Title:
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Foreign intervention in China : empires and international law in the Taiping Civil War, 1853-64
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This thesis argl:les that the foreign interventions in the Taiping civil war were a key turning point in.
nineteenth century Sino-foreign relations. The interventions shaped foreign ideas about the
application of international law to China. When the prospect of intervention was raised foreign
observers and foreign officials discussed how such involvement was justified under 'the law of
nations'. The direct collaboration between the Qing and foreign states in suppressing the Taiping,
however, led to a change in foreign perceptions about China's place in the state system. Noting
what they perceived to be deficiencies in Qing statecraft, foreign observers began to suggest that
Qing China was outside of the international system comprised of 'civilised' states. As a result, they
suggested that international law was not applicable in China. This revises our understanding of the
development of international law in the nineteenth century by suggesting that it was structured as
much at sites of empire by foreign officials and communities as it was in the work of European .
jurists. Secondly, the thesis takes the Taiping interventions as a case study for exploring the
'negotiation of sovereignty' in China. Sovereignty in China was fractured by the foreign right to
extraterritoriality, or exemption from Qing law. The various foreign interventions against the
Taiping, including the interventions of British and French state armies and foreign mercenaries, as
well as foreign projects to transfer technology to China, raised questions about the extent of foreign
sovereignty within the Qing empire. For example, were foreign mercenaries in the service of the
Qing still foreign subjects and hence exempt from Qing law? In order for the Qing and foreign
agents and states to collaborate in suppressing the Taiping the limits of foreign sovereignty had to
be negotiated and these disputes had to be resolved.
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