Oh man, no, this guy Yuan Weishi sucks. He's a professor of department of Philosiphy, not History. All his work was about to say what we Chinese think are wrong, and we should accept western ideas. He make constent mistakes in history and his view is even more biased than biased western views.
I don't know about that, but some parts of his article did strike me as problematic:
According to the Treaty of Huangpo established between China and France in October 1844, French people were allowed to be active only within the "designated territories" in the five ports agreed upon by both parties. "Any French citizen found to violate this rule, or cross the boundaries, or enter the interior, will be arrested by Chinese officials and sent to the nearest French consulate; the Chinese officials must not assault, injure or mistreat any arrested French persons so as not to damage the amity between the two nations."
Chapdelaine began to preach in Guangxi in 1842. After the Treaty of Huangpo was signed, he refused to leave. This was a wrongful act under the Treaty. But it was wrong for the Xilin official to execute him, for this was against the Treaty obligation to send the arrested Frenchman to the consulate. Today, people have still not figured out what Chapdelaine did to deserve being put to death. According to the normal legalistic viewpoint of justice, the Chinese side was no doubt in the wrong. The textbook is therefore inaccurate in the characterization of this incident.
At that point in history, pretty much any treaty signed by the Qing government with Western powers was an unequal treaty. While we don't know what Chapdelaine did wrong, claiming that the Chinese side was automatically in the wrong because they did not follow the terms of an unequal treaty is, without a doubt, a slap in the face of most Chinese.
A good parallel would be in the movie "Fist of Fury", when Bruce Lee pulverised a sign in front of a park that said: "No dogs and Chinese allowed".
For example, law is the crystallization of human civilization and the rules by which society operates. International treaties have legal validity. People can point out that these treaties and laws were created with the foreign powers in charge and that they are therefore disadvantageous to the weak countries and the poor people. People should continue to criticize and expose the flaws and go through various negotiations using different types of pressures to set up new regulations and treaties. But before the revisions take place, we must still continue to abide by them or else we create unnecessary chaos which are detrimental to the weaker nations and the poor people in the final analysis.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, people in China have done many "illegal" things. The Boxer incident is one example. The important thing to note is that there are still people who regard those barbarous activities as "revolution." In the 90's of the twentieth century, there are still people who regard the viewpoint of abiding by international treaties as treasonous surrender that ought to be seriously denounced!
I think this pretty much sums up Mr. Yuan's views, and explains why his position is an unpopular one, and also shows how it is flawed.
Mr. Yuan is basically saying that it doesn't matter if a treaty is equal or unequal, as long as it exists, it should be followed. If you want to change it, you should do it through diplomatic channels.
What Mr. Yuan forgets is that no diplomacy can exist without force of arms to back it up. The Qing government was in no position to militarily challenge the Western Powers, and thus it was in no position to bring about any diplomatic change to the treaties!
Secondly, Mr Yuan also forgets, or perhaps he deliberately ignores, the fact that the Qing government on the whole did follow those unequal treaties. That there were incidents is natural as those treaties are
unequal, and considered to be humiliations. The foreign invasions happened after a couple of relatively minor incidents. Take this quote, for example:
It should also be pointed out that the textbook failed to mention the two basic root causes of this war. First, the English government asked the Qing government to faithfully follow the requirements of the Treaty of Jiangning, in which an important clause was that the English officials and merchants be allowed to enter and leave Guangzhou city freely. Letting the foreigners enter the city seems to be a trivial matter today. At the time, there were similar disputes in the other four open ports as well, but those tussles were resolved without crises. In Guangzhou, it was a total mess that shook the entire government and set the first example of refusing access to the foreigners. This matter went on for more than ten years without resolution, until it had to be settled in the battlefield.
If we brought this scenario to the 21st century, and one nation starts a battle with another nation because the latter was unwilling to follow a trade agreement, who do you think would be at fault?
Mr Yuan is basically saying that the USA would be right to invade/attack Canada if Toronto ever decided not to follow NAFTA.
