Treaty of Nanjing

Impact

The Treaty of Nanjing redefined world diplomacy and helped set the stage for the emergence of the “new imperialism” of the late nineteenth century. It is not the case that the terms, or even the categories of terms, were new to the world or to China. As recently as 1835, the Chinese had voluntarily granted extraterritoriality, a consulate, and rights to control tariffs to Quqon (Kokand), a central Asian tributary state that sought these privileges in its dealings with the Chinese-controlled city of Kashgar (Kashi). The substantive difference between this famous settlement and the unequal treaties after 1842 was the degree to which China granted or was forced to grant these particular rights. While only the most pessimistic of Chinese would have believed that China was surrendering its autonomy to the maritime states of the West, the Western powers had no doubt that they were, and should be, controlling the conversation. Officials from the United States, France, and Russia studied the Treaty of Nanjing carefully and rushed to present their own versions to the Chinese government for signing soon after the treaty was ratified. The American-sponsored Treaty of Wangxia and the French-sponsored Treaty of Huangpu (Whampoa), both signed in 1844, were based on the Treaty of Nanjing and were even more complete in their demands. Not only did each of these treaties specify terms for extraterritoriality, which the Nanjing Treaty did not, but they also demanded “most favored nation” status, meaning that the United States and France would automatically receive any trade privileges granted by China to other nations in the future. Great Britain received extraterritoriality and most-favored-nation status in the supplementary Treaty of the Bogue, signed in 1843.

For the rest of the nineteenth century, all Western powers operating in East Asia would impose unequal treaties on their new “friends” in the Pacific. The 1858 Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin), among Great Britain, the United States, Russia, France, and China; the 1861 Commercial Treaty, between Prussia and China; and the 1896 Li-Lobanov Treaty (also called the Sino-Russian Secret Treaty), between Russia and China are only three in a long list of treaties that systematically reduced the Qing Empire to the status of semicolonialism. Perhaps the most humiliating of all was the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki (also known as the Treaty of Maguan), in which a modernized Japan adopted the role of the Western power, imposing its own unequal terms on China after its victory in the Sino-Japanese War.

In the domain of domestic politics, the Treaty of Nanjing demonstrated the weakness of the Manchu Qing rulers and precipitated a permanent legitimacy crisis for the Qing Dynasty. Less than a decade after the signing, the Taiping Rebellion would shake China to its foundations. This massive insurrection, informed by explosive antiforeign and anti-Qing sentiment, ended only with the help of foreign intervention, strengthening the hands of the treaty powers. Subsequent treaties would sap China of its sovereignty, and rebellions would plague the dynasty for the next sixty years. In many ways the Treaty of Nanjing marked the beginning of the end of imperial China, destroying the legitimacy of the Qing Dynasty and sending it into a downward spiral from which it would never recover.