Shanghai

Abstract

Books on Shanghai’s history tend to fall broadly into two categories: nostalgia for the “colonial” era and descriptions (often grim) of the Communist period that followed. Shanghai was not, in fact, a colony; it was a Treaty Port, one of five opened by the British after the end of the First Opium War in 1842 (the others being Canton [Guangzhou], Amoy [Xiamen], Foochow [Fuzhou], and Ningpo [Ningbo]). These ports increased in size, wealth, and number until 1943 when the system was ended with the Treaty for the Relinquishment of ExtraTerritorial Rights in China. [...]