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Historisk tidskrift 130:3 • 2010

Innehåll (Contents) 2010:3

Uppsatser (Articles)

Traktaten som aldrig var och fördraget som nästan inte blev. De svensk-norsk–kinesiska förbindelserna 1847–1909

Av Pär Cassel

 

Fulltext (pdf)

Summary

The treaty that never was and the treaty that almost never became: Sino–Swedish-Norwegian relations 1847–1908

On March 2 0, 1847, the Swedish envoy and businessman Carl Fredrik Liljevalch and the Manchu nobleman Qiying concluded a ”Treaty of Peace, Amity and Commerce” between the United Kingdom of Sweden-Norway and the Qing Empire. Without any threat of force, the treaty granted the small Scandinavian kingdom most of the privileges Britain, France and the United States had gained in the preceding five year period. However, while Sweden-Norway’s King Oscar I promptly ratified the treaty, the Qing Empire did not, which put the legal status of the treaty in jeopardy and cast a cloud of ambiguity over the relationship between China and Sweden-Norway. Despite uncertainties and occasional conflicts between the two polities over the interpretation of the treaty, the treaty nevertheless governed the relationship between Sweden- Norway and China for 60 years, until a new treaty was concluded in 1908. This article argues that the vague status of the treaty demonstrates that many treaty port institutions, such as extraterritoriality, were not based only on the treaty texts themselves but also on what might be called treaty port ”customary law.” The article also uses the treaty to discuss the position of Sweden- Norway as an imperialist treaty power in China. Even though Swedish and Norwegian representatives identified with the larger treaty powers, they were painfully aware of the fact that they could only exercise their privileges with the permission of the Qing government.

Keywords

China, Sweden, Norway, 19th century, international relations, unequal treaties, extraterritoriality, consular jurisdiction.