Burlingame Treaty

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The Burlingame Treaty ( German "Burlingame Agreement") was a treaty under international law between the United States and China , which supplemented the Treaty of Tianjin and created the formal basis for the establishment of friendly relations between the two countries. With the treaty, the United States granted China the status of a preferred foreign trade partner in the sense of the " most-favored-nation principle ". The treaty, which was named after the American diplomat Anson Burlingame , was signed in July 1868 and came into force that same year.

The Burlingame Treaty

  • recognized China's right to expropriate all of its territory ;
  • granted China the right to appoint consuls in United States ports "who enjoy the same privileges and immunities as the consuls of Great Britain and Russia ";
  • stated that "US citizens in China should be protected from any religious persecution and that Chinese in the USA should be granted full freedom of conscience and be protected in both countries from any disadvantage or persecution because of their religious beliefs or rites";
  • granted citizens of both countries who lived in the other country certain privileges, from which the privilege of naturalization was excluded.

The special historical significance of the Burlingame Treaty was that it enabled the export of cheap labor ( pen trade ) to the USA. After domestic political pressure to limit the flow of Chinese coolies had increased considerably in the USA , the treaty was renegotiated in 1880 at the instigation of President Rutherford B. Hayes . In the new version, the entry of Chinese citizens into the USA was not prohibited, but suspended. The United States' commitment to protecting the rights of those immigrants already living in the country was reaffirmed.

The Burlingame Treaty was repealed in 1882 by the provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act . In 1888 he was followed by the Bayard-Zhang Treaty .

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