ABSTRACT
The International Settlement area of Shanghai was – and remained – a free city within the vast Chinese realm. If managed well, foreign firms could do very well for themselves. Others went bankrupt. The Shanghailanders, many of whom had lived there for two or three generations, took it for granted that their free city constituted their own little territory. Nevertheless, it was precisely the city's special status that involved it in the political showdown that was to characterize the China of the 1920s. Foreign residents were not the only ones to profit from the treaty rights in relation to the Chinese authorities. Chinese, too, who for political, economic or other reasons wished to 'leave' China, could find a place in Shanghai's International Settlement area.
