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What is sovereignty? When did the modern concept of national sovereignty take shape? |
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See answer below. |
Most-favoured-nation treatment: typically, by mutually according to each other the most-favoured nation treatment, the two contracting parties involved would guarantee each other advantages, privileges, and immunities with respect to common regulations on navigation, trade, tariffs, and civilian legal status that are equal or superior to any that have been or would be granted to a third country. Normally, the most-favoured-nation treatment is granted on a reciprocal basis and under the principle of equality and mutual benefit. However, the agreements between Qing China and foreign countries unilaterally required China alone to grant the most-favoured-nation treatment to the foreign contracting parties, while China itself did not have the right to enjoy the reciprocal treatment. Thus, it was also known as the “unilateral most-favored-nation treatment”.
In 1843, Qing China and Britain signed the Treaty of the Bogue to supplement the previous Treaty of Nanking. The treaty contained a most-favored-nation clause that entitled Britain to any privileges to be granted to other powers by China. At that time, the Qing government was ignorant about foreign affairs and could not foresee the devastating effects of this clause. In 1845, China and the United States signed the Treaty of Wangxia (《望廈條約，Treaty of Wanghia》), which granted the unilateral most-favoured-nation treatment to the United States. The treaty also stipulated that it would be subject to a revision after 12 years. Later, citing the most-favoured-nation clause, Britain demanded a renegotiation of the Treaty of Nanking with China. The Qing government’s refusal became one of the key factors that led to the Second Opium War to China.
Consular jurisdiction refers to a consulate in a foreign country having jurisdiction over its own nationals who have been accused of breaking local laws. Foreign nationals are thus exempted from the jurisdiction of local law.
By the late Qing dynasty, most of the foreign powers that had obtained the right to consular jurisdiction from China established courthouses within their own concessions to try any of their nationals suspected of criminal offenses under their laws. Cases that involved both Chinese and foreign nationals (mixed cases) were tried by a mixed court presided over by both Chinese and foreign judges. An example of such an establishment was the Shanghai Mixed Court within the foreign concessions in Shanghai: a mixed Sino-foreign judicial institution jointly established by the Qing government and the Shanghai-based consulates of Britain, the United States, and France in 1864. It was known as the huishen gongxie (會審公廨) in Chinese. Gongxie (or guanxie) is the Chinese term for “government office” and huishen means “joint trial”. The mixed court was a courthouse within the concession where cases involving both Chinese and foreigners were tried by Chinese and foreign judges in the same sitting.
The right to navigate inland waterways refers to a country’s sovereign and inviolable right to conduct shipping on its rivers and lakes. The 1858 Sino-British Treaty of Tientsin opened various ports along the Yangtze River (such as Hankou in the middle reaches of the Yangtze) to British trade, meaning British vessels could sail into these ports. The Sino-Russian Treaty of Aigun (《璦琿條約》) concluded in the same year granted Russia the right to sail on the Heilongjiang River (黑龍江), the Songhua River (松花江), and the Ussuri River (烏蘇里江). The 1895 Sino-Japanese Treaty of Shimonoseki expanded the foreign vessels’ right to navigate the Yangtze’ tributaries as well. Granting the imperialist powers the right to navigate inland waterways was a violation of the Chinese sovereignty and a grave threat to the national defence.
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What is sovereignty? When did the modern concept of national sovereignty take shape? |
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Sovereignty refers to a country’s exclusive and supreme authority over the management of legislative, judicial, and executive affairs in its domain; in other words, the absolute authority to remain independent and autonomous. In ancient times, when the concept of sovereignty was still ill-defined, it was common for travellers to enter another country without a “passport”. It was also common for large, power-hungry empires to annex smaller and weaker countries at will. In Europe, the Thirty Years’ War that began in 1618 finally ended in 1648 after the signing of the Peace of Westphalia, which recognised the numerous constituent states of the Holy Roman Empire as independent sovereign states. From then on, the concept of sovereignty became increasingly common, and laid the foundation for the gradual development of modern-day international law. Later, the Netherlands, Britain, the United States, France, Germany, and Italy all went through wars of independence, revolutions or unification movements that further consolidated their independence as nation states. Regrettably, after securing democracy and independence for themselves, the European countries and the United States failed to uphold their own original values, choosing to spur development in their own countries and better their own people’s welfare at the cost of the sovereignty of Asian, African, and Latin-American countries. |