Treaty of Nanking
Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Commerce Between Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and the Emperor of China Qing Empire | |
---|---|
Effective | 26 June 1843 |
Condition | Exchange of ratifications |
Parties |
|
Languages | English and Chinese |
Full text | |
Treaty of Nanking at Wikisource |
Treaty of Nanking | |
---|---|
Hanyu Pinyin | Nánjīng tiáoyuē |
Hakka | |
Romanization | Lam5/Nam5-gin1 Tiau2yok5 |
Yue: Cantonese | |
Jyutping | Naam4 ging1 tiu4 joek3 |
This article is part of a series on the |
History of Hong Kong |
---|
Timeline |
|
By topic |
The Treaty of Nanking was an unequal treaty between Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China to end the First Opium War (1839–1842), signed on 29 August 1842.
In the wake of China's military defeat, with British warships poised to attack Nanjing (then spelt 'Nanking'), British and Chinese officials negotiated on board HMS Cornwallis anchored in the Yangtze at the city. On 29 August, British representative Sir Henry Pottinger and Qing representatives Keying, Yilibu, and Niu Jian signed the treaty, which consisted of thirteen articles.
The treaty was ratified by the
Background
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Britain faced a growing
The first working draft for articles of a treaty was prepared at the Foreign Office in London in February 1840. The Foreign Office was aware that preparing a treaty containing Chinese and English characters would need special consideration. Given the distance separating the countries, it was realised that some flexibility and a departure from established procedure in preparing treaties might be required.[3][full citation needed]
Terms
Foreign trade
The fundamental purpose of the treaty was to change the framework of foreign trade imposed by the
Reparations and demobilisation
The Qing government was obliged to pay the British government 6 million silver dollars for the opium that had been confiscated by Lin Zexu in 1839 (Article IV), 3 million dollars in compensation for debts that the merchants in Canton owed British merchants (Article V), and a further 12 million dollars in war reparations for the cost of the war (Article VI). The total sum of 21 million dollars was to be paid in instalments over three years and the Qing government would be charged an annual interest rate of 5 percent for the money that was not paid in a timely manner (Article VII).[6]
The Qing government undertook to release all British prisoners of war (Article VIII), and to give a general amnesty to all Chinese subjects who had cooperated with the British during the war (Article IX).[6]
The British on their part, undertook to withdraw all of their troops from Nanjing, the
Cession of Hong Kong
In 1841, a rough outline for a treaty was sent for the guidance of Plenipotentiary Charles Elliot. It had a blank after the words "the cession of the islands of". Pottinger sent this old draft treaty on shore, with the letter s struck out of islands and the words Hong Kong placed after it.[7] Robert Montgomery Martin, treasurer of Hong Kong, wrote in an official report:
The terms of peace having been read, Elepoo the senior commissioner paused, expecting something more, and at length said "is that all?" Mr. Morrison enquired of Lieutenant-colonel Malcolm [Pottinger's secretary] if there was anything else, and being answered in the negative, Elepoo immediately and with great tact closed the negotiation by saying, "all shall be granted—it is settled—it is finished."[7]
The Qing government agreed to make Hong Kong Island a crown colony, ceding it to the Queen Victoria of Great Britain, in perpetuity[8] (常遠, Cháng yuǎn, in the Chinese version of the treaty), to provide British traders with a harbour where they could "careen and refit their ships and keep stores for that purpose" (Article III). Pottinger was later appointed the first Governor of Hong Kong.
In 1860, the colony was extended with the addition of the
Aftermath
The treaty was sealed by interpreter
There were four copies of the Treaty signed and sealed. They were bound in worked yellow silk, one Treaty in English and the same in Chinese stitched and bound together formed a copy. This being finished they all came out of the after-cabin and sat down to tiffin, and the different officers seated themselves all round the table, making plenty of guests. Almost directly after the Treaty was signed, a yellow flag for China at the main and a Union Jack for England at the mizen were hoisted, and at the same time a royal salute of twenty-one guns was fired.[12]
The Daoguang Emperor gave his assent for the treaty on 8 September.[3] After his assent arrived in Nanjing on 15 September, Pottinger's secretary George Alexander Malcolm was dispatched on board the steamer Auckland the next morning to the Court of St James's with a copy for ratification by Queen Victoria.[13] The emperor ratified the treaty on 27 October and Queen Victoria added her written assent on 28 December. Ratification was exchanged in Hong Kong on 26 June 1843.[3]
Pottinger wrote in a letter to the
Because of the brevity of the Treaty of Nanking and its terms being phrased only as general stipulations, the British and Chinese representatives agreed that a supplementary treaty should be concluded to establish more detailed regulations for relations. On 3 October 1843, the parties concluded the supplementary
Nevertheless, the treaties of 1842–43 left several unsettled issues. In particular they did not resolve the status of the opium traffic in favour of the British Empire. Although the
These treaties had deep and lasting effect. Nanking Treaty, together with the following treaties of 1843, 1858, and 1860, ended the
A copy of the treaty is kept by the British government while another copy is kept by the
See also
- Western imperialism in Asia
- History of Hong Kong
- Anglo-Chinese relations
- Henry Collen (photographed the treaty)
- David Sassoon
Notes
- ^ Mayers, William Frederick (1902). Treaties Between the Empire of China and Foreign Powers (4th ed.). Shanghai: North-China Herald, London (1871)ld. p. 1.
- ^ Ha-Joon Chang, "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism," (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008), p. 24
- ^ a b c Wood, R. Derek (May 1996). "The Treaty of Nanking: Form and the Foreign Office, 1842–43". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
- ^ John Darwin, After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire, p. 271. (London: Allen Lane, 2007) "Under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, five 'treaty ports' were opened to Western trade, Hong Kong island was ceded to the British, the Europeans were allowed to station consuls in the open ports, and the old Canton system was replaced by the freedom to trade and the promise that no more than 5 per cent duty would be charged on foreign imports."
- ^ John Darwin, After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire, p. 431. (London: Allen Lane, 2007) "In 1943 the remnants of China's unequal treaties were at last swept away when the British abandoned their surviving privileges there as so much useless lumber."
- ^ a b c d Treaty of Nanking
- ^ a b Martin, Robert Montgomery (1847). China: Political, Commercial, and Social; In an Official Report to Her Majesty's Government. Volume 2. London: James Madden. p. 84.
- ^ Treaty of Nanking, 29 August 1842,
His Majesty the Emperor of China cedes to Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, &c., the Island of Hong-Kong, to be possessed in perpetuity by Her Britannic Majesty, Her Heirs and Successors, and to be governed by such Laws and Regulations as Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, &c., shall see fit to direct.
- ISBN 978-962-209-742-1.
- ^ "Lessons in History". National Palace Museum (Taipei). 9 August 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
- ^ Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, The Government of the HKSAR. "The Joint Declaration" and following pages, 1 July 2007.
- ^ Lane-Poole, Stanley (1894). The Life of Sir Harry Parkes. Volume 1. London: Macmillan and Co. pp. 47–48.
- ^ The Chinese Repository. Volume 11. Canton. 1842. p. 680.
- ^ Koon, Yeewan (2012). "The Face of Diplomacy in 19th-Century China: Qiying's Portrait Gifts". In Johnson, Kendall (ed.). Narratives of Free Trade: The Commercial Cultures of Early US-China Relations. Hong Kong University Press. pp. 131–148.
- ^ Koon, Yeewan (2012). "The Face of Diplomacy in 19th-Century China: Qiying's Portrait Gifts". In Johnson, Kendall (ed.). Narratives of Free Trade: The Commercial Cultures of Early US-China Relations. Hong Kong University Press. pp. 139–140.
- ^ Hsu, The Rise of Modern China: 190–192.
- ^ Liu, Kwangyin (9 August 2011). "National Palace Museum displays ROC diplomatic archives". Taiwan Today. p. 1. Archived from the original on 16 September 2023. Retrieved 15 September 2023.
References
- Fairbank, John King. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953.
- Têng Ssu-yü. Chang Hsi and the Treaty of Nanking, 1842. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944.
- R. Derek Wood, 'The Treaty of Nanking: Form and the Foreign Office, 1842–1843', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (London) 24 (May 1996), 181–196 online.
External links
- Original Treaty of Nanking in English-Chinese Archived 14 May 2014 at the Wayback Machine from National Palace Museum, Taipei
- English Text in London Gazette (Differs in some respects from Chinese text)