Shanghai International Settlement

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The flag of the Shanghai International Settlement
1933 map of Shanghai.
"The Gardens (Huangpu Park) are reserved for the Foreign Community".

The Shanghai International Settlement (上海公共租界) (1854–1943) was an entity comprising what were once the British, American and other national foreign concessions of Shanghai, China.

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[edit] History of the Shanghai International Settlement

While Europeans had already shown interest in Shanghai's strategic position as a port, the first settlement in Shanghai for foreigners was only opened in 1843, just after the first Anglo-Chinese Opium War. A consul-building was hired outside Shanghai's walled-city, just to the south of the Soochow Creek, and it soon became the epicentre of the British concession. A French Concession was formed soon thereafter, though was never formally brought into the later International Settlement and so remained a separate entity.

The first steps towards putting the "International" into Shanghai's Foreign Settlement effectively began in July 1844 when a Massachusetts politician, Caleb Cushing, was dispatched by US President Tyler with orders to "save the Chinese from the condition of being an exclusive monopoly in the hands of England" as a consequence of the Treaty of Nanjing. Cushing signed a treaty with the Imperial Chinese government at Wangxia which contained a clause that effectively carved out Shanghai as an extraterritorial zone within Imperial China, though it did not actually give the American government a true legal concession. [1] It was only 1845 that Britain followed in America's footsteps and signed a land-deal that would allow Britons to rent land in Shanghai in perpetuity. On 11 July 1854 a committee of Western businessmen met and held the first annual meeting of the Shanghai Municipal Council, ignoring protests of consular officials, and laid down the Land Regulations which established the principles of self-government. The aims of this first Council were simply to assist in the formation of roads, refuse collection and taxation across the disparate Concessions.

During the Taiping Rebellion, and with the Concessions under siege by both the Manchu government and Small Swords Society rebels, the Western residents of the Shanghai International Settlement, known as "Shanghailanders", refused to pay taxes to the Chinese government except for land and maritime rates (nominally because Shanghai's customs house had been burnt down). They also claimed the right to exclude Chinese troops from the concession areas. In 1863 the American concession (land fronting the Huangpu River to the north-east of Suzhou Creek) joined the British Settlement (stretching from Yang-ching-pang Creek to Suzhou Creek) to become the Shanghai International Settlement. The French concession remained independent and the Chinese retained control over the original walled city and the area surrounding the foreign enclaves. This lead to sometimes absurd administrative outcomes, such as the need to have three drivers' licenses to travel through the complete city.

By the late-1860s Shanghai's official governing body had been practically transferred from the individual concessions to the Shanghai Municipal Council (工部局, literally "Works Department", from the standard English local government title of 'Board of works'). The International Settlement was wholly foreign-controlled, with the council was staffed by individuals of all nationalities, including Britons, Americans, New Zealanders, Australians, Danes, Germans (before 1916) and Japanese (after 1916). No Chinese residing in the International Settlement were permitted to join its council until 1928.

Representing a wide spectrum of nations, the Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC) along with the foreign residents of the International Settlement recreated the architecture and institutions of their homelands in Shanghai. It maintained its own police force, the Shanghai Municipal Police and even possessed its own military reserve in the Shanghai Volunteer Corps (萬國商團). The immense presence of the council and the settlement's foreign residents can still be seen throughout present day Shanghai, most notably the architecture of The Bund.

Amongst the many members who served on the council, its American chairman during the 1920s, Stirling Fessenden, is the most notable. In addition to serving as the settlement's main administrator during Shanghai's most turbulent era, he was also remembered for being more "British" than the council's British members. The International Settlement was not a British possession in the sense that Hong Kong or Weihei were, and was instead ruled as a treaty port under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking 1842. Chinese sovereignty still prevailed on the territory, but individuals who were not Chinese and were members of the Fourteen Favoured Nations were granted extraterritoriality. The SMC did however exercise a considerable degree of political autonomy.

Though theoretically transnational, the International Settlement was dominated by the nationals of one or the other of two countries: Britain and Japan. Until the late-1920s, the SMC and its subsidiaries, including the police and public works, were almost entirely British controlled. Some of the SMC's actions during this period, such as the May 30th Movement, in which Chinese demonstrators were shot by members of the Shanghai Municipal Police, embarrassed and threatened the British Empire's position in China. By the turn of the 1930s, however, Japan was swiftly becoming the most powerful national group in Shanghai and accounted for some 80% of all extraterritorial foreigners in China. Much of Hongkew, which had become an unofficial Japanese settlement, was soon known as Little Tokyo. In 1931, protection of Japanese colonists from Chinese in Hongkew was used as a pretext for the Shanghai Incident, when Japanese troops invaded Shanghai. From then until the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) Hongkew was almost entirely outside of the SMC's hands, with law and protection enforced to varying degrees by the Japanese Consular Police.

While the Settlement had at first disallowed non-foreigners entry, from the late-1850s a large number of Chinese were allowed residency in the International Settlement, either to escape civil conflict, or to seek better economic opportunities. In 1932 there were already 1,040,780 Chinese living within the International Settlement, with another 400,000 fleeing into the area after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937. For the next five years, the International Settlement and the French Concession were surrounded by Japanese occupiers and Chinese revolutionaries, with conflict often spilling into the Settlement's borders. Anglo-American influence effectively ended after 8 December 1941, when the Imperial Japanese Army entered and occupied the city. Although senior Allied personnel and councillors were removed from their posts, a majority of Allied nationals working for the administration remained in their jobs until they were interned after February 1943.

A 1939 Japanese map of Shanghai. The area for "stateless refugees" (Jews) is marked in black.

However, amongst all this, Shanghai was notable for a long period as the only place in the world that unconditionally offered refuge for Jews escaping from the Nazis[2]. These refugees often lived in squalid conditions in an area known as the Shanghai ghetto in Hongkew. On 21 August 1941 the Japanese government closed Hongkew to further Jewish immigration.

The Settlement's Council was formally abolished twice. In July 1943 it was retroceded to the City Government of Shanghai, which was then in the hands of the pro-Japanese Wang Jingwei Government. The Settlement was also returned to Chinese control in the Sino-British Friendship Treaty of February 1943 between Britain and the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek. After the war a Liquidation Commission fitfully met to discuss the remaining details of the handover. The Council's headquarters building still stands in downtown Shanghai.

After 1949, with the defeat of the Kuomintang, the entire city was was re-instated under the Mayor of Shanghai.

[edit] List of Chairmen of the Shanghai Municipal Council

Some of the persons who chaired the Shanghai Municipal Council were:[3]

[edit] Consul General of France (Shanghai)

The French Concession was governed by a separate municipal council, under the direction of the Consul General. The French Concession was not part of the International Settlement.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Sergeant, H. Shanghai (1998) at pp 16–17.
  2. ^ Wasserstein, B. Secret War in Shanghai (1999) at pp 140–150.
  3. ^ For complete list, see "Foreign Concessions and Colonies: Shanghai International Settlement"; http://www.worldstatesmen.org/China_Foreign_colonies.html#Shanghai-International

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

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