The Convention of Peking or First Convention of Peking is an agreement comprising three distinct

unequal treaties The unequal treaties were a series of agreements made between Asian countries—most notably Qing China, Tokugawa Japan and Joseon Korea—and Western countries—most notably the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, the Unit ...

concluded between the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

of China and Great Britain,

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, and the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

in 1860.

Background

On 18 October 1860, at the culmination of the

Second Opium War The Second Opium War (), also known as the Second Anglo-Chinese War or ''Arrow'' War, was fought between the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and the United States against the Qing dynasty of China between 1856 and 1860. It was the second major ...

, the British and French troops entered the

Forbidden City The Forbidden City () is the Chinese Empire, imperial Chinese palace, palace complex in the center of the Imperial City, Beijing, Imperial City in Beijing, China. It was the residence of 24 Ming dynasty, Ming and Qing dynasty, Qing dynasty L ...

Peking Beijing, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's most populous national capital city as well as China's second largest city by urban area after Shanghai. It is l ...

. Following the decisive defeat of the Chinese,

Prince Gong Yixin (11January 1833– 29May 1898), better known in English as PrinceGong or Kung, was an imperial prince of the Aisin Gioro clan and an important statesman of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty in China. He was a regent of the empire from 1861 to 18 ...

was compelled to sign two treaties on behalf of the Qing government with

Lord Elgin Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine, ( ; 20 July 176614 November 1841), often known as Lord Elgin, was a Scottish nobleman, diplomat, and collector, known primarily for the controversial procurement of marble sculptures ...

and

Baron Gros Antoine-Jean Gros (; 16 March 177125 June 1835) was a French painter of historical subjects. He was granted the title of Baron Gros in 1824. Gros studied under Jacques-Louis David in Paris and began an independent artistic career during the ...

, who represented Britain and France respectively.Harris, David. Van Slyke, Lyman P.

000 Triple zero, Zero Zero Zero, 0-0-0 or variants may refer to: * 000 (emergency telephone number), the Australian emergency telephone number * 000, the size of several small List of screw drives, screw drives * 0-0-0, a Droid (Star Wars)#0-0-0, dro ...

(2000). Of Battle and Beauty: Felice Beato's Photographs of China. University of California Press. Although Russia had not been a belligerent, Prince Gong also signed a treaty with Nikolay Ignatyev. The original plan was to burn down the Forbidden City as punishment for the mistreatment of Anglo-French prisoners by Qing officials. Because doing so would jeopardize the treaty signing, the plan shifted to burning the

Old Summer Palace The Old Summer Palace, also known as Yuanmingyuan () or Yuanmingyuan Park, originally called the Imperial Gardens (), and sometimes called the Winter Palace, was a complex of palaces and gardens in present-day Haidian District, Beijing, China. I ...

and

Summer Palace The Summer Palace () is a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens and palaces in Beijing. It was an imperial garden during the Qing dynasty. Inside includes Longevity Hill () Kunming Lake and Seventeen Hole Bridge. It covers an expanse of , three-quar ...

instead. The treaties with France and Britain were signed in the

Ministry of Rites The Ministry or Board of Rites was one of the Six Ministries of government in late imperial China. It was part of the imperial Chinese government from the Tang (7th century) until the 1911 Xinhai Revolution. Along with religious rituals and c ...

building immediately south of the Forbidden City on 24 October 1860.Naquin, Susan.

(2000). Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400-1900. University of California Press.

Terms

In the convention, the

Xianfeng Emperor The Xianfeng Emperor (17 July 1831 – 22 August 1861), also known by his temple name Emperor Wenzong of Qing, personal name Yizhu, was the eighth emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the seventh Qing emperor to rule over China proper. During his re ...

ratified the

Treaty of Tientsin The Treaty of Tientsin, also known as the Treaty of Tianjin, is a collective name for several Unequal treaty, unequal treaties signed at Tianjin (then Postal Map Romanization, romanized as Tientsin) in June 1858. The Qing Empire, Qing dynasty, ...

(1858). In 1860, the area known as

Kowloon Kowloon () is one of the areas of Hong Kong, three areas of Hong Kong, along with Hong Kong Island and the New Territories. It is an urban area comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. It has a population of 2,019,533 and a populat ...

was originally negotiated for lease in March, but in few months' time, the Convention of Peking ended the lease, and ceded the land formally to the British on 24 October. Article 6 of the Convention between China and the United Kingdom stipulated that China was to cede the part of Kowloon Peninsula south of present-day

Boundary Street Boundary Street ( Chinese: 界限街) is a three-lane one-way street in Kowloon, Hong Kong. It runs in an easterly direction from its start at the intersection with Tung Chau Street in the west, and ends at its intersection with Princ ...

, and

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

(including

Stonecutters Island Stonecutters Island or Ngong Shuen Chau is a former island in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong. Following land reclamation, it is now attached to the Kowloon Peninsula. Fauna The island once boasted at least three mating pairs of sulphur-crested ...

) in perpetuity to Britain. Article 6 of the Convention between China and France stipulated that "the religious and charitable establishments which were confiscated from Christians during the persecutions of which they were victims shall be returned to their owners through the French Minister in China".

Manchuria

The treaty also confirmed the cession of the entirety of what is now known as

Outer Manchuria Outer Manchuria, sometimes called Russian Manchuria, refers to a region in Northeast Asia that is now part of the Russian Far East but historically formed part of Manchuria (until the mid-19th century). While Manchuria now more normatively refer ...

to the Russian Empire, a total of 400,000 square kilometers, with Russia achieving the strategic goal of sealing off Chinese access to the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it ...

. It granted Russia the right to the Ussuri krai, a part of the modern day

Primorye Primorsky Krai, informally known as Primorye, is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia, part of the Far Eastern Federal District in the Russian Far East. The city of Vladivostok on the southern coast of the krai is its administrative center, an ...

, the territory that corresponded with the ancient

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...

province of

East Tartary Tartary (Latin: ''Tartaria''; ; ; ) or Tatary () was a blanket term used in Western European literature and cartography for a vast part of Asia bounded by the Caspian Sea, the Ural Mountains, the Pacific Ocean, and the northern borders of China, ...

. See

Treaty of Aigun The Treaty of Aigun was an 1858 treaty between the Russian Empire and Yishan, official of the Qing dynasty of China. It established much of the modern border between the Russian Far East and China by ceding much of Manchuria (the ancestral h ...

(1858),

Treaty of Nerchinsk The Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 was the first treaty between the Tsardom of Russia and the Qing dynasty of China after the defeat of Russia by Qing China at the Siege of Albazin in 1686. The Russians gave up the area north of the Amur River as ...

(1689) and

Sino-Russian border conflicts The Sino-Russian border conflicts (1652–1689) were a series of intermittent skirmishes between the Qing dynasty of China, with assistance from the Joseon dynasty of Korea, and the Tsardom of Russia by the Cossacks in which the latter tried a ...

. In addition to ceding territory that had been ruled by the Qing dynasty, the treaty also ceded territory under

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

jurisdiction, notably the island (by that time and currently a peninsula at the southernmost end of

Primorsky Krai Primorsky Krai, informally known as Primorye, is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krais of Russia, krai) of Russia, part of the Far Eastern Federal District in the Russian Far East. The types of inhabited localities in Russia, ...

) of

Noktundo Noktundo (; ) was an island in the delta of the Tumen River on the border between Primorsky Krai, Russia and North Korea. The area of the island was . Noktundo had been a Korean territory since the 15th century. The Jurchens took notice of t ...

. This was not known to the Koreans until the 1880s (20 or so years after the signing of the treaty, to which Korea was not a party), at which point it became a matter of official protest as the Koreans asserted that the Qing had no authority to cede Noktundo to Russia. According to the Institute of Qing History the ceding of territory which created the modern border between Russia and North Korea and blocks China's access to the

was caused as a result of mismanagement during the demarcation process: Article 1 of the 1860 Sino-Russian Peking Convention stipulates that the southeastern section of the Sino-Russian eastern border "...from the mouth of the Bailing River along the mountains to the mouth of the Hubutu River, and then from the mouth of the Hubutu River along the

Hunchun River Hunchun River ( zh, 珲春河), is a river located in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, in the Chinese province of Jilin. It is the tributary of the left bank of the Tumen River The Tumen River (, , ; Korean pronunciation: tumaŋa ...

and the ridge between the sea to the mouth of the Tumen River, the east belongs to Russia; the west belongs to China." In 1861, Chinese and Russian representatives signed the "Sino-Russian Eastern Boundary Agreement: (), in which the border between the two countries is on the east bank of the Tumen River estuary and the Sea of Japan. The coast from the north-eastern bank of the lower reaches of the Tumen River to the coast of the Sea of Japan still belongs to China, where China separates Russia and Korea through the 3km wide Japanese coast. However, the "Border Map from the Ussuri River to the Sea" () document handed to China by Russia in 1862 shows that the border between the two countries is 20km north of the Tumen River estuary. This omission was allegedly caused by the director of the Ministry of Revenue Cheng Qi, who was serving as the special Chinese envoy for Sino-Russian border survey in 1861. Cheng Qi was addicted to opium and went to nearby

Jilin City Jilin City, Mandarin pronunciation: ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Kirin (, International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA:/ki.rin/) is the second-largest city and former capital of Jilin province in northeast China. As of th ...

to replenish his drug stash, and entrusted the establishment of the border markers entirely to the Russian survey representatives. The Russian side took the opportunity to unilaterally draw a boundary map, thereby connecting Russia and the

Korean Peninsula Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically divided at or near the 38th parallel between North Korea (Dem ...

across the Tumen River, gaining a foothold for invading Korea, and blocking China's passage to the Sea of Japan through the Tumen River. Cheng Qi was shortly fired from all official posts after the incident.

Aftermath

Kowloon

The governments of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

(PRC) concluded the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong in 1984, under which the sovereignty of the leased territories, together with

Hong Kong Island Hong Kong Island () is an island in the southern part of Hong Kong. The island, known originally and on road signs simply as "Hong Kong", had a population of 1,289,500 and a population density of , . It is the second largest island in Hong Kon ...

, ceded under the

Treaty of Nanking The Treaty of Nanking was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese ...

(1842), and

Kowloon Peninsula The Kowloon Peninsula is a peninsula that forms the southern part of the main landmass in the territory of Hong Kong, alongside Victoria Harbour and facing toward Hong Kong Island. The Kowloon Peninsula and the area of New Kowloon are collect ...

(south of

), was to be transferred to the PRC on 1 July 1997.

Noktundo

The status of

, which had been under Korean jurisdiction from the turn of the 17th century but was (unbeknownst to the Koreans until the 1880s) ceded to Russia in the treaty, remains formally unresolved, as only one of two Korean jurisdictions/governments have accepted a border agreement with Russia. North Korea and the USSR signed a border treaty in 1985 officially certifying the Russian-North Korean border as running through the center of the

Tumen River The Tumen River (, , ; Korean pronunciation: tumaŋaŋ">Help:IPA/Korean">tumaŋaŋ, also known as the Tuman River or Duman River, is a long river that serves as part of the boundary between China (left shore), North Korea (right) and Russi ...

which left the now-peninsula of Noktundo on the Russian side of the border. This agreement is not recognized by South Korea, which has since demanded Noktundo's return to Korean jurisdiction (ostensibly this would be North Korean jurisdiction, with the expectation of unified Korean control after an eventual Korean reunification).

Original copies

An original copy of the convention is located in the

National Palace Museum The National Palace Museum, also known as Taipei Palace Museum, is a national museum headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. Founded in Beijing in 1925, the museum was re-established in Shilin District, Shilin, Taipei, in 1965, later expanded with a S ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

.http://www.npm.gov.tw/exh100/diplomatic/page_en02.html Republic of China's Diplomatic Archives (English)

References

External links

A timeline of the history of Hong Kong from 1840 to 1999
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Convention of Peking 19th century in the Russian Empire History of Manchuria

Kowloon

1860 in France 1860 in the United Kingdom 1860 in China China–Russian Empire relations Opium Wars Boundary treaties 1860 treaties

China–France relations China–United Kingdom relations October 1860 History of Zhangjiakou

Background

Terms

Manchuria

Aftermath

Kowloon

Noktundo

Original copies

See also

References

Further reading

External links