French Consession

Shanghai has three districts that were laid out by the French, British and Americans. However, China was not a colony, but these three countries had so-called concessions, i.e. territories on Chinese territory that were laid out north and west of the old city of Shanghai. The name FFC, "Former French Concession", is still sometimes heard today; it is an area the size of a small town.

This area is characterized by avenues of plane trees, which were then planted by the French. These trees not only beautify the street scene, but above all they provide shade and bring a certain amount of cooling. The houses in the district were built in the European style. Many of them are free and surrounded by large gardens. You rarely see the buildings in their entirety, as the properties are often walled. At most, a gable or a roof protrudes beyond the boundaries. Nowadays it has to be pure luxury to live there, so close to the city center, in a detached house, a villa in a park-like setting, so to speak. In the following photos you can only see buildings that come right up to the sidewalks. They are smaller, but very beautiful as townhouses in dignified, sometimes quiet surroundings. You will probably be woken up by the twittering of birds in the middle of the 25 million metropolis.

The district has kept its charm and the Xuhui district administration has put a sign on many houses stating that it is a "Cultural Relief Preservation Site". Many of them can be found in the area around Changle Road, Fuxing Road, Wulumuqi Road and many others. However, many of the houses would benefit from a complete renovation. Some things spoil the impression, from air conditioning systems that are attached to the house walls to cables that hang around in a mess on the outside, etc. Maybe that will happen in the years to come.

But how did the French come to Shanghai and build a French city there right next to the old, Chinese Shanghai? The First Opium War This was preceded by the First Opium War, which was waged out of economic and political interests. For a very long time, China was an economic world power that amassed enormous wealth through luxury goods. Since the baroque era in Europe, Chinese products such as silk, porcelain and tea have been so coveted and precious that the country became rich through exporting them. The payment was made in silver, which was accumulating in huge quantities in China. This trade surplus aroused covetousness among the British. China had long pursued a policy of isolation and had little interest in Western products, and in the West in general. The trade was regulated exclusively via the port city of Canton in the south at the mouth of the Pearl River, so that everything could be well controlled through the bundling. The British wanted to offset China's trade surplus. The British East India Company smuggled opium produced in Bengal into China, which was done illegally because the Chinese government had banned the opium trade. The opium dependence in the population increased enormously, the productivity of China suffered greatly and the trade surplus was reversed, since the opium naturally also had to be paid for. China was so weakened by opium smuggling that the state apparatus intervened with concern. In an open letter to Queen Victoria, he appealed to Queen Victoria’s moral responsibility to stop the opium trade, which did not happen. Finally, China closed the port of Canton, confiscated all shipments there and had a large amount of opium destroyed.

Great Britain had a reason for war and sent a navy to China, which inflicted a devastating defeat on the empire, so that China was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking (the first of the "Unequal Treaties"). With this treaty, the British withdrew the Chinese sovereignty over their own foreign trade and opened the markets for themselves and other Europeans. Five ports have been opened to foreign ships, including Shanghai. Extra-territoriality for foreigners, most-favored-nation treatment and a consular jurisdiction, reparation payments, opening up for Christian missions and the cession of Hong Kong "for ever" were additional interventions in Chinese sovereignty. The opium trade, which was previously illegal, has now also been cleared, which has had a lasting impact on the health of the Chinese population. The First Opium War ushered in the decline of China from the former hegemonic power of Asia to the informal colony of European powers that China would remain until the turn of the 20th century. From a Chinese perspective, the period from the First Opium War in 1842 to the proclamation of the People's Republic in 1949 is the century of humiliation.

All in all, many major Western powers had their concessions: Great Britain had 12, Japan had 9, France had 6, Russia 4, Germany 3, the USA 2 and Portugal, Belgium, Italy and Austria-Hungary had one concession each.

Die Konzessionen in Schanghai, Quelle: Klick auf das Bild.

Both maps show roughly the same section of Shanghai. You can clearly see the bend of the Huangpu River. The French concession is drawn in red on the western side of the river, and above it is the British concession in ocher. The ancient Chinese city is the small oval district east of the French Concession. The concessions are territories on Chinese soil that have been withdrawn from the sovereignty of China and have everything that defines a state structure: its own jurisdiction, its own police, its own military, etc. Of course that was a thorn in the flesh of China, as was the formation of the Unequal Treaties. Incidentally, the West continued to expand its power with the Second Opium War and other unequal treaties. From today's Chinese perspective, communist China, the People's Republic, is an overcoming of western dominance.