Treaty of Nanking

The Treaty of Nanking, signed on 29 August 1842 aboard the British warship HMS Cornwallis anchored off Nanking, ended the First Opium War (1839-1842) between Great Britain and Qing China and became the first of what Chinese historiography calls the "unequal treaties." Its terms ceded the island of Hong Kong to Britain in perpetuity, opened five Chinese treaty ports, including Shanghai and Canton, to British trade and residence, abolished the Canton System that had confined foreign trade to a single licensed guild, imposed a large war indemnity and compensation for destroyed opium stocks on China, and set fixed, low tariffs China could not unilaterally alter. Supplementary agreements signed the following year extended further concessions, including extraterritorial legal jurisdiction for British subjects in China and most-favored-nation treatment. The treaty's lopsided terms, imposed after China's military defeat and never genuinely negotiated between equals, opened what is remembered in China as the "Century of Humiliation" and became a defining reference point in modern Chinese nationalism and foreign policy.