ABSTRACT
The opening up of China by the West, which was largely the work of Englishmen in the pursuit of commercial gain, was in retrospect one of the decisive developments of the nineteenth century. China was reluctantly shaken from its dogmatic Confucian slumber to find itself no match for the citizens or governments of modern nation-states. The latter supported their nationals in their demands for concessions and in the decades preceding World War I were only prevented from swallowing the country whole by its indigestibility and their own internecine rivalry. International trade was actively promoted by foreigners who in the last resort could appeal to the armed might of their governments to extract passive Chinese acceptance. China was compelled to sign a long list of unequal treaties, under which she surrendered, first, territory, spheres of influence and railway concessions, second, substantial extraterritorial rights and, third, effective autonomy with respect to tariffs and other taxation involving foreigners, foreign exchange, customs and debt service, and the like.
