Unequal treaties

Unequal treaties were agreements imposed on Qing China by foreign powers that granted those powers privileges and restricted Chinese sovereignty, especially during the nineteenth century.

Treaty of Nanjing: The 1842 treaty that ended the First Opium War and opened five Chinese ports to British trade. It established the model of cession, indemnity, and port access that later treaties expanded.
First Opium War: The 1839–1842 war between Qing China and Britain over trade, diplomacy, and the opium trade. British victory forced the Treaty of Nanjing and began the modern treaty system.
Hong Kong: A territory on China's southern coast that became a British colony through nineteenth-century treaties and conventions. The Treaty of Nanjing ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain.
Westphalian sovereignty: A principle of international order emphasizing states' territorial authority and formal independence from external control. Unequal treaties sharply limited the sovereignty this principle describes.
Treaty of Tianjin: The 1858 agreements that ended the first phase of the Second Opium War and expanded foreign rights in China. It added diplomatic access, more treaty ports, and other privileges to the treaty system.
Second Opium War: The 1856–1860 war in which Britain and France fought Qing China to expand access and diplomatic privileges. Its outcome broadened concessions imposed after the First Opium War.
Shanghai International Settlement: A foreign-administered area in Shanghai formed from the merger of British and American settlements in 1863. It exemplified foreign municipal authority within a Chinese city.
Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire: Privileges granted to foreign merchants and subjects in the Ottoman Empire, including exemptions from local jurisdiction. They offer a comparison with extraterritorial rights in treaty-port China.
Convention of Peking: The 1860 agreements that ended the Second Opium War and confirmed and extended earlier concessions to foreign powers. Its terms enforced the 1858 treaties and further constrained Qing control.
Opium trade in China: The large-scale import of opium into China, chiefly from British India, which fueled conflict over trade and Qing regulation. Disputes over opium and its suppression helped trigger the First Opium War.

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