Contract port

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Matthew Perry Monument, Shimoda

As a treaty ports or treaty ports were referred to those ports in China , Japan and Korea in the framework of the " unequal treaties " with the European colonial powers in the 19th century had been "opened" for the foreign trade forced. Lease ports are a special form .

In fact, the ports were extra-territorial settlements . The weak East Asian empires were forced to grant the colonial powers in East Asian port cities their own administration, their own jurisdiction , their own police force and their own customs sovereignty and thus to give them sovereign rights in these cities.

Contract ports in Japan

Since the defense against Spanish, Portuguese, English and Dutch trade interests in 1641, only the island of Dejima (near Nagasaki ) had been available as a lease port (until 1859) for foreign trade - strictly controlled, only twice a year and only for Dutch ships.

In 1854, US warships under Commodore Matthew Perry forced the opening of the port of Shimoda, triggering a cultural and moral shock and change in the self-image of the Japanese nation. In the same year a Russian fleet forced the opening of Nagasaki. With the shelling of some port cities (until 1865) Great Britain, the Netherlands, France and the USA forced the opening of further ports (1861 also Prussia): Nagasaki (1855), Shimoda (1855), Hakodate (1855), Yokohama (1859), Niigata (1860), Kobe (1863) and Osaka (1863).

Already during or after the First Sino-Japanese War , the Empire of Japan , which was rapidly modernizing and massively rearming itself through brutal westernization, achieved the abolition of consular jurisdiction (1894), extraterritoriality (July 17, 1899) and, after the Russo-Japanese War , the Japanese annexation of Korea and the Chinese Revolution also the revision of the last foreign special rights (customs autonomy until 1911) from the “Unequal Treaties”. Japan's full sovereignty was restored.

Contract ports in Korea

After the first attempts by the French, Americans and Russians were repulsed and unsuccessful in 1866 , Japan had already forced the opening of three Korean ports in the south ( Busan , Wŏnsan , Jemulpo (today's Incheon )) in 1876 . China was ousted from Korea in two wars in 1885 and 1895. However, Japan initially faced competition from Russia, which in 1896 also forced the opening of ports in the north ( Sinŭiju ). In 1882–1884 the USA (another attempt failed in 1871), Great Britain, Germany, Austria and France concluded similar “unequal treaties” with Korea. Between 1905 and 1910, Korea fell entirely to Japan in three stages (until 1945), which invalidated these treaties.

Contract and lease ports in China

Contract ports in China

Map of China with contract ports.

Until 1842, only Canton was allowed to trade with European powers, which gave the Chinese Empire almost complete control, e.g. B. made possible the opium trade.

After the First Opium War , Great Britain also forced the opening of Xiamen (Amoy), Fuzhou , Ningbo and Shanghai in 1842 . After the British-French victory in the Second Opium War in 1860 , Dengzhou , Hankou , Jiujiang , Kaohsiung , Nanjing , Niuzhuang , Qiongzhou , Shantou , Tamsui and Zhenjiang and a little later Tianjin were added. These and other “open cities” also far inland have been open to all nations equally since the end of the 1860s ( open door policy ). By exporting capital and building railroad lines (owned by foreign companies) from these bridgeheads to the interior of the country, China was divided into zones of influence by the colonial powers. With the trade, the Christian mission was also released, merchants and missionaries enjoyed freedom of movement and immunity , which contributed to the Boxer Rebellion of 1895–1901.

Up until the Chinese revolution in 1911, numerous other open cities, contract ports and lease ports were added. In the ports there were customs directorates with Europeans as board members, all of which in turn were subordinate to a British general customs inspector in Beijing.

  • Tianjin: The Eight Power Region

  • Shanghai: French (red) and international concession (yellow)

Lease ports in China

In addition to the extraterritorial status of the treaty ports, the imperialist colonial powers further divided China in 1898 through lease areas. The Chinese government has been forced to lease port cities to Britain, France, Russia, Germany and Japan for between 25 and 99 years.

A US lease project in Samsah-Bai (Fukien Province) remained unsuccessful in 1892-98 and 1900 or failed due to competition from Japan.

After the defeats of Russia and Germany in the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War, Port Arthur and Tsingtao did not revert to China, but to Japan (Tsingtao until 1922, Dairen and Dalian until 1945).

It was not until 1930 that the nationalist Kuomintang government achieved a partial and in 1943 a complete abolition of the contract and lease ports and a revision of the “unequal treaties”. In 1946 France finally renounced all special rights. However, Dalian / Port Arthur initially took over the Soviet Union in 1945-55.

The port cities ( special administrative areas ) of Hong Kong and Macao, as well as Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Shantou, Xiamen and the island of Hainan, which were regained in 1997 and 1999, are now China's special economic zones . In addition, the People's Republic has the entire coast from the Korean to the Vietnamese border (with the exception of the mouth of the Huang He) to the open coastal area as well as the ports of Dalian, Qinhuandgao, Tianjin, Yantai (near Weihai), Qingdao (Tsingtao), Lianyungang, Nantong, Shanghai, Wenzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou (Canton), Zhanjiang and Behei declared as open coastal cities again - this time on Chinese terms. In addition, numerous inland cities were reopened.

Others

Like Dalian in China, Hanko and Porkkala in Finland were Soviet lease ports until 1955.

After the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922, three so-called treaty ports (literally translated: treaty ports ) remained under the control of the United Kingdom until 1938.

Landlocked states still lease parts of port cities in other states in order to trade there duty-free. So is z. B. since 1929 the Vltava port in the Hamburg free port has been leased to the Czech Republic for 99 years. The lease area of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is still used by the USA as a military base against the will of the Cuban government, which regards the extension of the lease term as invalid, while the British Indic island of Diego Garcia is leased with the consent of London.

In turn, contract ports can generally also be normal ports whose states grant ships from other (mostly distant) states normal or special rights of use in these ports. So had z. B. the Soviet Union numerous (also militarily used) contract ports in African or Arab states. B. Special rights on the Azores (Portugal) or Okinawa (Japan), which are blocked by military forces.

See also

literature

  • JE Hoare: Japan's Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements. The Uninvited Guests 1858-1899 (= Meiji Japan Series. Vol. 1). Japan Library, Sandgate et al. 1994, ISBN 1-873410-26-3 .

Web links