unequal treaties

The unequal treaties were a series of agreements made between East Asian countries—most notably Qing China, Tokugawa Japan (in the 1850s) and Joseon Korea—and imperial powers—most notably the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Empire of Japan (starting in the late 1870s), Italy, Portugal, the United States and Russia—during the 19th and early 20th centuries. They were often signed following a military defeat suffered by the Asian party, or amid military threats made by the Western powers. The terms specified obligations to be borne almost exclusively by the Asian party and included provisions such as the cession of territory, payment of reparations, opening of treaty ports, relinquishment of the right to control tariffs and imports, and granting of extraterritoriality to foreign citizens.

With the rise of Chinese nationalism and anti-imperialism in the 1920s, both the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) used the concept to characterize the Chinese experience of losing sovereignty between roughly 1840 to 1950. The term "unequal treaty" became associated with the concept of China's "century of humiliation", especially the concessions to foreign powers and the loss of tariff autonomy through treaty ports, and continues to serve as a major impetus for the foreign policy of China today.