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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 April 2018
In 1896, the Russian empire established a territorial concession in the Chinese treaty port of Hankou. Russian activity in the treaty ports has usually been subsumed into a wider ‘European’ or ‘Western’ presence, the assumption being that the Russian empire copied existing British and French concessions. This article traces the development of the idea of establishing a Russian concession from its inception to the early years of its development. The various arguments made at different stages in this process make clear that the decision was not a simple case of imitation of existing concessions, but was reached in the context of a broader shift in ideas about the proper relationship between economy, nation, and the Russian imperial state.
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75 Svod mezhdunarodnikh postanovlenii, opredeliaiushchikh vzaimnaia otnosheniia mezhdu Rossiei i Kitaem, 1689–1897 (Collection of international treaties concerning relations between Russia and China) (St Petersburg, 1900), pp. 77–9.
76 The Chinese literature discussed in Eiermann, ‘Russian concession in Wuhan’, consists of a handful of relatively short works, most only a few pages long. According to Eiermann, they describe some local resistance, probably the same cases recorded in the Russian documents.
77 Carles to Beauclerk, 2 Jan. 1896, The National Archives, FO228/1226, no. 2.
78 Foreign businesses often leased land close to but outside British concessions from Qing authorities.
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