Evening star., 1942-10-11
ExtruterritorioI Riqhts


Simultaneous announcements by
the American and British govern
ments that they were entering ne
gotiations with Chungking for the
REIMBURSEMENT of extraterritorial
rights in China are psychologically
we'll timed. They came on the eve
OF the thirty-first anniversary of the
establishment of the Chinese Repub-
lie, and arc thus calculated to height
en- Chinese morale and strengthen
the bonds between Free China and its
Western Allies.
The special status of foreigners in
China is a survival of what was once
widely accepted as international prac-
tice. Extraterritorial rights of for
eign communities run back into re-
mote antiquity. They arose where
ever groups of foreign traders settled
in countries with widely different
codes and practices. The basic reason
for extraterritoriality was one of mu-
Oaebi o0f dA1Co6C. DULL SlOCS 4Oullu ~
easier to maintain commercial rela-
tions when the foreign traders were
under the jurisdiction of their own
consular representatives with whom
the native government could deal for
the adjustment of difficulties which
might arise. The system prevailed
throughout. mediaeval Europe and
the Near East, and with the age of
discovery was translated to the Mid
die and Far East as a matter of
course. In those times, there was
no implied humiliation involved.
To be sure, China assented reluc-
family to the establishment of ex-
Intentionally century ago, but
this was due, not to offended national
sentiment, but rather to China's re-
luctance to have contact of any kind
with foreigners. The China of that
day was a self contained and self
complacent world in itself, which re-
garded every one outside the Middle
Kingdom" as an unpleasant barbar-
ian. Early foreign traders, mostly in
the Southern Chinese ports, had an
uncertain legal status which pro-
duced continual friction and trouble.
The upshot was that Britain, then
the dominant Western power in the
Far East, resorted to force in order
to regularize the situation. Unable
to resist British arms, the Chinese
government signed an extraterri-
torial treaty with the victor in 1842,
and two years later a similar treaty
was signed with the United States.
During those years the system was
extended to most other Western
nations.
4, There can be no doubt that the
weakness of the old Chinese Empire
led Western nations to exact wide
spread concessions and privileges in
compatible with Western conceptions
Of sovereignty, best exemphfied by the
international Settlement at Shang-
hal, which was full-f1edged Western
enclave on Chinese soil. But the
system did not arouse Chinese patri-
otto resentment until China itself,
under the impact of Western ideas,
began to develop the distinctively
Western concept of nationality. The
revolution of 1911, which overthrew
the rule of the Manchus, themselves
an alien dynasty, and transformed
China from an Oriental empire into
republic modelled on Western lines,
marked the logical end of an extra
territorial system which no longer
fitted the trend of the times. It
would probably have been abolished
long since if China had quickly
translated its nationalistic aspira-
ton into a working reality. That
was what happened in Japan, and
later in Siam. Unfortunately, the
revolution of 1911 ushered in long
period of internal disunity and civil
war. Conditions were so disturbed
that resident foreigners required the
protection of their legal rights to
maintain themselves and their prop
erty. Japanese armed intervention
in China, which began a decade ago,
complicated the situation Just when
a firm central government was estab-
fishing itself Nevertheless, negotia-
tions have been going on for years,
and they seem now to be destined for
a satisfactory conclusion.