Shanghai International Settlement
The Shanghai International Settlement originated from the 1863 merger of the British and American enclaves in Shanghai, in which British and American citizens would enjoy extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction under the terms of unequal treaties agreed by both parties. These treaties were abrogated in 1943.
The British settlements were established following the victory of the British in the First Opium War. Under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking, the five treaty ports including Shanghai were opened to foreign merchants, overturning the monopoly then held by the southern port of Canton under the Canton System. The British also established a base on Hong Kong. American and French involvement followed closely on the heels of the British and their enclaves were established north and south, respectively, of the British area.
Unlike the colonies of Hong Kong and Macau, where the United Kingdom and Portugal enjoyed full sovereignty in perpetuity, the foreign concessions in China remained under Chinese sovereignty. In 1854, the three countries created the Shanghai Municipal Council to serve all their interests, but, in 1862, the French concession dropped out of the arrangement. The following year the British and American settlements formally united to create the Shanghai International Settlement. As more foreign powers entered into treaty relations with China, their nationals also became part of the administration of the settlement. The number of treaty powers had climbed to a high of 19 by 1918 but was down to 14 by the 1930s: the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Peru, Mexico, and Switzerland.
Nonetheless, the SMC remained a predominantly British affair until the growth of Japan's involvement in the late 1930s. The international character of the Settlement was reflected in the flag and seal of the Municipal Council, which featured the flags of several countries.
The international settlement came to an abrupt end in December 1941 when Japanese troops stormed in immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In early 1943, new treaties signed formally ended the extraterritorial privileges of Americans and Britons, although its terms were not met until the recovery of Shanghai following Japan's 1945 surrender. The French later surrendered their privileges in a separate agreement in February 1946.
It was one of two Chinese international settlements, along with Gulangyu International Settlement.
History
After the British victory in the First Opium War, foreign powers including France obtained concessions in China through the unequal treaties.Arrival of the British, the French and the Americans and establishment of the settlements
The Treaty of Nanking and its supplementary treaty of 1843 – the first of the unequal treaties – provided British merchants with the right to reside with their families and rent grounds and houses in five ports – Guanzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Shanghai and Ningbo – but there was not a word about separate residential areas for foreigners on Chinese soil. However, the imperial commissioner who negotiated the supplementary treaty reported to the Qing emperor that by signing the treaty he had successfully arranged that in the treaty ports "the boundaries of an area should be designated which foreigners are not allowed to exceed", an intent however that was not clearly stated in the English-language version of the treaty. The Qing rulers, by intending to confine the "barbarians" to an officially designated special zone, apparently hoped to resurrect the old Canton system, that is, a system that strictly confined foreigners to a segregated zone. At Shanghai, the intention of the imperial officials had clearly been initially to keep the foreigners out and upon his arrival in 1843, the first British consul, Captain George Balfour, could not even find a house for the consulate. The British finally decided to locate themselves in the northern suburbs and asked the Daotai, Gong Muiju, to designate an area there as a segregated British area. This dovetailed with the Daotai's intentions since two violent incidents between local Chinese and foreigners had prompted him to take steps to limit contacts between Chinese and foreigners. This was formalized in 1845 with the delimitation of a segregated area north of Yangjingbang, a creek that ran north of the Chinese city. Later that year Gong Muiju and Balfour concluded an agreement called the Land Regulations, which set forth the institutional basis for the British settlement. In 1848, with the permission of the Daotai, the 138-acre British settlement – a fraction of the 5,584 acres the International Settlement was to cover by 1899 – was slightly expanded westward and northward.Following the British example, the French consul Charles de Montigny and the Daotai Lin’gui agreed in 1849 that a French settlement be established on a strip of land between the Chinese city and the British settlement. The American consul was somewhat offended by the fact that the British and the French had secured the best plots of land in the area, and after lengthy deliberations, the Americans – who with the Treaty of Wanghia of 1844 had gained the same rights as those enjoyed by the British in the five treaty ports – established their own settlement northeast of Shanghai. In 1852 the total population of the settlements was about 500, including 265 foreigners.
Towards the end of the 19th century, Shanghai Russians also arrived, with Russia's construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway and acquisition of Harbin and Port Arthur.
Municipal Council
On 11July 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.In 1863 the American concession—land fronting the Huangpu River to the north-east of Soochow Creek —officially joined the British Settlement 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 would later result in sometimes absurd administrative outcomes, such as needing 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. The British consul was the de jure authority in the Settlement, but he had no actual power unless the ratepayers agreed. Instead, he and the other consulates deferred to the council.
The council had become a practical monopoly over the city's businesses by the mid-1880s. It bought up all the local gas-suppliers, electricity producers and water-companies, then—during the 20th-century—took control over all non-private rickshaws and the Settlement tramways. It also regulated opium sales and prostitution until their banning in 1918 and 1920 respectively.
Until the late-1920s, therefore, the SMC and its subsidiaries, including the police, power station, and public works, were British dominated. Some of what happened in the Settlement during this period, such as the May Thirtieth Movement, a series of anti-imperialist protests which began after the Shanghai Municipal Police opened fire on Chinese demonstrators, weakened the British Empire's position in China.
No Chinese residing in the International Settlement were permitted to join the council until 1928. Amongst the many members who served on the council, its chairman during the 1920s, Stirling Fessenden, is possibly the most notable. An American, he served as the settlement's main administrator during Shanghai's most turbulent era, and was considered more "British" than the council's British members. He oversaw many of the major incidents of the decade, including the May Thirtieth Movement and the White Terror that came with the Shanghai massacre in 1927.
By the early 1930s, the British and the Chinese each had five members on the council, the Japanese two and the Americans and others two. At the 1936 Council election, because of their increasing interests in the Settlement, the Japanese nominated three candidates. Only two were elected, which led to a Japanese protest after 323 uncounted votes were discovered. As a result, the election was declared invalid and a new poll held on April20–21, 1936, at which the Japanese nominated only two candidates. In the case of the Chinese members, in 1926 the Ratepayers' Meeting adopted a resolution approving the addition of three Chinese members to the council and they took their seats for the first time in April, 1928; while in May, 1930, their number was increased to five.
The International Settlement was wholly foreign-controlled, with staff of all nationalities, including British, Americans, Danes, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italians and Germans. In reality, the British held the largest number of seats on the council and headed all the Municipal departments.
The only department not chaired by a Briton was the Municipal Orchestra, which was controlled by an Italian.
The Settlement maintained its own fire-service, police force, and even possessed its own military reserve in the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. Following some disturbances at the British concession in Hankow in 1927, the defences at Shanghai were augmented by a permanent battalion of the British Army, which was referred to as the Shanghai Defence Force, and a contingent of US Marines. Other armed forces would arrive in Shanghai; the French Concession had a defensive force of Troupes de marine and Annamite troops from French Indochina, the Italians also introduced their own marines, as did the Japanese.