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.
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