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China's Foreign Places: The Foreign Presence in China in the Treaty Port Era, 1840-1943 . Robert Nield . Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press , 2015. xxxix + 359 pp. $70.00; £48.50. ISBN 978-988-8139-28-6
Book Reviews
When discussing special economic zones and free trade zones, scholars of Sino-foreign trade and relations are right to note the historical precedent of the treaty ports. The recent growth in interest in the history of foreign imperialism in China has spawned a wealth of new work, reasserting the importance of diverse foreign influences on Chinese nationalism, politics, society and culture (for an overview of such work, see Isabella Jackson's 2014 article "Chinese colonial history in comparative perspective," Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 15.3). China's Foreign Places: The Foreign Presence in China in the Treaty Port Era, 1840-1943 provides an overview of the physical locations of this foreign presence, but fails to engage with new developments in the field.
The introduction provides a traditional, detailed overview of the arrival of foreign traders in China, the forced opening of treaty ports where foreigners were permitted to live and trade, and the expansion of trade and infrastructure through the late Qing and Republican eras. There follow 81 encyclopaedia-style entries, each charting the history of the Western presence in an individual place, interwoven with developments in China more widely, from the self-strengthening movement of the 1860s to the Second Sino-Japanese War. Nield covers not only the few colonies and leased territories (notably...