Treaty Ports - Chinese Capitulation Treaties

Chinese Capitulation Treaties

The treaty port system in China lasted broadly speaking one hundred years. It began with the 1841 Opium War and ended with the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The major powers involved were the British, the French, and the Americans, although by the end of the 19th century all the major powers were involved, including Latin American countries and the Congo Free State. It is not possible to put an exact date on the end of the treaty port era. The Russians relinquished their treaty rights in the wake of the Russian revolution in 1917, and the Germans were forced to concede their treaty rights following their defeat in World War I.

Norway voluntarily relinquished its treaty rights in a capitulation treaty of 1931. However the three main treaty powers, the British, the Americans, and the French continued to hold their concessions and extraterritorial jurisdictions until the second world war. As regards the British and the Americans, it ended in practice when the Japanese stormed into their concessions in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941. They then formally relinquished their treaty rights in a new 'equal treaties' agreement with Chiang Kaishek's free Chinese government in exile in Chungking in 1943.

Meanwhile the pro-Japanese puppet government in Nanking signed a capitulation treaty with the Vichy French government in 1943. This wasn't recognized by Free French leader Charles de Gaulle. In 1946, in order to induce the Chinese to vacate the northern half of French Indo-China, de Gaulle signed a capitulation treaty with Chiang Kaishek's nationalist (Kuomintang) government.

Whatvever residues of the treaty port era were left in the late 1940s were ended when the communists took over China.