Unequal treaty



“Unequal treaty” refers to treaties signed with Western powers during the 19th and early 20th centuries by  Qing Dynasty China and late Tokugawa Japan after suffering military defeat by the foreign powers or when there was a threat of military action by those powers. The term is also applied to treaties imposed during the same time period on late Joseon Dynasty Korea by the post-Meiji Restoration Empire of Japan.

Starting with the rise of nationalism and anti-imperialism in the 1920s, the Guomindang and Chinese Communist Party used these concepts to characterize the Chinese experience in losses of sovereignty between roughly 1839–1949. The term "unequal treaty" became associated with the concept of China's "Century of Humiliation", especially the loss of the Treaty Ports, extraterritoriality, and tariff autonomy.

China
The historian Wang Dong concludes that "although the phrase has long been widely used, (unequal treaty) nevertheless lacks a clear and unambiguous meaning" and that there is "no agreement about the actual number of treaties signed between China and foreign countries that should be counted as 'unequal'." The term "unequal treaty" did not come into use until early in the 20th century. These treaties were considered unequal in China "because they were not negotiated by nations treating each other as equals but were imposed on China after a war, and because they encroached upon China's sovereign rights ... which reduced her to semicolonial status". In many cases China was effectively forced to pay large amounts of reparations, open up ports for trade, cede or lease territories (such as Hong Kong to Great Britain and Macau to Portugal), and make various other concessions of sovereignty to foreign "spheres of influence", following military defeats.

The earliest treaty later referred to as "unequal" was the 1841 Convention of Chuenpee negotiations during the First Opium War. China and Great Britain signed the first unequal treaties under the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. Following Qing China's defeat, treaties with Britain opened up five ports to foreign trade, while also allowing foreign missionaries, at least in theory, to reside within China. In addition, foreign residents in the port cities were afforded trials by their own consular authorities rather than the Chinese legal system, a concept termed extraterritoriality. Under the treaties, Britain and America established the British Supreme Court for China and Japan and United States Court for China in Shanghai.

Japan and Korea
When the American Commodore Matthew Perry reached Japan in 1854, it signed the Convention of Kanagawa. Its importance was limited. Much more important was the Harris treaty of 1858 negotiated by U.S. envoy Townsend Harris.

Korea's first unequal treaty was not with the West but with Japan. Taking a page from Western tactics, in 1875 Japan sent Captain Inoue Yoshika and the warship Un'yō to display military might over Korea in the Ganghwa Island incident. This forced Korea to open its doors to Japan by signing the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876.

The unequal treaties ended at various times for the countries involved. Japan's victories in the 1894–95 First Sino-Japanese War convinced many in the West that unequal treaties could no longer be enforced on Japan. Korea's unequal treaties with European states became largely null and void in 1910, when it was annexed by Japan.

Chinese resentment
After World War I, patriotic consciousness in China focused on the treaties, which now became widely known as "unequal treaties". The Nationalist Party and the Communist Party competed to convince the public that their approach would be more effective. Germany was forced to terminate its rights, the Soviet Union ostentatiously surrendered them, and the United States organized the Washington Conference to negotiate them. After Chiang Kai-shek declared a new national government in 1927, the western powers quickly offered diplomatic recognition, arousing anxiety in Japan. The new government declared to the Great Powers that China had been exploited for decades under unequal treaties, and that the time for such treaties was over, demanding they renegotiate all of them on equal terms. In the face of Japanese expansion in China, however, ending the system was postponed.

Most of China's unequal treaties were abrogated during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which started in 1937 and merged into the larger context of World War II. The United States Congress ended American extraterritoriality in December, 1943. Significant examples of unequal treaties on China did outlast World War II: unequal treaties regarding Hong Kong remained in place until Hong Kong's 1997 handover, and in 1969, to improve Sino-Russian relations, China reconfirmed the 1859 Treaty of Aigun.

Other uses
Recently, the term "unequal treaty" has been used by the RESPECT leader George Galloway and the then Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell to refer to the 2003 UK–US extradition treaty.

The 1903 Cuban–American Treaty, which granted the United States a perpetual lease of Guantanamo Bay, is seen as an "unequal treaty" by Professor Alfred de Zayas.

The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was an example of an "unequal treaty doctrine" and its consequences.