CYIL vol. 13 (2022)

CYIL 13 ȍ2022Ȏ THE ATTITUDE OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA TOWARD INTERNATIONAL LAW subsequently forced to sign over one thousand such treaties, which gave foreign nationals special privileges and protection under Chinese law. 15 These treaties dealt with the rights of foreign nationals to trade in China; they extended the Most Favored Nation treatment to Britain, requiring China to make similar concessions to Britain that China gave to other foreign nations. The treaties also obliged China to grant privileges and immunities to British nationals. More importantly, the treaties recognized the principle of extraterritoriality. Under this principle, China was forced to abdicate its legal authority over foreign nationals by allowing their governments to exercise legal control over them for acts committed in China in violation of Chinese law. 16 The United States also requested similar preferential treatment for its nationals in China, which was later incorporated into the Treaty of Wanghia. 17 In 1858, Britain, the United States, and Japan fought the Second Opium War with China to secure greater concessions. The war led to the burning of the Summer Palace and the establishment of permanent diplomatic missions in China under the Treaty of Tientsin of 1858. 18 The treaty extended the extraterritoriality rights granted to citizens of Britain and the United States under the Treaties of Nanking and Bogue. They also gave American citizens who were owed a debt by Chinese nationals the right to sue in both Chinese courts and at the American consulate. However, Americans who owe a debt to Chinese nationals could also be pursued at the American consulate. The United States later restricted Chinese immigration to the U.S. under the Chines Exclusion Act of 1882. The U.S. Supreme Court later upheld the authority of the federal government to do so as part of its sovereign prerogative. 19 Chinese workers in the United States were mistreated at the hands of mobs, and their businesses and homes were destroyed and burned. These incidents forced the government of China to call on the United States to stop systematic discrimination against Chinese nationals and to treat them fairly. 20 The unequal treaties also forced China to cede some of its territorial possessions to Japan. Following a declaration of war on Germany by allied forces, Japan breached China’s neutrality during World War I by invading the German concession in Shandong. 21 After Germany and Austria surrendered to Japanese troops in Shandong, China sought to reclaim the province by reaffirming its neutrality in the war. However, Japan forced the Chinese President, Yuan Shikai, to sign the Twenty-One Demands Treaty, which forced China to recognize Japan’s rights over Shandong. This was yet another example of an unfair treaty that granted another foreign power rights and privileges in China. In the years following the end of World War I, Japan colonized Taiwan, and in 1939 occupied Manchuria. Japanese troops raped and murdered hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens. 22 The Chinese people have 17 CHAN, M. “Rule of Law and China’s Unequal Treaties: Conceptions of the Rule of Law and Its Role in Chinese International Law and Diplomatic Relations in the Early Twentieth Century,” 25 Penn History Review (2019), p. 20. 18 WONG, D. Ibid. 19 Chinese Exclusion Case, U.S. Supreme Court, 1885. 20 WU TINGFANG, America, Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat (1914), p. 64. 21 CHOI, S. “Nationalism and Martyrdom: Shinto-Shrine Controversy during the Japanese Colonial Regime in Korea,” at https://core.ac.uk/download. 22 For a comprehensive study of Japanese atrocities in Manchuria, see IRIS CHANG, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (2012). 15 WONG, D. China Unequal Treaties: Narrating National History , (2005), p. 1. 16 Ibid.

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