, a people of long experience management of capitalist economy, in addi- of suffering taking foreign aggression and tion to Britain’s ability to stabilize the exist- domination in their stride. One always ing socio-political order in China. Accumu- wonders why so much attention should be lated experience in the Far East had made paid to expose the dark spot of the vanqui- Britons experts in dealing with various seg- shed, but not those of the vanquisher. A simi- ments of China’s ruling elite, how to deter lar devotion to the British example of in- them, coax them, devide them, deceive them genuity, competence and tenacity in sub- and disarm them. British imperialism was jugating and exploiting foreign peoples who not face to face with the Chinese masses were numerically hundreds of times greater in the ’indirect’ treaty rule, with the Chinese than the population of the British Isles, ruling elite forming a barrier. When the would be far more meaningful at least to the masses showed hostility to the new gover- developing world than all the studies of nance, British arms were at the ready to Synarchy and Sino-barbarian equations put deal with them without mercy. But the

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Chinese casualties under irresponsible im- virtually died the day the Manchu govern- perialism were caused mainly by British ment was overthrown. Thereafter Japan bullets, not so much by British killing- and United States made attempts to revitalize bullets were fired on Britain’s behalf by irresponsible imperialism in China under Chinese and Indian soldiers. In this aspect, their aegis without much success, simply Liang Qichao’s conception of ten thousand because China’s internal political situation Britons versus four hundred million Chinese was undergoing a convulsion. Finally, it is misconceived. For, during the l9th century was the American guns captured by the not even one hundred thousand among the communist army which boomed the death four hundred million Chinese had united knell of both the ancion regime and irres- to fight the ten thousand. Before they could ponsible imperialism in China. confront the British, they had first to over- Let us now come to the third characteristic throw the national ruling machine, which of irresponsible imperialism by examining was a gigantic task. British irresponsible the inter-relationship between the imperialist imperialism had, in fact, integrated itself power’s ’responsible’ and ’irresponsible’ over- with China’s national ruling machine in seas governance. Although we have con- dealing with the masses. Such an integration ceived irresponsible governance as a superior had given British irresponsible imperialism and more sophisticated form of imperialist vitality to survive until the overthrow of the domination as compared with responsible national ruling machine. government presided over by the metro- Irresponsible imperialism, in this sense, politan power, we should not forget that the is a sophisticated alliance of native and latter is the foundation of the former. The foreign rulers. By alliance, I do not mean Treaty System in China would have been Synarchy, which is a culture-oriented pers- unthinkable if there had not been British pective, while the alliance between im- Raj in India. We have often compared perialism and national ruling elite in China India and China as a pair of colonial twins had a deep socio-economic root-exploiting which was a fact. However, in the inter- the masses for their parasitical but indulgent national order of Pax Britannica, the two existence. Of course, the alliance was no countries were placed in different roles by real commonwealth of co-prosperity. It was the London rulers. This may be briefly a combination of collusion and collision, spelled out. charged by hot-and-cold struggle-compromise It was as if there was a chain-reaction, and love-hate relationships. But there was with the downfall of India leading to that give-and-take, mutual sharing of economic of China. In many ways, British conquest gains and mutual reinforcement of political of China was a corollary of her conquest of security. The superiority of irresponsible India. First, there was the triangular trade imperialism over the ’responsible’ one lies and opium which I have discussed elsewhere. in the fact that the indigenous power structure Suffice it to say that if there had been no is by and large preserved intact. Indian opium the pattern of British aggression The Treaty System in 19th-century China, against China would have taken a totally as we have seen, had only added an aspect different turn. Second, the two Sino-British of remote control to the existing ruling wars nicked ’opium’ which had laid the system of the land. The strength and weak- foundation of the Treaty System could never ness of this system thus centred round over- have been fought had India not been a dependence on China’s ancien regime. The British colony. For, the British expeditionary British irresponsible governance in China forces were assembled in India and mostly

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manned by Indian sailors and soldiers. Hong Kong and its Dependencies, and Third, the security forces in the British Vice Admiral of the same, Her Majesty’s concessions of the treaty ports were do- Plenipotentiary and Chief Superintendent minantly Indian, thousands of turbaned of the trade of British Subjects in China’. Sikhs being employed as security police, The title of the Ordinance reads: ’An Ordi- traffic constables and gatemen, earning the nance for Licensing and Regulating the Sale nickname ’Red-headed’ (because of the of prepared Opium.’ Explaining the purpose red turban) among local Chinese. Fourth, of issuing the Ordinance in his letter addres- India was British Empire’s military, political sed to his superior authority in London, and economic headquarters in the East; the Bowring regarded opium ’an article pre- British officers in China, including the eminently suited for taxation’ by the Hong Governor of Hong Kong, had to take orders Kong government. He also enunciated a from India. In a way, India was a step closer new policy of freeing the trade in ’raw opium’ to the metropolis than China. Fifth, there (meaning the opium imported from India) was a difference between ’responsible’ and from ’fiscal interference’ and subjecting ’irresponsible’ imperialism in Britain’s eco- ’prepared opium’ (meaning the opium ex- nomic strategy. As I have discussed in my tract prepared by Chinese for the pipes of last article, in the scheme of British policy- the opium-smokers) to strict Hong Kong makers Indians were to be the major con- government monopoly. The Ordinance sumers of British cotton textiles, while (approved by the Crown) armed Bowring Chinese were to be the major consumers of with an additional authority-licensing the Indian opium. One of the aims of selling trading enterprises ’to boil and prepare Indian opium in China was to augment the opium, and to sell and retail opium so boiled Indian purchasing power for British and prepared’.22 Bowring thus became a textites. six-headed Prince of Darkness with the Irresponsible imperialism was made more sixth head as the 1 icensing chief for preparing irresponsible by the linkage between the and selling opium extracts in China in addi- treaty system and opium imperialism. This tion to the five heads already listed in his is illustrated by an observation of Fairbank: Ordinance. ’In the cases of the consular service and Responsible and irresponsible imperialism opium trade there is some verisimilitude, are mutually complementary, just as India for the superintendent of British trade, who and China were in l9th century within the was concurrently H.M.’s minister pleni- Pax Britannica. As the British enterprises potentiary of China and governor of Hong- in China were unthinkable without the kong, was the administrative head to whom foundation of British Raj in India, the the consuls looked for instructions, while latter’s survival and prosperity were equally the beautiful harbor of Hongkong and its unthinkable without the opium trade and city of Victoria were the entrepot where Treaty System in China. Money and goods opium cargoes from India were stored to flowed from the domain of Britain’s res- await shipment to the receiving stations ponsible government in India into the domain [in China]’ (Trade and Diplomacy, p. 156). of Britain’s irresponsible governance in China To prove this ’verisimilitude’, let us cite and vice versa. Both flows formed a con- ’The Hong Kong government Ordinance fluence of super-profits for the metropolis. No. 2 of 1858’ enacted by ’His Excellency If imperialism is the highest stage of Sir John Bowring, Knight, LL.D., Governor development of capitalism, irresponsible im- and Commander in Chief of the Colony of perialism is the highest stage of imperialist

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development. The Treaty System in China jungle king of the predatory international was the highest stage of British imperialism. order when the Treaty System in China However, by resorting to irresponsible im- yielded the best results for her in the last perialism in China, Britain was expanding three decades of the 19th century. With the her eCO11o1111C power and political influence loss oi~ both China and India by 1947, the to the extent of imbalance--much beyond British lion shrank to the size of a cat. After what the narrow base of the British Isles Britain no irnperialist power has had any could sustain. When the Treaty System in success with irresponsible imperialism, now China collapsed at the onslaught of Chinese virutally varnished. The Treaty System in nationalist movement and with the ex- China was, thus, the only success story of haustion of the First World War, it was the irresponsible imperialism. Its rise and fall beginning of a downward trend for Pax deserves a more careful and exhaustive study Britannica. The British lion was truly the than is possible in the present essay.

NOTES

1. J.A. Hobson, Imperialism, Ann Arbor, Paperback, 1965, p. 361. 2. J.V. Stalin, ’The Foundations of Leninism’ in Stalin, Problems of Leninism, Beijing, 1976, p. 5. 3. P.T. Moon, Imperialism and World Politics, Macmillan, 1926, p. 321. 4. Ibid. 5. D.C.M. Platt, ’Further Objections to an "Imperialism of Free Trade" 1830-60’, Economic History Review (2nd ser.), vol. xxvi, no. 1, February 1973, p. 78. 6. Ibid., W.G. Hynes, ’British Mercantile Attitude Towards imperial Expansion’, The Historical Journal, xix : 4, 1976, p. 969. 7. J.S. Galbraith, ’Myths of the "Little England" Era’, American Historical Review, lxviii, October 1961. p. 40. 8. Tan Chung, China and the Brave New World: A Study of the Origins of the Opium War 1840-42, Allied Publishers, New Delhi, 1978, p. 220. 9. Ding Mingnan et al., Diguozhuyi quinhua shi (History of Imperialist Aggression on China), 2nd edn. vol. i Beijing, 1973, p. 119. 10. Ibid., p. 121. 11. J.Y. Wong, Yeh Ming-ch’en: Viceroy of Liang Kuang 1852-58, Cambridge University, 1976, p. 163. 12. Some of Li’s foreign proteges are portrayed in R.K. Douglas,Li Hungchang, London, 1895, pp. 223-29. 13. Fan Wenlan, Zhongguo jindai shi (History of Modern China), vol. I, Beijing, 1961, p. 223. 14. O. M. Green, The Foreigner in China, London, 1942, p. 58. 15. Guo Mojo, ’Yue Shi’ (Lunar Eclipse) in Zhongguo xinwvenxue daxi (Great Collection of China’s New Literature), Shanghai, 1935, vol. xi (Zhou Zuoren, ed.), p. 191. 16. H. B. Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to Chino, 1635-1834, Oxford, 1926, vol. 2, p. 107. 17. Jiang Tingfu [T.F. Tsiang], Jindai zhongguo waijiaoshi ziliao jivao (Collection of Important Source Materials in the Diplomatic History of Modern China), 1st edn., 1934, reprint, Taibci, 1959, vol. ii, pp. 157-58. 18. Ding Mingnan et al., op. cit., p. 299. 19. Ibid., pp. 295-314. 20. Hobson, op. cit., p. 22. 21. Liang Qichao, ’Jin zaohun yi’ (On Prohibiting Early Marriage) in Yinpingshi guanji (Collected Essays From the ’Ice Drinking Study’), reprint, Taipbei, 1974, p. 136. 22. Irish University Parliamentary Papers: Area Studies, China 1972, vol. 31, pp. 364-74.

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