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Treaty ports

This article refers to the Nanjing Treaty and later ports in the Far East. For the Anglo-Irish Treaty ports see Treaty ports (Ireland).

Treaty ports were port cities in China, Japan and Korea opened to foreign trade by the Unequal Treaties, i.e. imposed by western naval powers and Japan on militarily helpless Asian states.

The first five treaty ports in China were established at the conclusion of the First Opium War by the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. The second group was set up following the end of the Arrow War in 1860 and eventually more than 80 treaty ports were established in China alone, as well as more in other East Asian nations.

Foreigners, who were centred in foreign sections, newly built on the edges of existing port cities, enjoyed legal extraterritoriality as stipulated in Unequal Treaties. Foreign clubs, racecourses, and churches were established in major treaty ports. Some of these port areas were directly leased by foreign powers such as in the concessions in China, effectively removing them from the control of local governments.


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Japanese treaty ports

The empire of Japan opened two ports to foreign trade, Shimoda and Hakodate, in 1853 (United States-Japan Friendship Treaty).

It designated five more ports, Yokohama, Kobe, Nagasaki, Hakodate and Niigata, in 1858 with the Treaty of Amity and Commerce.

Major treaty ports in China

Leased territories

In these the foreign powers obtained, under a lease treaty, not only the right to trade and exemptions for their subjects, but a truly colonial control over each concession territory, de facto annexation:

List of Chinese treaty ports from the Catholic Encyclopaedia

In the early 20th century, these were the treaty ports (many name forms differ from other Western sources) in China:

I. Northern Ports

II. Yangtze river Ports

III. Central Ports

IV. South Coast Ports

V. Frontier Ports

According to the customs statistics, 6,917,000 Chinese inhabited the treaty ports in 1906. The foreign population included 1837 firms and 38,597 persons, mainly Europeans (British 9356, French 2189, German 1939, Portuguese 3184, Italians 786, Spaniards 389, Belgians 297, Austrians 236, Russians 273, Danes 209, Dutch 225, Norwegians 185, Swedes 135), Americans 3447, Brazilians 16, Japanese 15,548, Koreans 47, subjects of non-treaty powers 236.

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia. [1]

Categories


Derived from Catholic Encyclopedia | Colonialism | Concessions in China | History of China | History of Japan | History of Korea

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