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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2019
This article, based on western primary sources, seeks to investigate the relationship between western imperialism in China and the making of modern Chinese statecraft in urban form, focusing on the French perspective and on historical institutionalism. Both internal rebellions and western empires shaped modern Chinese cities. The Chinese response to western intervention is a more complicated story. Pace Paul Cohen, we do need to know about foreign activities in modern China – not as ‘impact-response’ and ‘tradition-modernity’ paradigms – but rather as part of local history, both in terms of local administration and urban landscape. Euro-American expansion and exploitation are not part of a unitary or totalizing enterprise, and warfare and Franco-British conflicts facilitated the making of modern municipal administration in the French Concession of Shanghai; on the other hand, Chinese forces indirectly shaped the structure of the institutions of imperialism, as well as pointing to divergent national approaches to imperialism.
This article was supported by the research project ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche) ‘War made Shanghai: towards a spatial history of 19th–20th century Shanghai (1842–1952)’ (ANR-12-BSH3–0013), in collaboration between l'Institut d'Asie Orientale (École Normale Supérieure de Lyon) and the Institute of History (Shanghai Social Sciences Academy). The author would like to thank Professor Christian Henriot (University of Aix-Marseille), Professor Jean-François Chanet (Sciences Po Paris) and the anonymous referees for their kind support, comments and encouragement. Thanks also go to Doctor Pablo Blitstein (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, EHESS) for his comments on the earliest version of this manuscript, although any errors are my own.
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74 Maclellan, The Story of Shanghai, 42–3.
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82 In his note to Edan of 26 July 1854, Bourboulon, the French minister in China, expressed his negative opinion regarding the neutrality declaration made by the Anglo-American authorities. According to him, as the Three Treaty Powers had signed the treaties with the Imperial authorities, any contacts with the rebels would damage their diplomatic relations with China. Especially after the arrival of the British admiral, Sir James Stirling, at Shanghai, the French authorities publicly supported the Imperial troops in order to oppose the British authorities. See Maybon and Fredet, Histoire de la Concession française de Changhaï, 107.
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