unequal treaties

Series of agreements drawn up 1842-58 through which Western powers won diplomatic privileges and territorial concessions in China and Japan (see Edo, Treaty of). Under the threat of coercion, the enfeebled Chinese Qing dynasty was forced to sign the agreements, which established the treaty ports. Nationalist resentment at this fuelled the Boxer movement 1900.

The first unequal treaty was the Treaty of Nanjing 1842, concluded at the end of the first Opium War, under which Hong Kong was ceded to Britain and five treaty ports, Shanghai, Guangzhou (Canton), Xiamen (Amoy), Fuzhou (Foochow), and Ningbo, were opened to foreign trade. Further treaty ports were opened by the Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin) 1858. Unequal treaties were also forced on the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan by the USA with the treaties of Kanagawa 1854 and Edo 1858, but the Western powers had to surrender their special treaty-port privileges in Japan 1899.