Unequal treaties and China. Volume 1 /

Wang Jianlang (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) does a superb job of meticulously examining the legacy of the unequal treaties imposed by the Western powers on the late Qing Dynasty. Those treaties ruthlessly undermined China's sovereignty. Volume 1 covers the early years of the Republic of China to the late 1920s. It shows the failure of the Provisional and Beiyang governments in eliminating unequal treaties, and the diplomatic victory at the Paris Conference when the Chinese delegation refused to sign the peace treaty because Shandong would remain under Japanese control. The same volume examines the anti-imperialist program of the Guangzhou government, and the difference between the moderate approach of the Beiyang government, which rarely challenged the legitimacy of the old treaties and the radical stance of the Southern Nationalist government, seeking to abrogate rather than revise all unequal treaties. Volume 2 examines the Nanjing government's "revolutionary diplomacy" including the recovery of tariff autonomy, and the communist regime's foreign policy since 1949, including the return of Hong Kong and Macau and the abrogation of foreign privileges "once and for all." Impressive scholarship and excellent bibliography of Chinese, English, and Japanese materials. Highly recommended for China specialists, graduate students, and faculty in international law, history, and political science. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Mario E. Carranza, Texas A&M University--Kingsville