The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 17, 1926, Page 11

oe ATORY OF CHINA with the Oppressive Regime of Western nee SHERMAN H. M. CHANG. jde. This was the first cession of territory imposed on China by a foreign power, In 1845 the British se- red again the setting aside of & special area at Shang- | for commercial purposes, this area being knowrz as » International Settlement, since it was to be open all; The Shanghai settlement became the model for }) foreign settlements subsequently opened at other jaty ports. jfrom 18658 to 1860 Great Britain and France joined jods to wage another war against China tn order to }ure more privileges thru new treaties. As a result the defeat of China, new treaties were made be- een China on the one hand, and thé ‘British, the ench, the Americans and the Russiahs on the other, ‘the latter two had the same demands as the former ee as oe ee a r. The 2w, treaties made in 1860 opened new ports, ve delinition and certainty to the principle of extra- titoriality, legalized the opium trade and settled the tails with regard to a number of rights demanded foreigners. ; That was not all. The economic control over China the foreign imperialistic powers provided in these saties-was the rate-fixing of the Chinese tariff at five r cent—ad valorem’ by these powers. It is by this ovision that China has lost her tariff autonomy and nsequently her economic independence, In addition to these privileges, the British secured »wloon-wan opposite Honkong, and Czarist Russia ined a territory in the northeast of Ohina contiguous Siberia, In each of these treaties there appeared the most- vored-nation clause, which provided for free and ual participation in all the privileges, immunities, and vantages that have been or may be hereafter granted * China to the government or subjects of any other ition. The provisions of these treaties were extended, ru the operation of the most-favored-nation clause, all the powers which have had treaties with China; ey constitute the foundation of the privileges en- ed by foreigners. It is thru these treaties, maintain- om by military force, that China is being subjected to ie yoke of imperialism and suffers from economic ex- oitation. It is also these treaties that the Chinese, eppecially the workers and students, are trying nore to db away with. There are now fifteen treaty nations who have en- yed, and still are enjoying, extra-territoriality and er privileges. These are Great Britain, France, the nited" States, Japan, Italy, Denmark, Peru, Brazil and fexico. After the Great War, Germany and Austria- " aes il lost their privileges. Soviet Russia voluntar- events left the greatst impressions in Grishka’s l Ene was doing guard duty with his link at the ion of the Moscow Soviet. The pioneers entered meeting hall with drum beats. They were admitted the platform. Grishka made a brief speech of greet- » and the chairman replied. The gathering, all known revolutionaries, stood up, applauding. Then the entire pioneer group was placed in various sections of the hall to do duty, to bring to the chairman notes from the delegates, to show everyone his seat. Grish- ka was placed on the platform next to the presidium and did “a lot of technical work,” according to the re- port he subsequently delivered to the plant group. The second event was his father’s enlisting in the Communist Party. Grishka. “nagged” his. father so long, he told him so many tales about Lenin and the Communists that his father finally said, “Do as you wish. I know this is your time.” When Grishka brought his father into the bureau of the yatcheika, leading him by his sleeve, and to the secretary's query, replied with an exaggeratedly calm face, “Well, I brought dad to enter the party,” nobody could equal him in the whole wide world, Now Grishka is planning to change his name. Grish- ka, Grigory, he says, are church names, priests’ names, It smacks of old times, A pioneer, he says, must have 4 hew name, He has not decided, however, whether to call himself Spartak or Skram, which is the reverse or Marx, weir ee Sse FS! © anf co-operated with them during the course of_ fly relinquished the privileges enjoyed by the czarist regime. Foreign Imperialists Dominating Chinese Life. TURNING back to the question of tariff, not only was the rate fixed in the treaties, but also the admin- istration of the Maritime Customs was placed under the control of foreign powers—especially Great Brit- ain—without the basis of any. treaty. During 1850, at the time of the civil. war in China, one British, one American and one Frenchman were employed by .the Chinese officials as three members of a customs com- mittee, assisting in. the administration. By and by they got its actual control, being. backed up by their gov- ernments. Front 1854. to the present time, the chief officers of the Chinese Customs House have. been for- eigners who have, been. nominally appointed by the Chinese government, but actually, nominated by the foreign ministers to China, .Jt was not until 1898 that the employment of foreigners in the Chinese Maritime Customs was. provided in a treaty. In.1898 a treaty was made between Ohina-and Great Britan, providing that the post of Inspector-General of Maritime Customs shall continue to be filled by a British subject as long as the British trade shall continue larger than that of any other country. In the same year the French, fol- lowing this example, demanded that the post of Direc- tor-General of the Chinese Post-Office be filled by a Frenchman, This was first refused and later granted. From 1860 to 1900 was a period of scramble for con- cessions from China. According to the most-favored- nation clause, the position of China became that of an incompetent elder brother. When the little brother, say, Great Britain, secured a piece of candy, a cession, the little sister, say, France, demanded an identical piece, also a cession. Thus in 1883 Portugal secured Macao; in 1885 France, Indo-China; in 1886 Great Britain, Burmah; and in 1893 Great Britain and France, the sourthern part of Siam. In 1895 the Chino-Jap- anese War was ended in ceding to Japan Formosa and in recognizing the complete independence of Korea which had been a dependency of China, In addition to these outright cessions, there were made during this period leascholds—territorial mutila- tion by lease. In this way, in 1897, the Germans got Kiaochow-wan; in 1898, the British occupied Wei-hai- wei and the whole peninsula of Kowloon, the French secured Kwanchow-wan,’ the Russians posséssed Port Arthur and Talien-wan. : It was these leaseholds together with other privi- leges that constituted the “sphere of influences.” For instance, we find in the treaties of 1897 and 1898 such provisions as the following: under no circum- stances would the Yangtze Valley be ceded to any oth- er power than Great Britain; any part of the provinces bordering on Tonking—namely, Kwantung, Kwausi, Yurlan—cannot be alienated to any country except France, and the materials or equipmefits needed to build railways in these provinces can only be bought from France; Germany has the right to build certain Tailways in the province of Shantung, to open mines along the railways, and to have the first call of loans and other forms of assistance in case China undertakes with foreign aid to develop the province; a number of privileges in the adjoining region of Port Arthur and Talien-wan and along the railway in the North shall be guaranteed exclusively to the Russians; the province of Fukien can never be ceded or leased to any power other than Japan. These are “spheres of in- fluences.” But a scrutiny of the words used by the Chinese government in the treaties shows that it had no such intention. The Chinese phraseology carries a denial of any intention to alienate any part of these regions to anybody. Such was the situation in_China at the end of 1898. Germany had secured her foothold in Shantung; Rus- sia was ready to make herself at home in Manchuria; France and Great Britain had taken ports in the south- west. France had special. interests in Yunan, Great Britain had asserted her claim to the Yangtze Valley as 4 sphere of influence and considered the region ad- jacent to Honkong another sphere of interest. Japan had earmarked Fukien province. Only the United States had as yet asked for nothing by way of terri- tory and had been given nothing except the substan- tial privileges based. on extra-territoriality and treaty tariff, which were common. to all treaty nations. The United States was just beginning to penetrate China and therefore enunciated the open door policy in the Far East—a policy which would give the United States at least an equality of commercial opportunity, the game as enjoyed by the older imperialist powers, " ' The Boxer Uprising. B™ it was this scramble for concessions during the latter half of the 19th century, that led to the Boxer uprising in 1900...This uprising was the first mass movement against imperialism in Chinese his- tory, for it included the masses of people. Had it not been for the aggressions of the powers, nobody would have believed that such a movement could take place. Of course, the method employed by the masses at that time was not the most politically effective, Neverthe- less its significance as a reaction against imperialism * Internal transit duties, was great. It was ended in a treaty of 1901, known as the Peace Protocol, some important provisions of which are as follows: That China should pay an indemnity of 450,000,000 Haikwan (customs) taels (about $325,000,000) et a fixed rate of exchange, the amortization to be com- pleted by the end of 1940, the customs revenues, the native customs, and the salt revenues being made security; That the legation quarter at Peking be under the exclusive control of the foreign nations, with no Chi nese residents, and with the right to be made de fensible; That China should raze the Taku ports and others which might impede free communication between Peking and the sea. That the foreign powers might station troops at cer- tain points in North China; That the Chinese tariff be revised. It is noticeable that no subtraction from China’s ter- ritories was made in this treaty. In conformity with the provision regarding the tariff an international com- mission met at Shanghai to make the necessary re- vision. The agreement which this commission arrived at (August 29, 1902), providing for bringing the tariff up to an “effective 5%” and that “all duties levied on imports ad valorem be converted as far as feasible into specific duties,” was signed by twelve powers, This indicates that even the five per cent rate had not been made effective before this time, : A separate Anglo-Chinese treaty, known as the “Mackay Treaty, was signed in 1902. Article III of this treaty provided for the abolishing by China of likin* and other transit duties. In return, Great Gritain con- sented that “foreign goods on importation, in addition to the effective 5 per cent import duty shall pay a special surtax equivalent to one and a half times the said duty to compensate for the abolition of the Mkin, of transit duties in lieu of likin, and of all other tax- ation on foreign goods,” and that the export tax be raised to not more than 7% per cent. This provision would mean the raising of China’s import duties from the existing 5 plus 2% per cent to 12 per cent, All other powers later made similar agreements with China. However, these provisions have never been given force. The relinquishment of foreign control of Chinese tariff was discussed in the Washington confer ence, 1921; and negotiations on tuls matter are now unsuccessfully being carried on at the tariff confer- ence in Peking. EEO SNNLINS MO ati ct Ace — et cence ten © re