Chapter 219 Sino-British Colonial Cooperation Treaty

People can't just rely on imagination and speculation, and can't take it for granted.

If you don't ask and test in person, you can't get the real ideas of others. At least at this stage, Britain is indeed willing to give up a lot of vested interests and possible benefits to achieve a peaceful relationship with the Qing Empire and ensure cooperation between the two countries in Asia.

Considering that Britain and Germany have launched fierce competition in South Africa, the German navy is slowly getting stronger, and the French-Russian Union is also compressing the dominant position of the British navy... This series of factors make Britain unwilling to fall into new troubles in East Asia, let alone long-term and cumbersome with China, which is gradually becoming stronger. The competitive relationship.

Similarly, considering that although Zhang Baixi has the trust of Emperor Guangxu, he does not have enough diplomatic ability... Hu Chuyuan temporarily promoted Ouyang Geng to the Chief Foreign Minister of Foreign Affairs, which is equivalent to the second foreign minister of the United Kingdom. He is responsible for foreign affairs in Asia. In fact, he got the right to manage the vassal states. .

On this basis, Hu Chuyuan asked Ouyang Geng to choose a new team to assist him in renegotiating with the British.

The British still attach great importance to this new cooperation trend. They soon sent Sir Henry Bannerman, Secretary of Foreign and Federal Affairs, to visit China regularly, and held comprehensive talks with Hu Chuyuan on the new cooperation of Sir Mitchell, British Minister to China Dou Nale and other personnel.

After more than a month of negotiations, Sir Henry Bannerman and Hu Chuyuan basically reached a relatively loose Sino-British Colonial Cooperation Agreement.

According to this agreement, the Qing Empire will enjoy part of the suzerain interests of Singapore. Chinese assets registered in Singapore are also entitled to other benefits of the registration right of the British Empire and have the right to invest in Asian colonies other than India in the British Empire.

Similarly, after registering in Singapore, British Empire Capital also has the right to invest in the colonies or vassal states of the Qing Empire such as Southeast Asia and North Vietnam, and enjoy all the rights and interests in the agreement.

There is a loose limit on the investment scope of British capital, that is, it cannot invest in China's scarce oil resources, gold and silver mines, and cannot invest in the tea industry and silk industry in Southeast Asia.

Both parties designate HSBC, CITIC Bank, Wells Fargo and Nanyang Bank as designated banknote issuing banks. The first two are the main banknote issuing banks, with the Joint Savings Committee set up in Singapore as the main financial regulatory organization.

After reaching this agreement, the Sino-British cooperation in the new era has been confirmed. The two sides first confirmed the issues of Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang provinces, and recognized these areas as the territory of the Qing Empire. The British Empire shall not object to this.

Bhutan and Sikkim are the vassal states of the Qing Empire, and the Kingdom of Nepal is a buffer area for both sides. The British will gradually return more than 60,000 square kilometers of occupied land in the next ten years. In the southern Tibet region, except for the territorial areas that originally belonged to the Tibetan province, some areas that may cause controversy will be transferred to the Tibetan province.

In the Kashmir area occupied by Britain in 1834, the Qing Empire bought back the territorial rights for 3 million pounds. In addition, on the issue of the territorial rights of the Sumatra Republic, under the tougher insistence of Hu Chuyuan, the Andaman Islands belonged to the Sumatra Republic.

As a compromise condition, the British asked the Qing Empire not to deploy warships of more than 5,000 tons in the ports of the Andaman Islands to avoid the Qing Empire stepping into the Indian Ocean.

Both sides hope to reduce the area of direct junction as much as possible. In principle, the United Kingdom agreed to use Assam as a separate autonomous state to read out India as an important buffer zone to avoid disputes between India and China in the territory.

The two sides held the second round of negotiations on the Sino-Myanmar and China-Thailand border at the same time, and initially divided a Bannerman line. The demarcation line was expanded to Myitkyina, Bamo, Laxu, Mengya, Mengyang, Mengdong, Jingdong and Meng Ai, and took half of the Shaman plateau.

With the Sino-French agreement, the territory of Yunnan Province of the Qing Empire has expanded to the situation of the Dali period, which is also based on the vassal states of Dali in terms of law.

After making a division in this regard, it is basically impossible for Britain and China to conflict over territorial issues in the long term. Even in traditional Chinese vassal regions such as Myanmar and Thailand, there is no need for China to solve new problems here due to the principle of shared benefits.

Similarly, there is no need for Britain to have too many disputes with China on the colonial issue in Southeast Asia. At most, it is just a renegotiation on some detailed provisions of the Sino-British Colonial Cooperation Treaty.

For some trade issues between the two countries, the two sides reserve a mechanism for further negotiation. It is expected that within three to five years, there will be a new negotiation and formulate a Sino-British Trade and Mutual Trade Treaty that is more in line with the interests of both sides.

Hu Chuyuan also tried to talk about the Hong Kong issue.

Surprisingly, Sir Henry Bannerman did not think it was a big problem, but it was better not to talk about it. As a concession, Britain was willing to withdraw the Chinese fleet stationed in Hong Kong to Singapore and cancel the Chinese fleet.

In this way, the two sides did not have the necessary surnames to continue to compete and expand the navy in the South Sea. The Qing Empire could focus on the problems of Northeast Asia and the Far East, while Britain could also concentrate on the problems of Germany and the French-Russian alliance.

For the Hong Kong issue, the bottom line given by Sir Henry Bannerman is to uniformly change to a lease area. The effective concession period begins in 1842 and ends in 1941, or can end in 1921, which is acceptable for both parties.

When and how to talk about this agreement? The two sides should wait until the completion of the Sino-British Trade and Mutual Trade Treaty.

The Sino-British Colonial Cooperation Agreement has an exclusive surname, that is to say, the vast majority of provisions cannot be applied to other countries, at least China cannot reach agreements close to France, Germany and the United States.

Similarly, in Asia, India, Myanmar, Thailand and the Straits colonies controlled by the United Kingdom cannot open investment rights to France, Russia and Japan... Commodity sales are still normal trade behavior, as long as your things can be sold to others. In advance of classical free trade, There is no need for all countries to set limits, except between China and the two countries.

Even after the end of the Sino-Japanese War, the two countries failed to reach an agreement on trade, and at the same time, the trade between Japan and North Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia came to a halt.

Overall, Hu Chuyuan is very satisfied with the Sino-British Colonial Cooperation Agreement. Britain's concessions are relatively large. For example, Chinese capital can invest in gold mines and oil industries in British colonies in Africa, while British capital cannot invest in gold mines in Southeast Asia. And the oil industry.

In addition, in addition to the Hong Kong colonial issue, Britain completely abandoned all its privileges in China and recognized China's reading surname in tariff affairs. After China opened a concession to the West, especially the industrial area where British capital entered, Britain promised to give up all the rights of the international concessions in Shanghai and Tianjin first.

The British Empire is a country that completely believes in classical free trade. For example, Britain's textile tariffs on China, France, the United States and Germany are maintained at 7% and 12%, with the minimum limit on China, only 7%, while other countries' textile tariffs on the UK are more than 20%. Among the big economies, China The tariff on British textiles is the lowest, but it is also 14%, which is enough to keep British textiles out of customs.

Correspondingly, the requirements of the British Empire are mainly concentrated in the financial field, because its industry is indeed not developed, and this change has become particularly obvious in the past two decades.

Britain's only emphasis in the Sino-British Colonial Cooperation Agreement is financial authority, at least second only to China's patriarchal status.

In the upcoming Sino-British Trade and Reciprocal Trade Treaty, the United Kingdom also requires the foreign trade settlement of both parties to be dominated by the British pound.

At this point, the United Kingdom and later the United States are very close in terms of trade policy, and printing the pound is its most profitable industry at present.

July 14, 1898.

After the ratification of the monarchs of the two sides, the Sino-British Colonial Cooperation Treaty between the British Empire and the Qing Empire officially entered into force. This treaty is a non-confidential public treaty and should be fully open to the citizens and merchants of the two countries.

Therefore, the content of the treaty was quickly transmitted to the global scope.

Because the content of the agreement involves not only the interests and cooperation of the two sides in Asia, but also the new military consultation and cooperation mechanism, for such a special treaty, the most shocking thing in the world is not the Netherlands, but Germany, France and Japan.

The Netherlands is already a country that has been eliminated from the seat of a great power. It knows that in mid-May, when the Southern Ocean Fleet arrived at the giant port, the Kingdom of the Netherlands was forced to transfer the Dutch East Indies to the Qing Empire for 1.7 million pounds.

At the end of July 1898, the new U.S. Minister to China, Count Conger and German Special Foreign Minister, Bernhard von Pilov, arrived in the capital one after another to talk about the minimum similar agreement that could be reached. At the same time, they were also trying to see if Britain had changed Britain's glorious and isolated foreign policy, which had been advanced. Allied with China.

Hu Chuyuan's answer is that Britain has not completely ended its glorious isolation policy, but has been exploring a new foreign policy. It is expected that in the next five years, there will be larger changes in Britain's national policy and foreign affairs.

As for the issue of the United States and Germany's desire to share China's colonial interests in Southeast Asia, Hu Chuyuan is also at a loss. The exclusive surname of the Sino-British Colonial Cooperation Treaty is very strong.

The United States actually doesn't matter, because Sino-US relations are mainly bilateral trade. Through the upcoming Sino-US Trade and Reciprocal Trade Treaty, American goods can enter the Southeast Asian market through China, and even indirectly enjoy the benefits of the Sino-British Colonial Cooperation Treaty.

The most exciting thing is Germany. The Sino-British Colonial Cooperation Treaty basically determines that it is impossible for Germany to find a relatively complete colony in Asia, especially Southeast Asia, and also loses a stable supply of raw materials and product export.

In fact, Germany is also negotiating a new Sino-German Trade Treaty with China to completely determine the legal surnames of mutual investment between China and Germany. However, China is very conservative in absorbing external deposits, and the financial field is also closed. The negotiations between the two sides are not as smooth as that between China and the United States.

For example, Hu Chuyuan asked China's Shanghai stock market to read the world economic system, limit the inflow of foreign capital, and also cut off the possible surname of China's silver outflow.

Germany is not particularly satisfied, and it is not acceptable for the rapidly expanding Juncker financial consortium.

It's hard to say now.

The situation in the world is changing every day. A treaty can change almost everything. The Sino-British Colonial Cooperation Treaty is a typical case.

In 1898, the situation in the world was also extremely complicated.

Britain has almost contradictions with the main powers, especially between Britain and Germany, Britain and France, Britain and Russia, Britain and the United States. The contradictions between Britain and Germany are the most intense, entangled in many aspects of economic, military and colonial, especially European leadership. The fierce contradictions between Britain and France is second only to Britain and Germany, and the contradiction between Britain and Russia. It is purely a military contradiction, and the Anglo-American contradiction is purely an economic contradiction.

At this moment, Britain suddenly changed its policy to form an alliance with China, which was quite a bit of the alliance between the United States and India in the later period. At the same time, it prevented the further development of Sino-US and Sino-German relations, which was also a great constraint on the Tripartite Organization of Russia and France.

Before that, Hu Chuyuan had never imagined all this.

In fact, all this is thanks to Eurocentrism.

For Britain, which is eager to maintain its first leadership in Europe and the world, the Anglo-Chinese contradiction is the easiest to coordinate. Take a closer look, the territories that Britain has abandoned are not its own, and they are not important to Britain.

Britain did not have to take its European and worldwide leadership to compete fiercely with the Qing Empire in Southeast Asia.

It can't do it.

With the signing of the Sino-British Colonial Cooperation Agreement, three contractual organizations have emerged in the world, namely, China, Britain, Germany, Austria, Italy, and France and Russia.

The contradictions between Britain, Germany and France are difficult to coordinate, the contradictions between China and Japan and Russia cannot be coordinated, and the contradictions between Germany and Britain and France cannot be coordinated.

It can be said that the current world situation has become more complex and balanced.

At the same time, with the recognition of the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, Kalimantan, Korea, Brunei, Laos, North Vietnam, Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim as the stable vassal states of the Qing Empire, the colonies of the Qing Empire also jumped to the third place in the world, second only to Britain and France.

With the development of the entire industrial economy, the demand for colonies is also increasing, but the overall demand is not strong, and the amount of foreign investment will not be too large.

Therefore, for a long time, British investment in these regions still occupied a major part, and the Qing Zheng Axe continued to increase industrial construction and domestic investment to sell goods to the colonies.

The complementary surnames of both sides are very strong, which is also different from that between China and Germany and China and the United States. For a long time, the competition between China and Germany and China and the United States in the field of commodity export will actually become more and more fierce.

With the possible surname of this trend, Hu Chuyuan also quickly established a new Shanghai Academy of Sciences on the basis of the Jiangnan West Academy, increasing technology research and development and accumulation in China, as well as research on natural science, and hiring scientists and engineers from abroad to work in the Shanghai Academy of Sciences.

Through the Department of Wells Fargo, he also established his own Shanghai Wells Fargo Industrial Laboratory, invited Nicola Fister and others to live and work in the Shanghai Concession, and provided better treatment.

Not only this, he even considered setting up a new area, which is fully international, allowing foreigners to live and emigrate in China for a long time, and also conducive to the long-term absorption of the best international talents in the future.

Of course, this place is in Shanghai.

He chose this place in Gaoqiao and Pudong in Shanghai, and even deliberately retained hundreds of thousands of foreigners to live there for a long time, forming a unique window effect, which is convenient for the long-term continuous absorption of top talents from various foreign industries.

He believes that the Chinese have this mind.

Of course, if Shanghai wants to be a real economic leader, radiating the whole country and the world, absorbing talents from all of China, and becoming a real Chinese London and New York, its language must be officialized, and then further popularize English and other foreign language education.

(to be continued)