The Union Jack on the Upper Yangzi: The treaty port of Chongqing, 1891--1943 (China, Great Britain)

There has been much debate over the question of how great the economic influence of foreign powers such as Britain was in China in the early days of China's modernization efforts, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An understanding of Sino-British interactions in this period continues to evolve, particularly at the economic level. The British attempt to penetrate the Chinese goods and services market was based on the “unequal treaties” and a network of treaty ports. Shanghai, the leading treaty port, has received the most analysis, yet its position within the whole Chinese region was fairly peripheral. Another way to consider this question is to look at the foreign community in Chongqing, a minor treaty port opened late, through the records they themselves left. The story that these records show is one in which the foreign community never close to dominating the situation economically, much less politically or culturally. The port's “development” along the lines of twentieth-century Westernization was hamstrung by its geographical isolation and the difficult shipping links to the downriver ports before the belated introduction of steamships. Nearly every commercial opening achieved by British merchants was sooner or later reclaimed by their resourceful Chinese competitors. The power of China's indigenous trade system outweighed the weaknesses of its central government. Chongqing, though not similar to the leading treaty ports, is more representative of China as a whole in the marginal position of its foreign presence.