Seeing the History of Shanghai and China through the Shanghai Concession Culture during the late 19th Century and early 20th Century

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Abstract:

The Shanghai we know today is often described as the most economically prosperous city in China and East Asia area. It is a westernized hub integrating cultures and ideas influx from all over the world. However, dating back to Qing dynasty, the last imperial period before Shanghai opened up to the world, China has experienced a long time of extreme exclusion and antiforeignism. In 1793, Emperor Qianlong refused to import any foreign goods, claimed self-sufficient, and called western people “barbarians[1].” How, therefore, did Shanghai transform into a globalized city? And what roles did Shanghai play in the China modern history in terms of its economic, cultural, and political impact. This essay will follow a chronical order of the Shanghai history, with a major focus on the 1840-1943 period, to discuss and analyze its historical function and significance for both itself and China.

The opening up of Shanghai was the direct result of the Opium War and the Treaty of Nanjing. In 1840, the Opium War broke out because of the long dispute over trading between the Britain and the Qing Emperor. Because of Qing’s uncooperative attitude, the British further advanced up and north, entering and taking over cities like Macao, Canton and Hongkong. Eventually, the war ended in 1842 with the Treaty of Nanjing established, enabling the British to “carry on their mercantile transactions with whatever persons they please[2].” As a result of the treaty, China opened five ports, including Shanghai, Canton, Xiamen, Fuzhou, and Ningbo to transact free trade. Following the British treatise, France, United States and Japan soon joined to claim interests and established enclaves in Shanghai. Like the British, they came to seek commercial opportunities. In 1845, the French government sent diplomat Marie Melchior Joseph Théodose de Lagrené to the five ports to compare their perspective advantages. After the investigation, Lagrené reported that Shanghai is more favorable than other ports in terms of its price advantageous geography and lower cost in silk and tea[3]. Although many regards the treaty a humiliation and shame because of its unequal trading conditions, it is truly the turning point for China and the beginning of a “new era[4]” allowing it to finally initiate the process of industrialization and civilization. Shanghai, as the most important port because of its privileged geographical location, allows more westerners bringing in new cultures, laws, architectures, technologies, educations and more.

Before 1842, Shanghai has no significance in the Chinese history and was merely a poor fishing village sitting on the east coast of China. However, the British had a wise perspective on its geographic location. Firstly, Shanghai’s advantageous geographical location endows it with abundant water supply, moderate sunlight, rainfall, and fertile lands, cultivating high yield of salt, cotton, and agriculture productions. Moreover, it is the connection to the broader China. Locating on the Yangtze estuary of China’s east coast, Shanghai has multiple rivers and streams such as Huangpu River directly and openly connecting to the East Sea, which eventually flows into to the Pacific Ocean. It makes it both the entrance from the western world, and the major route that must be passed in order to reach the inner China mainland. Shanghai serves as a gateway to the broader China. Owning Shanghai is owning the valley of Yangtze, including “one-half of the China Proper area, population, agriculture areas and manufacturing[5].” To be specific, peripheral cities around Shanghai such as Suzhou, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Anhui and other regions along the Yangtze River are also major production areas of grains, tea and silk. In terms of population, the Yangtze River delta area encompasses the most density and most wealth accumulation. This makes Shanghai economically developed to afford and consume imported goods. Perfect geo-location, advanced transportation and lower cost all make Shanghai the wonderland for westerners. This led Shanghai to enter the stage of concessions, as well as the Shanghai International Settlement in 1863, foreshadowing the immense economic, cultural, and political impacts on Shanghai and China.

As seen in the map of Shanghai (1849-1946) in graph 1[6]., there are two major sections of the concessions, the French Concession and the International Settlement. The International Settlement is taken by the British and American municipal councils. The region is bounded south to the Soochow creek, north to the Avenue Joffree approximately, and encircled by Huangpu River. As compared to today, it resembles Huangpu, Jing’an, Hongkou and Yangpu District. On the other hand, the French Concession is ruled by French municipal councils. And it resembles today’s Huangpu and Xuhui District. Apart from all the concessions, there left a walled old city, known as Laochengxiang, locating west to the Bund, and resembling today’s center of Huangpu District.

(graph.1 The Map of Shanghai Concession- Map: Avenue Joffre and the old Shanghai)

This segmentation of Shanghai’s land made Shanghai unique in its political and economical administration. Not only did Shanghai embodied three systems within one city, as each concession and the old city performed under its corresponding country’s law, but it also took a neutral stand in the future Sino-Japanese War and the World War[7]. This neutral stand makes the city a safe land for protecting western refugees and taking advantage of their wealth influx.

The sudden economic boom took in two dimensions. Firstly, it came from the westerners conducting trading and commercial activities from the late 19th century till the early 20th century. And secondly, it came from local Chinese such as Suzhou and Ningbo as they flee from the Small Sword Society rebellions and Taiping rebellions, bringing new energies and business into the concessions. Starting off with the westerners, both youngsters and businessman who were already successful both came to Shanghai for more opportunities. Edward Ward, a reporter from Reuters came to the French Concession from London, finding that his wages have doubles while living expenses were only half of what they used to be. This means more investment and more saving. Elly Kadoorie, a member of the wealthy Kadoorie Jewish family actively engaged in banking business in Shanghai during the 1880s and became a famous banker in Shanghai[8]. Even some global companies such as AIG were founded in Shanghai International Settlement in 1919. JPMorgan Chase and PWC opened their first branch outside of the U.S. in Shanghai. Without any doubt, Shanghai played an important role in financial and economic development as early as the 1800s-1900s.

Not only did westerners contribute, but Chinese also impacted the economic development. The Small Sword Rebellion in 1853 and Taiping Rebellion in 1860 forced millions of Chinese swarmed into concessions and relaunch their business and families all over again. With new Shanghainese running companies and factories within the concessions, their earned income flow back to the cities they originally came from, and thereby boosting the national economy. For example, there were a lot of Anhui and Canton Shanghainese in flour, or textile mills that would send back money to their original families[9]. To sum up, both international and domestic factors help boost Shanghai and China’s economic development.

Continuing the discussion of Small Sword Rebellion and Taiping Rebellion, political unstrings during the late 19^th century has another impact of helping the concessions establishing jurisdiction system and administrative authorities in Shanghai. After the formation of the French Concession, the population gradually increased. More importantly, with the Taiping Rebellion and its capture of Nanjing in March 1853, refugees from the surrounding areas of Shanghai seek asylum in the concessions. The difficulty of management correspondingly increased. Therefore, new administrative systems from Europe began to take root in Shanghai and began to affect the whole country. These administration authorities take in three forms: land regulation, which helped Shanghai established laws regarding finance and tax; court, which helped Shanghai established modern judiciary; and police force, which helped Shanghai established public security. These three major improvements accelerate Shanghai and China to enter modernity and civilization.

Observing the huge amount of business transactions conducted within the concessions, Mr. R Alcock, the British Council pointed out the urge for a stronger authority and power over the land and tax system. “To give that cosmopolitan community a legal status, an existence as a body capable of taking legal actions and of lending a legal sanction to measures required for their defense,” said Alcock, “there must be some organizations to take the form of a representative Council with Municipal powers and authority[10].” Alcock’s remarks promoted the establishment of the Roads and Jetties Committee and the Land Regulation in 1854. Since then, the electorate meets at least once a year, supervising and amending possible regulations such as rent and tax policy. The committee took responsibility of overseeing every buy and sell of houses, lands, and tax activities. The tax revenue not only benefits the westerners, but also benefits the Chinese municipal as Chinese representatives joined the council in 1928[11].

In 1868, the Qing government and the British, French and American envoys in China agreed to set up a court for Chinese and foreigners to jointly hear cases, known as the joint trial court, a western judicial system. Chinese people began to familiarize with the judicial system of prosecution, evidence collection, trial, defense, and judgment. It changed their traditional practices of extorting confessions by severe punishment during Qing Dynasty. From there, China began to embark on the modern judicial system[12].

In 1918, the concessions have experienced three expansions, accompanied with more governing and administrative agencies. Police force became stronger than ever. New positions such as police arrest, public security, and interrogation/investigation were new to Chinese, allowing them to get in touch with western government functions.

In terms of culture impact, Shanghai concessions received a lot of westernized civilizations in both practical and spiritual forms since these areas are beyond reach of Qing administration and law. After experiencing the long closed Qing Dynasty, the invasion of foreign culture brought strong culture shock to Chinese as some of their traditions were changed drastically. These culture impact first penetrated Shanghai and would spread to the broader China, bringing profound changed to the ancient empire. The first culture shock is drastic improvements in city planning with new infrastructure and better public services. In 1860, Shanghai started to build sewage system and plant trees on two sides of roads. In 1860, Shanghai applied unified naming system for roads. In 1864, public food markets and public toilets were built. In 1865, the first gas streetlamp finally appeared. And in 1874, regulations concerning time for throwing garbage were promulgated, as well as traffic laws. Even though these might sound trivial in modern sense, they were truly innovations and improvements during the 19^th century that Chinese have never even seen.

More importantly, concessions are the center for intellectual activities, publishing, and education reforms. Protected by foreign laws, and unreachable by Qing laws, politicians, thinkers, and reformers, especially those anti-Manchu leaders gathered here to challenge the old traditional Manchuria’s feudalism. As an outcome, modern newspapers were published starting from 1860s[13]. For example, on May 15, 1909, Yu Youren launched the Minhu Daily, paraphrased as appealing to the public. This paper aimed to “speak out for the people,” and expose the corruption and decadence within the Qing officials. Successively, Yu lauched two more newspapers, Minyu Daily and Minli Daily. In 1900s, streets such as Wangping St., Shandong Rd., and Fuzhou Rd. were packed with newspapers and publishers, making Shanghai the cultural center of China[14].At the time, Shanghai was indeed a relatively safe and free space to critical ideas and remarks. This gave rise to education reform that also took place under the Shanghai concessions. There were new private schools, missionary schools, catholic schools, new examination system and curriculum.

But among all these changes in education, the most significant revolution was the more equalized access to education for women, which also marks the beginning of feminism and women empowerment in China. The movement for girls’ schools took place between the Sino-Japanese war in 1894 and the Wuxu reform in 1898, accompanied by voice against foot-binding and other inhumane restrictions toward women. This gender equality in education and social life also underlines the ways in which education is targeted for “saving the nation” as women progressively take more roles in social and political realms. In 1898, Shanghai started the campaign for women empowerment. Li run, the wife of Tan sitong, successfully established the first women’s association, Nü xuehui, in China. The association aimed to discuss women's education and women's rights. Later on, with the support of Liang Qichao and others, the campaign also founded the first Chinese school for young women, Nü xuetang and the first women’s journal, Nü xuebao[15]. As seen in graph 2[16] below, it presents the first issue of the women’s journal. On top of it has a line in bold saying “Chinese Girl’s Progress.” As aspiring as it could be, the journal served to arouse women identity at that time. In general, Shanghai led the national feminism campaign by promoting women education, self-cultivation, and reform against the Qing feudalism, making it an avant-garde city in China.

(graph 2. Volume No.0 Issue No.1, 1898-07-24 of NU XUE BAO (1898) )

In February 1943, the International Settlement returned to Chinese rule as part of the British/American-Chinese Treaty under the Nationalist government by Chiang Kai-shek. In the same year, French returned the French Concession back to the Republic of China under the pressure from Nazi. With the end of WWII and Chinese Civil War as westerners and KMD left the city, after almost a hundred years, Shanghai’s concession period has come to an end. While its legacy and demise continue, the years between 1849 and 1943 were truly the golden age of Shanghai. Since the publication of Shenbao in the 1970s[17], such comments have been published every once in a while. People praise the spacious and tidy city plan, the trees along the streets, saying the Bund Boulevard is better than Paris. The reputation of municipal administration in Shanghai concession spread far and wide.

Indeed, Shanghai has experienced a remarkable rise in terms of economics, culture and politics. In the beginning, the advanced technologies and cultures brought by the westerners such as clean roads, strict and effective tax system, and education reforms were a sheer contrast to Chinese’s messy and outdated image. However, not only did those helped broadened the Chinese scope on civilization, but also stimulate other regions in broader China to accelerate development. In conclusion, Shanghai has set a good example for China, which has a long-term, extensive yet silent influence on the brewing and development of the China reform. Its impact is still extending to the contemporary days and has much more to offer in the future.

[1] Ch'ien Lung Letter to George III (1792) http://www.history.ucsb.edu/fa...

[2] J. Mason Gentzler, Changing China: Readings in the History of China from the Opium War to the Present. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1977.

[3] Hillier, Andrew. "Opening the Treaty Ports." In Mediating Empire: An English Family in China, 1817-1927, 29-53. Folkestone: Renaissance Books, 2020.

[4] Tanner, Harold Miles. China: A History, Volume 2: From the Great Qing Empire through The People's Republic of China, (1644-2009). Hackett Publishing, 2010. Page. 79

[5] Orchard, John E. "Shanghai." Geographical Review 26, no. 1 (1936): 1-31.

[6] Sun Bin, Map: Avenue Joffre and the old Shanghai. 2007-06-09

[7] Bloch, Kurt. "The Basic Conflict over Foreign Concessions in China." Far Eastern Survey 8, no. 10 (1939): 111-16.

[8] Lockwood, William W. "The International Settlement at Shanghai, 1924-34." The American Political Science Review 28, no. 6 (1934): 1030-046.

[9] Bloch, Kurt. "The Basic Conflict over Foreign Concessions in China." Far Eastern Survey 8, no. 10 (1939): 111-16.

[10] Fraser, C. F. "The Status of the International Settlement at Shanghai." Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law 21, no. 1 (1939): 38-53.

[11] Fraser, C. F. "The Status of the International Settlement at Shanghai." Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law 21, no. 1 (1939): 38-53.

[12] Hung, Veron Mei-Ying. Report. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005.

[13] Tanner, Harold Miles. China: A History, Volume 2: From the Great Qing Empire through The People's Republic of China, (1644-2009). Hackett Publishing, 2010. Page. 93

[14] Wu, Fuhui, Myra Ma, and Dewei Wang. A Cultural History of Modern Chinese Literature. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

[15] Qian, Nanxiu. “Politics, Poetics, and Gender in Late Qing China,” 2015.

[16] Volume No.0 Issue No.1: 1898-07-24 of 女學報NU XUE BAO (1898) CHINESE GIRL'S PROGRESS. Heidelberg, Universität. kjc.

[17] Wu, Fuhui, Myra Ma, and Dewei Wang. A Cultural History of Modern Chinese Literature. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2020.