Journal of Social Science Volume 17 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA. BY PRESIDENT ANGELL, OF MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY. (Read Thursday, Sept. 7,1882.) Our diplomatic relations with China began with the negotiation of the Gushing Treaty in 1844. That treaty was made possible by the so-called Opium War. Whatever condemnation we may pronounce upon the British for their part in that war, we must remember that we entered China in peace because they had entered before us by war. It is very probable that, even to this day, peaceful requests alone would not have opened the gates of China to the Western world. No one who has lived in China long enough to understand the temper of the lettered class, the gentry and most of the officials, can doubt that, if it were practicable, those classes would gladly see the foreigners as rigidly excluded as they were prior to 1842. Perhaps in all Mr. Cushing's diplomatic career, no task of his was more admirably executed than the Treaty of Wanghia. It formed the model for the treaties which several European powers subsequently made with China. Its leading features were as follows: 1. It made all needed arrangements fpr carrying on trade and commerce at the five principal ports. 2. It provided for the trial of the cases, in which American citizens were defendants, in our Consular Courts. 3. It secured protection and aid for our seamen wrecked at other places than the five ports. 4. It contained the assent of the Chinese government to our employment of Chinese teachers, which had often been denied. 5. It secured the privilege of procuring sites for business, and also for hospitals, churches and cemeteries. 6. It declared opium contraband, and left Americans dealing in it to the tender mercies of the Chinese authorities. 7. It fixed ...