Editing Treaty of Nanking

{{Short description|1842 treaty between Qing China and Britain}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}}
{{Infobox treaty
|name = Treaty of Nanking
|long_name = Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Commerce Between Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and the Emperor of China<ref name="mayers">[[William Frederick Mayers|Mayers, William Frederick]] (1902). ''[https://archive.org/stream/cu31924023464278#page/n21 Treaties Between the Empire of China and Foreign Powers]'' (4th ed.). Shanghai: North-China Herald, London (1871)ld. p. 1.</ref>
|image = The Signing of the Treaty of Nanking.jpg
|image_width = 350px
|location_signed = [[Nanjing]], [[Qing Empire]]
|caption = Signing of the treaty on board [[HMS Cornwallis (1813)|HMS ''Cornwallis'']]
|date_signed = {{Start date|1842|8|29|df=yes}}
|date_effective = {{Start date|1843|6|26|df=yes}}
|condition_effective = Exchange of ratifications
|signatories = 
* [[Keying (official)|Keying]] and [[Yilibu]]
* {{flagicon|UKGBI}} [[Henry Pottinger]]
|parties = * [[Qing dynasty]]
* {{flagcountry|United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland}}
|languages = English and Chinese
|depositor = [[National Palace Museum]], Taiwan<br>[[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives]], United Kingdom
|wikisource = Treaty of Nanking
}}
{{Chinese
| t = 南京條約
| s = 南京条约
| p = Nánjīng tiáoyuē
| h = Lam<sup>5</sup>/Nam<sup>5</sup>-gin<sup>1</sup> Tiau<sup>2</sup>yok<sup>5</sup>
| j = Naam<sup>4</sup> ging<sup>1</sup> tiu<sup>4</sup> joek<sup>3</sup>
}}
{{History of Hong Kong}}
The '''Treaty of Nanking''' was the [[peace treaty]] which ended the [[First Opium War]] (1839–1842) between [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Great Britain ]] and the [[Qing dynasty]] of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese later termed the "[[unequal treaties]]".

In the wake of China's military defeat, with British warships poised to attack [[Nanjing]] (then romanized as Nanking), British and Chinese officials negotiated on board [[HMS Cornwallis (1813)|HMS ''Cornwallis'']] anchored in the [[Yangtze]] at the city. On 29 August, British representative Sir [[Henry Pottinger]] and Qing representatives [[Keying (official)|Keying]], [[Yilibu]], and {{ill|Niu Jian|zh|牛鑑}} signed the treaty, which consisted of thirteen articles. 

The treaty was ratified by the [[Daoguang Emperor]] on 27 October and Queen Victoria on 28 December. The exchange of ratification took place in [[British Hong Kong|Hong Kong]] on 26 June 1843. The treaty required the Chinese to pay an indemnity, to cede the Island of Hong Kong to the British as a colony, to essentially end the [[Canton system]] that had limited trade to that port and allow trade at five “[[treaty ports]].” It was followed in 1843 by the [[Treaty of the Bogue]], which granted [[extraterritoriality]] and [[most favoured nation]] status.

==Background==

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Britain faced a growing [[Balance of trade|trade deficit]] with China. Britain could offer nothing to China to match the growing importation of Chinese goods to Britain, such as tea and porcelain. In [[Company rule in India|British India]], opium was grown on [[plantation]]s and auctioned to merchants, who then sold it to Chinese who smuggled it into China (Chinese law forbade the importation and sale of opium).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lovell |first=Julia |title=The Opium War Ya pian zhan zheng: drugs, dreams and the making of China |date=December 20, 2012 |publisher=Picador |isbn=978-0-330-45748-4 |location=London |pages=304}}</ref> When [[Lin Zexu]] seized this privately owned opium and ordered the [[destruction of opium at Humen]], Britain first demanded reparations, then declared what became known as the [[First Opium War]]. Britain's use of recently invented military technology produced a crushing victory and allowed it to impose a one-sided treaty. <ref>Ha-Joon Chang, "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism," (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008), p. 24</ref>{{better source|date=December 2021}}

The first working draft for articles of a treaty was prepared at the [[Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office|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, the parties realised that some flexibility and a departure from established procedure in preparing treaties might be required.<ref name="wood">Wood, R. Derek (May 1996). "[http://www.midley.co.uk/Nanking/NANKING_JICH.htm The Treaty of Nanking: Form and the Foreign Office, 1842–43]". ''The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History''</ref>{{citation broken|date=April 2024}}

==Terms==

===Foreign trade===
The fundamental purpose of the treaty was to change the framework of foreign trade imposed by the [[Canton System]], which had been in force since 1760. Under Article V, the treaty abolished the former monopoly of the ''[[Cohong]]'' and their [[Thirteen Factories]] in Canton. Four additional "[[treaty ports]]" opened for foreign trade alongside Canton ([[Shamian Island|Shameen Island]] from 1859 until 1943): [[Xiamen]] (or Amoy; until 1930), [[Fuzhou]], [[Ningbo]] and [[Shanghai]] (until 1943),<ref>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."</ref><ref>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."</ref> where foreign merchants were to be allowed to trade with anyone they wished. Britain also gained the right to send consuls to the treaty ports, which were given the right to communicate directly with local Chinese officials (Article II). The treaty stipulated that trade in the treaty ports should be subject to fixed tariffs, which were to be agreed upon between the British and the Qing governments (Article X).<ref name="treaty">[[s:Treaty of Nanking|Treaty of Nanking]]</ref>

===Reparations and demobilisation===
[[File:Treaty of Nanking (part of).png|left|thumb|Chinese and English Pages, Treaty of Nanking]]
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&nbsp;million dollars in compensation for debts that the merchants in Canton owed British merchants (Article V), and a further 12&nbsp;million dollars in [[war reparations]] for the cost of the war (Article VI). The total sum of 21&nbsp;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).<ref name="treaty" />

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).<ref name="treaty" />

The British on their part, undertook to withdraw all of their troops from Nanjing, the [[Grand Canal (China)|Grand Canal]] and the military post at [[Zhenhai District|Zhenhai]], as well as not to interfere with China trade generally, after the emperor had given his assent to the treaty and the first instalment of money had been received (Article XII). British troops would remain in [[Gulangyu]] and [[Zhaobaoshan]] until the Qing government had paid reparations in full (Article XII).<ref name="treaty" />

===Cession of Hong Kong===
<!--Gibb, Livingston & Co. links here -->
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.<ref name="martin">Martin, Robert Montgomery (1847). ''[https://archive.org/details/chinapoliticalc00martgoog/page/n92 <!-- pg=84 --> China: Political, Commercial, and Social; In an Official Report to Her Majesty's Government]''. Volume 2. London: James Madden. p. 84.</ref> [[Robert Montgomery Martin]], treasurer of Hong Kong, wrote in an official report:

<blockquote>
The terms of peace having been read, [[Yilibu|Elepoo]] the senior commissioner paused, expecting something more, and at length said "is that all?" Mr. [[John Robert Morrison|Morrison]] enquired of Lieutenant-colonel [[George Alexander Malcolm|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''."<ref name="martin" />
</blockquote>

The Qing government agreed to make [[Hong Kong Island]] a [[crown colony]], ceding it to the [[Queen Victoria|Queen Victoria of Great Britain]], in perpetuity<ref>{{Citation | date=29 August 1842 | title=[[:s:Treaty of Nanking|Treaty of Nanking]] |quote=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. }}</ref> ({{lang|zh|[[wikt:常|常]][[wikt:遠|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 [[Kowloon]] peninsula under the [[Convention of Peking]]<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Endacott |first1=G. B. |title=A biographical sketch-book of early Hong Kong |last2=Carroll, John M. |publisher=Hong Kong University Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-962-209-742-1 |author-link=George Beer Endacott |orig-year=1962}}</ref> and in 1898, the [[Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory|Second Convention of Peking]] further expanded the colony with the 99-year lease of the [[New Territories]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=9 August 2011 |title=Lessons in History |url=http://www.npm.gov.tw/exh100/diplomatic/page_en02.html |access-date=2018-08-27 |publisher=National Palace Museum (Taipei)}}</ref> In 1984, the governments of the United Kingdom and the [[People's Republic of China]] (PRC) concluded the [[Sino-British Joint Declaration|Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong]], under which the sovereignty of the leased territories, together with Hong Kong Island and [[Kowloon Peninsula|Kowloon]] (south of Boundary Street) ceded under the [[Convention of Peking]] (1860), was [[transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong|transferred]] to the PRC on 1 July 1997.<ref>Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, The Government of the HKSAR. [http://www.cmab.gov.hk/en/issues/jd2.htm "The Joint Declaration"] and following pages, 1 July 2007.</ref>

==Aftermath==
[[File:HMS Cornwallis and Squadron in Nanking.jpg|left|thumb|[[HMS Cornwallis (1813)|HMS ''Cornwallis'']] and the British squadron in Nanjing, saluting the conclusion of the treaty]]
The treaty was sealed by interpreter [[John Robert Morrison]] for the British and Wang Tajin for the Chinese. [[Harry Smith Parkes|Harry Parkes]], who was a student of Chinese under Morrison, gave his account of the ceremony:

<blockquote>
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.<ref>[[Stanley Lane-Poole|Lane-Poole, Stanley]] (1894). ''[https://archive.org/stream/lifeofsirharrypa01lane#page/46/mode/2up The Life of Sir Harry Parkes]''. Volume 1. London: Macmillan and Co. pp. 47–48.</ref>
</blockquote>

The [[Daoguang Emperor]] gave his assent for the treaty on 8 September.<ref name="wood" /> 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]].<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=HZlCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA680 The Chinese Repository]''. Volume 11. Canton. 1842. p. 680.</ref> The emperor ratified the treaty on 27 October and Queen Victoria added her written assent on 28 December. Ratification was exchanged in [[British Hong Kong|Hong Kong]] on 26 June 1843.<ref name="wood" /> 

Pottinger wrote in a letter to the [[Earl of Aberdeen]] the following year that at a feast with [[Keying (official)|Keying]] celebrating the ratification, Keying insisted they ceremonially exchange miniature portraits of each member of each other's families. Upon receiving a miniature portrait of Pottinger's wife, Pottinger wrote that Keying "placed [the miniature] on his head—which I am told is the highest token of respect and friendship—filled a glass of wine, held the picture in front of his face, muttered some words in a low voice, drank the wine, again placed the picture on his head and then sat down" to complete the ceremony of long-term amity between the two families and the two peoples.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Koon |first=Yeewan |title=Narratives of Free Trade: The Commercial Cultures of Early US-China Relations |date=2012 |publisher=Hong Kong University Press |editor-last=Johnson |editor-first=Kendall |pages=131–148 |chapter=The Face of Diplomacy in 19th-Century China: Qiying's Portrait Gifts |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/8340388}}</ref> This extravagant display has been analysed as showing an "erotically charged ... reciprocity [in] this symbolic gesture of swapping images of wives.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Koon |first=Yeewan |title=Narratives of Free Trade: The Commercial Cultures of Early US-China Relations |date=2012 |publisher=Hong Kong University Press |editor-last=Johnson |editor-first=Kendall |pages=139–140 |chapter=The Face of Diplomacy in 19th-Century China: Qiying's Portrait Gifts |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/8340388}}</ref>

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{{nbsp}}October 1843, the parties concluded the supplementary [[Treaty of the Bogue]] at the [[Bocca Tigris]] outside Canton.{{cn|date=August 2022}}

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 [[Treaty of Wanghia]] with the Americans in 1844 explicitly banned Americans from selling opium, the trade continued as both the British and American merchants were only subject to the legal control of their permissive consuls. The opium traffic was later legalised in the [[Treaties of Tianjin]], which China concluded after the [[Second Opium War]] resulted in another defeat for the Qing dynasty.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Platt |first=Stephen R. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1260821193 |title=The Oxford history of modern China |date=2022 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-289520-2 |editor-last=Wasserstrom |editor-first=Jeffrey N. |edition=3rd |series=Oxford histories |location=Oxford, United Kingdom ; New York, NY |pages=63 |oclc=on1260821193}}</ref>

The Treaty itself contained no provision for the legalization of the opium trade. Stephen R. Platt writes that such a term would have provided the opponents of Lord Palmerston, who headed the Conservative government that launched the war, with a seeming confirmation for their claim that the war was fought to support the opium trade.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Platt |first=Stephen R. |title=Imperial twilight: the Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age |date=2018 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |isbn=978-0-307-96173-0 |edition=1st |location=New York |pages=555–556}}</ref> Instead, Palmerston asked his negotiators to request the Chinese to legalize the sale of opium on their own initiative, outside of the treaty’s terms, which they refused.<ref name=":1" />

[[File:Treaty of Nanking Historical Materials Exhibition Hall.jpg|thumb|right|Treaty of Nanking Historical Materials Exhibition Hall in modern Nanjing]]

These treaties had deep and lasting effect. Nanking Treaty, together with the following treaties of 1843, 1858, and 1860, ended the [[Canton System]] as created in 1760. These treaties created a new framework for China's foreign relations and overseas trade, which would last for almost a hundred years and marked the start of what later nationalists called China's "[[century of humiliation]]." From the perspective of modern Chinese nationalists, the most injurious terms were the fixed trade tariff, [[extraterritoriality]], the [[most favoured nation]] provisions and freeing the importation of British opium which continued to have social and economic consequences for the Chinese people. These terms were imposed by the British and extended to other Western powers with [[most favored nation|most favoured nation]] status, and were conceded by the ruling Qing dynasty in order to avert continued military defeats and under the hope that most favoured nation provision would set the foreigners against each other. Although China regained tariff autonomy in the 1920s, extraterritoriality was not formally abolished until the 1943 [[Sino-British Treaty for the Relinquishment of Extra-Territorial Rights in China]].<ref>Hsu, ''The Rise of Modern China'': 190–192.</ref>

The stipulation of legal equality in diplomatic proceedings between Britain and China ended the centuries-long Sinocentric tributary system of interstate relations that placed China atop a formal hierarchy in its interactions with other states.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Waley-Cohen |first=Joanna |title=The sextants of Beijing: global currents in Chinese history |date=2000 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-32051-0 |edition=1st |location=New York, NY |pages=138}}</ref> Despite this stipulation, the treaty's contents featured entirely concessions from the Chinese side with no reciprocity of provisions on the British side - for instance, Britain received the right to establish consulates in treaty ports that held the right to an audience with local officials, an option denied to China should it have hypothetically wanted to send its own formal diplomatic missions to Britain.<ref name=":0" /> The one-sided nature of this treaty as a list of concessions, alongside the sovereignty ceded with the terms granting extraterritoriality and joint Sino-British determination of tariff, would earn the Nanking Treaty and similar settlements that followed the name, "unequal treaty," from Chinese nationalists in later centuries.<ref name=":0" />

Interestingly, Joanna Waley-Cohen writes that, at the time of its signing, the Qing did not regard the treaty as “of major significance.”<ref name=":2" /> According to Waley-Cohen, the Treaty of Nanking’s terms remarkably resembled another treaty signed with the central Asian state of Kokand, which had also conflicted with the Qing over control of trade along Qing frontiers.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Waley-Cohen |first=Joanna |title=The sextants of Beijing: global currents in Chinese history |date=2000 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-32051-0 |edition=1st |location=New York, NY |pages=133}}</ref> Failing to achieve results with a complete trade ban, the Qing arranged a treaty with Kokand that granted Kokandis “the right to live, trade, and levy taxes […] appoint consuls with extraterritorial jurisdiction over their compatriots in China,” alongside an indemnity.<ref name=":3" /> The precedent set by the treaty with Kokand made the Nanking Treaty palpable enough that the Qing did not immediately regard this settlement as a disastrous capitulation.

A copy of the treaty is kept by the British government while another copy is kept by the [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Taiwan)|Ministry of Foreign Affairs]] of [[Republic of China]] at the [[National Palace Museum]] in [[Taipei]], Taiwan.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Liu |first=Kwangyin |date=August 9, 2011 |title=National Palace Museum displays ROC diplomatic archives |pages=1 |work=Taiwan Today |url=https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=2&post=1944 |url-status=live |access-date=September 15, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230916015131/https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=2&post=1944 |archive-date=September 16, 2023}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|China|Hong Kong|United Kingdom}}
* [[Western imperialism in Asia]]
* [[History of Hong Kong]]
* [[Anglo-Chinese relations]]
* [[Henry Collen]] (photographed the treaty)
* [[David Sassoon (treasurer)|David Sassoon]]
* [[Treaty of Chushul]]

==Further reading==

* Fairbank, J. K. (1940). "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/1870955 Chinese Diplomacy and the Treaty of Nanking, 1842]". ''The Journal of Modern History''. '''12''' (1): 1–30.

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
{{refbegin}}
*[[John King Fairbank|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 [http://www.midley.co.uk/midley_pdfs/Nanking_Wood1996.pdf online].
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Wikisource|Treaty of Nanking|Treaty of Nanking}}
* [http://libdb1.npm.gov.tw/ttscgi/capimg2.exe?1:121345731:910000108001-0-0.pdf Original Treaty of Nanking in English-Chinese] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140514235850/http://libdb1.npm.gov.tw/ttscgi/capimg2.exe?1:121345731:910000108001-0-0.pdf |date=14 May 2014 }} from [[National Palace Museum]], Taipei
* [https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/20276/page/3597/ English Text in London Gazette] (Differs in some respects from Chinese text)

{{Qing dynasty topics}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Treaty of Nanking}}
[[Category:1842 in China]]
[[Category:1842 in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:1842 treaties]]
[[Category:August 1842]]
[[Category:China–United Kingdom relations]]
[[Category:Military history of Hong Kong]]
[[Category:Military history of Nanjing]]
[[Category:Hong Kong Island]]
[[Category:Peace treaties of China]]
[[Category:Peace treaties of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Treaties involving territorial changes]]
[[Category:Treaties of the Qing dynasty]]
[[Category:Treaties of the United Kingdom (1801–1922)]]
[[Category:Unequal treaties|Nanking]]