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Multi-Imperial Relations, Urban Politics, and Spatial Configuration in Treaty-Port China, 1860s-1930s = 通商口岸中國內的多元帝國主義關係﹑城市政治以及空間結構, 1860s-1930s
Principal Investigator
Department
Grant Awarding Body
Research Grants Council
Grant Type
Faculty Development Scheme
Project Code
UGC/FDS15/H08/25
Amount Awarded
HK$596,753
Funding Year
2025
Duration of the Project
24 months
Status
Ongoing
Abstract
This research project examines the multi-imperial dimensions—the intersection and juxtaposition of multiple imperialist powers—of Chinese treaty port cities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It centers on China’s two largest treaty ports: Tianjin and Shanghai, two cities that were divided into several colonial concessions alongside the Chinese districts from the 1860s to 1940s. Historically, Shanghai was characterized by its tripartite division of governance—the British-dominated International Settlement, the French Concession, and the Chinese municipality, whereas Tianjin was home to up to nine foreign-controlled concessions (British, American, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Belgian, Austro-Hungarian, and Italian). Situated at the intersection of modern Chinese history, history of empires, and urban history, the present research analyzes how these multiple imperialisms shaped, and were shaped by, these two cities. This project fills a critical gap in the existing academic literature on modern imperialism in China by foregrounding the history of various interactions among multiple empires in the context of Chinese treaty port cities from 1860s to 1930s. While much scholarship on modern global imperial history and colonial urbanism has focused on the bilateral relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, the present study on Shanghai’s and Tianjin’s colonial pasts underscores the multiplicity, multilateralism, and multilayered trajectories at the heart of the colonial experiences of both imperialist powers and the Chinese. At the center of this research is the mutual constitution between the dynamics of multi-imperial relations and the unique spatial configuration of these two cities. On the one hand, the multiple constellations of colonial powers, as well as their interactions, produced ad hoc spatial arrangements characteristic of these port cities, delineated the contours of tangled political landscapes, and exerted significant impact on these cities’ physical landscapes. On the other hand, the side-by-side presence of colonial concessions, along with Chinese municipalities, conditioned the ways in which imperial powers operated within these urban spaces and interacted with one another. Focusing on multi-imperial interactions at several historical junctures defined by domestic and international crises, the present research project demonstrates the density and concentration of crisscrossing imperial trajectories within cities while situating Chinese colonial history within a global comparative framework.