The Understanding And Response Of Chinese Officials And Citizens To Treaty Relations In Late Qing Dynasty

After the First Opium War,the traditional tributary relations gradually disintegrated,and China was forced to accept a new type of diplomatic relations built on treaty relations.From the first batch of inequality treaties between China and foreign countries to the signing of the Treaty of Xin Chou and the late Qing dynasty commercial treaty,missionary clauses have been continuously stuffed into inequality treaties and commerce treaties,becoming an important part of the Chinese and foreign treaty system.Taking missionary clauses as the starting point,this article explores people's understanding and response to this new type of diplomatic relations at different times from the two dimensions of the late Qing government and the public.The evolution of the late Qing government's understanding of missionary treaties is mainly reflected in the 'obedience' and 'revision' of missionary treaties.In the understanding of 'obedience',the late Qing government experienced a change from requiring the other party to abide by it to focusing on self-compliance.The Daoguang dynasty and the Xianfeng dynasty demanded that the Western missionaries strictly abide by the treaty and severely punish those who entered the Mainland in violation of the contract.However,the Qing government had not yet established a sense of compliance,which was mainly reflected in the fact that local officials repeatedly violated the treaty provisions in handling incidents involving missionaries' private entry into the Mainland,and the government neglected to punish the officials who violated the treaties.After the Second Opium War,the 'custody' of the Qing dynasty failed under the threat of force from the powers.The 'Tianjin Treaty' and the 'Beijing Treaty' added missionary clauses,breaking the restrictions on Christianity in the original treaty and shattering the Qing government's dream of resisting foreign religions in the name of 'compliance with the treaties'.In order to relieve internal and external problems,they had to make concessions to the West.Instead of requiring theother party to abide by the treaties,they paid more attention to their own compliance.Some officials began to have a sense of international law.The Qing government converted the content of the treaty into domestic law,repaid the ecclesiastical assets in accordance with the treaties when dealing with the priest cases,protected missionaries and church members,and strengthened the punishment of local officials who violated the treaties.With regard to the requirements of missionary compliance,the Qing government began to adopt a more tolerant policy,which made it more difficult to treat the missionary violations with treaties.Regarding the 'revision of the treaty',the late Qing government experienced a change from reject modifying the treaty to attaching importance to the revision of the treaty,and then actively striving to modify the missionary clauses.After the signing of the first batch of unequal treaties between China and foreign countries,the Qing government regarded the treaty as a once and for all 'million-year peace treaty' and blindly refused the British and American requests to revise the treaty.The painful lessons of the Second Opium War led the Qing government to attach importance to the treaty amendment provisions.From the disapproval of adding new missionary clauses during the discussion of the preparatory treaty in 1868 to the proposal of adding relevant missionary clauses to limit the further expansion of missionary privileges when China and France revised the 'Tianjin Treaty',and then to the proposals for the Special 'Educational Regulations' in the Second Half of the 19 th Century,all reflected the initiative of the Qing government to amend its treaty.Judging from the content of the revised missionary clauses,the Qing government became more pragmatic and flexible in negotiating treaties,which to some extent reflects that the Qing government has a clearer understanding of treaty relations and the international situation.In addition,in the process of treaty amendment in the early20 th century,the Qing government was able to seize the opportunity to actively fight for rights and interests,and tried to add preaching clauses in its favor to the newtreaty,thereby providing law for binding churches in China through treaty relations.The understanding of the masses of the middle and lower classes on the missionary clauses mostly comes from the impact of the missionary clauses on their consciousness and actual life.Under the influence of the missionary clauses,a group of people is attracted to the church for the benefit.Except for some devout believers,most of them join the church to survive,and they are not religious.In addition,some people use treaty privileges to make trouble,which has become an important cause of conflict between people and the church.Another type of people has a certain understanding of missionary treaties and treaty relations in the struggle against foreign religions,and some people have also begun to analyze the causes of conflicts from the perspective of the treaties,and they pointed out that the missionaries have breached some treaties,and even formulate a way to restrain the church in the form of a treaty.The Boxer Movement is a concentrated outbreak of the 'most hated peace treaty' mood among the people.At the same time,in the southern region,some people treat treaty relations more rationally and oppose the inequality treaties in the form of a fake 'peace treaty',which also reflects that the public's understanding of the Western world and treaty relations is uneven.