S01E23 Foreigners in China: Foreign Settlements

Chinese Revolutions: A History Podcast

S01E23 Foreigners in China: Foreign Settlements

This week we're starting a 2-3 episode series on what foreigners have been building in China since the Opium War blew open the Treaty Ports to foreign use. Because foreign influence will make or break Chinese revolutions, we need to see how foreign powers set themselves up in China.

Treaty Port Settlements

Treaty ports allowed foreign traders, officials, and missionaries to set up shop in Chinese cities further up the coast.

They constructed buildings and laid out streets and street lighting after European sensibilities.

Foreign police forces staffed by former soldiers and sailors kept order and gave foreign citizens the comfort of being arrested by people who looked like them.

The space carved out by extraterritoriality gave Chinese space in which they could rely on a stable business environment and relatively safe from unrest.

Foreign Consuls

Consuls both governed foreign citizens and represented foreign interests to local Chinese officials.

Their duties required involvement in petty details of life in China because small things could accumulate into popular rage against foreigners living in China. Both Chinese and foreign officials struggled to keep the peace.

Trade was the reason for military intervention in China, and safeguarding trade was consuls' primary concern.

How Foreign Settlements Cultivated Revolution

Foreign settlements were places where new professional classes of Chinese could gain education and training along different lines than the old Confucian system. They saw new norms and standards, giving them different visions for what China could possibly be.

Foreign settlements provided a refuge or a base of operations for revolutionaries. The first National Party Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in the French Concession in Shanghai, for example.

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