Treaty of Wanghia

Treaty of Wanghia

Treaty of peace, amity, and commerce, between the United States of America and the Chinese Empire
Type	Bilateral / Unequal
Signed	3 July 1844 (1844-07-03)
Location	Kun Iam Temple in Portuguese Macau
Negotiators	Caleb Cushing Keying
Parties	Qing dynasty United States
Languages	English and Chinese
Full text
Treaty of Wanghia at Wikisource

Treaty of Wanghia
Traditional Chinese	望廈條約
Simplified Chinese	望厦条约
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wàngxià tiáoyuē Wade–Giles Wang-hsia T'iao-yüeh Yue: Cantonese Jyutping mong6 haa6 tiu4 joek3

Façade of the Kun Iam Temple, where the treaty was signed.

The Treaty of Wanghia (also known as the Treaty of Wangxia; Treaty of peace, amity, and commerce, between the United States of America and the Chinese Empire; Chinese: [中美]望廈條約 / [中美]望厦条约) was the first of the unequal treaties imposed by the United States on the Qing dynasty. By the terms of the diplomatic agreement, the United States received the same privileges with China that Great Britain had achieved under the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. The United States received additional privileges as well, including the right to cabotage on preferential terms and the expansion of extraterritoriality. Imperial China's Qing dynasty signed the treaty with the United States on July 3, 1844, in the Kun Iam Temple. The treaty was subsequently passed by the US Congress and ratified by President John Tyler on January 17, 1845. The Treaty of Wanghia was formally in effect until the signing of the 1943 Sino-American Treaty for the Relinquishment of Extraterritorial Rights in China.

Name

The treaty was named after a village in northern Macau where the temple is located, called Mong Ha or Wang Hia (traditional Chinese: 望廈; simplified Chinese: 望厦; pinyin: Wàngxià; Cantonese Yale: Mohng Hah). It is now a part of the territory's Our Lady of Fátima Parish.

Treaty contents

The United States was represented by Caleb Cushing, a Massachusetts lawyer dispatched by President John Tyler under pressure from American merchants concerned about British dominance in trade with China. Physician and missionary Peter Parker served as Cushing's Chinese interpreter. The Qing dynasty was represented by Keying, the Viceroy of Liangguang, who held responsibility for the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi.)

The treaty was modeled after the treaties of Nanking and the Bogue between the United Kingdom and China, but differed in being more detailed. Among other things, it contained provisions for:

• Extraterritoriality, whereby Chinese subjects would be tried and punished under Chinese law and American citizens would be tried and punished under the authority of the American consul or other public functionaries authorized to that effect
• Fixed tariffs on trade in the treaty ports
• The right to buy land in the five treaty ports and erect churches and hospitals there
• The right to learn Chinese by abolishing a law that had forbidden foreigners to do so
• Most favored nation status for the United States, resulting in the United States receiving the same beneficial treatment China gave to other Western powers and the right to modify the treaty after 12 years

The United States also granted the Chinese Empire powers to confiscate American ships operating outside treaty ports and withdrew consular protection in cases in which American citizens were trading in opium, under articles 3 and 33, respectively. Furthermore, the US agreed to hand over any offenders to China. (Americans entered the opium trade with less expensive but inferior Turkish opium and by 1810 had around 10% of the trade in Canton.)

See also

• Western imperialism in Asia
• China–United States relations

References

• Dennett, Tyler. Americans in eastern Asia; a critical study of the policy of the United States with reference to China, Japan and Korea in the 19th century (1922) online
• Downs, Jacques M., and Frederic D. Grant Jr. The Golden Ghetto: the American commercial community at canton and the shaping of American China Policy, 1784–1844 (Hong Kong University Press, 2014) online.
• Henson Jr., Curtis T. Commissioners and Commodores: The East Indian Squadron and American Diplomacy in China (U of Alabama Press, 1982)
• Kuo, Ping Chia. "Caleb Cushing and the Treaty of Wanghia, 1844". The Journal of Modern History 5, no. 1 (1933): 34–54. online
• Le Pichon, Alain. "Howqua And the Howqua: how a Chinese monopolist saved American free-traders from financial ruin." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch 50 (2010): 99–121. online
• Swisher, Earl, ed. China's Management of the American Barbarians; a Study of Sino-American Relations, 1841–1861, with Documents. New Haven, CT: Published for the Far Eastern Association by Far Eastern Publications, Yale University, 1953.
• Welch, Richard E. "Caleb Cushing's Chinese Mission and the Treaty of Wanghia: A Review." Oregon Historical Quarterly 58.4 (1957): 328–357. online