Brief Chronology7
NOTE: The following was intended to help refresh participants’ memories by covering significant events and milestones in the history of the People’s Republic of China, focusing more closely after 1949, with reference, where relevant, to the UK and to significant world events. 1841
Hong Kong occupied by British.
1842
Hong Kong ceded to Britain under Treaty of Nanking (an ‘Unequal Treaty’).
1856-60
Second Anglo-Chinese war.
1860
Peking8 occupied by British and French; Kowloon Peninsular ceded to Britain under first Convention of Peking;
1898
New Territories leased to Britain for 99 years under second Convention of Peking.
1898-1901
Boxer Rebellion.
1920
Communist Party of China formed.
1926
Civil war began in China between the Nationalist Party of China (Kuomintang), which was the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China.
1930
British withdrew from the Yellow River Port of Weihaiwei.9 Hong Kong Governor Sir Cecil Clementi suggested that the UK government should also
7
Prepared by M.D. Kandiah from the following internet and published sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13017882 [accessed 1 Mar. 2013]; http://www.cap.lmu.de/download/2007/2007_eu-china_eisel.pdf - Reinhard Eisel, Britain’s China policy from 1949 to 2005: From an Idealistic Approach to Return to a Focus on the Economic Factor (EU-China European Studies Centres Programme, 2007); http://www.indiana.edu/~e232/Time2.html [accessed 1 Mar. 2013]; http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/chinese-in-britain-history-timeline.htm [accessed 1 Mar. 2013]; http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~amduckwo/janice/Timeline1.html [accessed 1 Mar. 2013]; J.E. Hoare and Lord Hurd, Embassies in the East: The Stories of British Embassies in China, Japan and Korea from 1859 to the present (Routledge, 1999); http://www.cbbc.org/who_we_are/about_us/history [accessed 1 Mar. 2013]; Backgrounder: China and the United Kingdom Xinhuanet 2003-07-16 00:18, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-07/16/content_977034.htm [accessed 1 Mar. 2013], http://www.sacu.org/histchart.html [accessed 1 Mar. 2013]; Luo Weihong, Christianity in China (Chinese Intercontinental Press, 2004). Where additional internet resources relating to events are known to be available, they have been indicated in footnotes. 8 The spelling Peking was usual until around 1980, when the PRC Government began to insist on the use of Beijing and the former spelling has now fallen into desuetude when referring to the Chinese capital. 9 http://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&context=moore – facsimile of Treaty [accessed 1 Mar. 2013].
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