“Unequal treaty” is a term used in specific reference to a number of treaties imposed by Western powers, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, on Qing Dynasty China and late Tokugawa Japan. The term is also applied to treaties imposed during the same time frame on late Joseon Dynasty Korea by the post-Meiji Restoration Empire of Japan.
The treaties were often signed by these Asian states after suffering military defeat in various skirmishes or wars with the foreign powers or when there was a threat of military action by those powers.
Read more about Unequal Treaty: Overview, Select List of Unequal Treaties, Alternative Viewpoints, Other Uses
Famous quotes containing the words unequal and/or treaty:
“Prostitution is the most hideous of the afflictions produced by the unequal distribution of the world’s goods; this infamy stigmatizes the human species and bears witness against the social organization far more than does crime.”
—Flora Tristan (1803–1844)
“The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)