“No dogs and Chinese—”
Does such a sign exist outside park and residential areas reserved for Westerners in the treaty port of Shanghai?
In 1793, when Lord George Macartney led his embassy to Peking to request (and do the customary kowtow) Emperor Chian Lung to open up China’s borders to British trade and British presence, foreigners were already allowed to trade in Canton, China, under certain restricted conditions.
Similarly, in 1853, when Commodore Perry led his 4 black (actually brown hulls, but in woodblock paintings they were coloured black to differentiate them from the Chinese white junks) ships into Edo Bay to force Japan to open up to American trade and presence, the Dutch and Chinese were already allowed to trade, albeit in Nagasaki under restrictive terms. (p 257 and 277, The Making of Modern Japan by Marius B. Jansen).
The question arises whether a country should be forced to open up its borders. Is it a legitimate exercise of sovereignty to limit intrusions by foreigners and to control where they can travel inland?
No Dogs And Not Many Chinese by Frances Wood (1998 hardcover) is a gem of a book on an era now past. Wood narrates how foreign lives were lived in a foreign land.
This is a fascinating account of how Westerners lived their lives in the treaty ports of China, like Shanghai, Amoy, Swatow, Tientsin, etc., from 1843 to 1943.
LWH 8 August 2025