Figure 1.--Here we see German naval artilerists providing bread and gifts to Chinese children ear the Tsingtao port and naval base in 1909. The city was basically built from the ground up by the Germans. It is now the city of Qingdao.

China until relatively recently was the most advanced technologucal civilzation in the worldMany of the technological advances that led to our modern world were Chinese inovations thatbtraveled west along the Silk Road. Chinese goods were great luxuries and tremebdusly exoensive. The two most notable were silk and porcelin. These goods had to travl through many hands and Muslim lands, adding to the cost in Europe. Thus a Europeans gradualllybdeveloped shipping technology, there was a desire among traders to open up a sea route to the East, especially China. Barttolmeu Diaz reached the Cape of Good Hope (1588). Soon Europeans were trading with India, Inonesia (the Spice Islands), China and Japan (16th century). The Imperial Government saw the Europeans as a disruptive influence especially with the European promotion of opium. The Europens had to force the Chinese to trade with them. Led by the British, and other industrislizung Europen powers, the Europens wanted access to China for their exports. The result was two wars and a series of treaties known as the 'unequl treaties'. The first treaty and blueprint for the treties that followed was Treaty of Nanking, signed with the British (1842). This ended First Opium War. The Second Opium War led to the Treaty of Tientsin, a series of agreements with Britain and France, signed during the Secomd Opium War (1858). Soon after the Convention of Peking, three treaties, signed with Britain, France, and Russia (1860). These treaties and many more with other European countries and eventully Japan involved the establishment of treaty ports. Foreigners were granted extraterritoriality and a range of special privliges to live and do business in China outside of Chinese control. All of this was forced on China at the barrel of advanced Western weaponry. The two most important treaty ports were Hong Kong, a peninsula near the mouth pf the Pearl/Canton River, and Shanghaia at the mouth of the Yangtze River. Rivers were the primary mode of transport in China. Thus these and the larger number of other treaty ports gave Europeans access to virtually all of China even before railroad construction began. The United States promoted an Open Door policy, but American businssmen operated in the European Treaty Ports. It was not until after World War I that China under the ladership of Chang Kai-sheck and Kuomintang (KMT) began to dismantle the Treaty Port system.