ABSTRACT
Chinese treaty ports have often been seen as a ‘generic type’ following the model established by the largest and most important of the cities open to foreign trade, Shanghai. The Shanghai model applies very poorly to Tianjin, the second largest of the Chinese treaty ports which was opened to foreign trade in 1862, some twenty years after the start of trade in Shanghai. The differences are not just differences of scale or of the twenty year time lag, but are differences in the organization of trade, the relationships between city and rural hinterland, and the kind of trading networks that developed.
