Tratado de Tientsin (1885)
# Tratado de Tientsin (1885)

Plantilla:Short description

El Tratado de Tianjin (en chino tradicional, 中法新約), firmado el 9 de junio de 1885, puso fin oficialmente a la Guerra chino-francesa. El "tratado desigual", o tratado colonial, reafirmaba con mayor detalle las principales disposiciones del Acuerdo de Tianjin, firmado entre Francia y China el 11 de mayo de 1884. El artículo 2 obligaba a China a reconocer el protectorado francés sobre Annam y Tonkín establecido por el Tratado de Hue en junio de 1884, obligando implícitamente a China a abandonar sus pretensiones de soberanía sobre la dinastía Nguyễn, el tratado formalizó la victoria diplomática de Francia en la guerra chino-francesa.

## Trasfondo

En diciembre de 1884, alarmada por las ambiciones japonesas en Corea, la emperatriz viuda Cixi ordenó a sus ministros que sacaran a China de la guerra no declarada con Francia que había estallado el 23 de agosto. Las importantes victorias francesas en Tonkín y Formosa en febrero y principios de marzo de 1885, respectivamente, reforzaron su deseo de poner fin a la guerra chino-francesa. Aunque los chinos obtuvieron una inesperada victoria en Tonkín a finales de marzo, derrotando a la 2ª Brigada del general de Négrier en la Bang Bo y reocupando Lạng Sơn, este éxito fue contrarrestado por la simultánea captura de las islas Pescadores francesa. A pesar del caída del ministerio de Jules Ferry en Francia a finales de marzo tras la retirada de Lạng Sơn, la posición de China a principios de abril de 1885 era crítica. Así, aprovechando la oportunidad que ofrecía la caída del ministerio de Ferry, los chinos aceptaron aplicar las disposiciones del Acuerdo de Tianjin de mayo de 1884, que reconocía el protectorado de Francia sobre Vietnam. A cambio, los franceses renunciaron a su antigua exigencia de una indemnización por la emboscada de Bắc Lệ. Tras un aluvión de negociaciones en París en los primeros días de abril de 1885, se firmó la paz sobre esta base.

Los preliminares de la paz entre Francia y China se firmaron el 4 de abril de 1885. El protocolo preliminar de paz establecía un alto el fuego inmediato tanto en Tonkín como en Formosa. Los franceses se comprometían a levantar inmediatamente el bloqueo de Formosa y los chinos a retirar sus ejércitos de Tonkín a finales de mayo de 1885. Como garantía de la buena fe china, los franceses mantuvieron su "bloqueo del arroz" en el río Yangtsé y en los puertos chinos de Ningbo y Beihai, al tiempo que continuaban ocupando Keelung y las islas Pescadores.

Los chinos observaron cuidadosamente los términos del acuerdo de paz; así, tanto el ejército de Yunnan como el de Guangxi se retiraron de Tonkín. Reconociendo las dificultades prácticas a las que se enfrentaba el Ejército de Yunnan de Tang Jingsong, situado en lo más profundo del territorio de Tonkín, alrededor de Hưng Hóa, los franceses ampliaron el plazo del 4 de abril especificado en el acuerdo para su retirada, y el Ejército de Yunnan regresó finalmente a China a través de Lào Cai el 2 de junio de 1885. Bajo la presión de los mandos chinos, el Ejército de la Bandera Negra de Liu Yongfu también se retiró del territorio tonkinés. Satisfecho de que China tuviera intención de cumplir sus obligaciones, el gobierno francés consintió en la conclusión de un tratado de paz definitivo entre Francia y China.

El 9 de junio de 1885, Li Hongzhang, en nombre de China, y Jules Patenôtre, en nombre de Francia, firmaron en Tianjin un amplio tratado de paz de diez artículos, basado en las disposiciones del Acuerdo de Tianjin del 11 de mayo de 1884. Li había sido muy criticado en China por hacer demasiadas concesiones a Francia. Los funcionarios conservadores impidieron que se pusieran en práctica las disposiciones del Acuerdo de Tianjin, lo que provocó un enfrentamiento entre tropas francesas y chinas en Bắc Lệ en Tonkín. Este enfrentamiento había conducido directamente al estallido de la Guerra Chino-Francesa el 23 de agosto de 1884. Aunque los elementos de línea dura de la corte Qing no pudieron impedir que la emperatriz viuda designara de nuevo a Li Hongzhang para negociar un tratado de paz con los franceses, insistieron en que Li fuera acompañado por dos miembros del Zongli Yamen, Xi Zhen y zh. Deng era un destacado miembro del partido purista de línea dura y su nombramiento, un insulto deliberado a Li Hongzhang, fue una de las últimas ocasiones en que los puristas pudieron influir en la política de la corte. Desacreditados por la derrota de China en la guerra chino-francesa, los puristas perdieron rápidamente influencia en la corte a partir de entonces.

## Text of the treaty (English translation)

   Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Commerce, concluded between France and China at Tianjin on 9 June 1885
   El Presidente de la República Francesa y Su Majestad el Emperador de China, animados, uno y otro, por el mismo deseo de poner fin a las dificultades que se han causado mutuamente por sus intervenciones simultáneas en los asuntos de Annam, y deseando restablecer y mejorar las antiguas relaciones de amistad y comercio que existían entre Francia y China, han resuelto concluir un nuevo tratado que responda a los intereses comunes de las dos naciones, basado en el Convenio Preliminar firmado en Tianjin, el 11 de mayo de 1884, y ratificado por Decreto imperial, el 13 de abril de 1885.
   A tal efecto, las dos Altas Partes Contratantes han designado a sus plenipotenciarios, a saber: el Presidente de la República Francesa: M. JULES PATENÔTRE, Enviado Extraordinario y Ministro Plenipotenciario de Francia en China, Oficial de la Legión de Honor, Gran Cruz de la Estrella Polar de Suecia, etc; y Su Majestad el Emperador de China: LI HONGZHANG, Comisario Imperial, Primer Gran Secretario de Estado, Tutor del Heredero Presunto, Superintendente de Comercio de los Puertos del Norte, Virrey de Zhili, titular del Primer Grado del Tercer Rango de la Nobleza, con el título de Souyi; asistido por XI ZHEN, Comisario Imperial, Miembro del Consejo de Asuntos Exteriores, Presidente del Ministerio de Justicia, Administrador del Tesoro del Ministerio de Finanzas, Director de las Escuelas para la Educación de los Oficiales Hereditarios del Ala Izquierda del Ejército Tártaro de Pekín, Comandante en Jefe del Contingente Chino del Estandarte de los Bordes Amarillos; y DENG CHENGXI, Comisario Imperial, Miembro del Estado Ceremonial; quienes, tras comunicarse mutuamente sus poderes plenipotenciarios, que han reconocido en buena y debida forma, han convenido en los siguientes Artículos
   ARTICLE ONE
   France engages herself to reestablish and maintain order in the provinces of Annam which border upon the Chinese Empire. To that effect, she will take the measures necessary to disperse or expel the bands of pillagers and vagabonds which compromise the public tranquility, thus preventing it from reforming itself. Nevertheless, French troops will not cross the frontier which separates Tonkin from China, a frontier which France promises to respect and guarantee against all aggression.
   On her side, China engages herself to disperse or expel the bands which take refuge in her provinces bordering on Tonkin, and to disperse those which seek to organize themselves on her territory in order to spread trouble among the populations placed under the protection of France, and in consideration of the guarantees which have been accorded to her for the security of her frontier, she categorically pledges not to send troops to Tonkin.
   The High Contracting Parties will fix by a special convention the conditions under which wrongdoers will be extradited between China and Annam. Chinese colonists or former soldiers who live peaceably in Annam, earning their living by agriculture, industry or commerce and whose conduct is above reproach, shall enjoy the same security for their persons and their goods as French protégés.
   ARTICLE TWO
   China, having decided to do nothing which could compromise the work of pacification undertaken by France, engages herself to respect, in the present and in the future, the treaties, conventions and arrangements directly concluded or to be concluded between France and Annam.
   In those things which concern the relationships between China and Annam, it is intended that they will be of a nature such as not to affront the dignity of the Chinese Empire, and not to lead to any violation of the present treaty.
   ARTICLE THREE
   After an interval of six months from the signature of the present treaty, commissioners designated by the High Contracting Parties will go to delineate the frontier between China and Tonkin. They will place, wherever there is need, boundary markers designed to clearly delineate the line of demarcation. In the case where they can not agree among themselves on the placement of the markers or on the rectifications of detail in the actual frontier of Tonkin which it may be necessary to make in the common interest of both parties, they will refer it to their respective governments.
   ARTICLE FOUR
   When the frontier has been identified, the French, French protégés and foreign inhabitants of Tonkin who wish to cross it in order to go to China will only be allowed to do so after having previously furnished themselves with passports delivered by Chinese authorities at the frontier on the request of the French authorities. For Chinese subjects, an authorization by the imperial Frontier Authorities will suffice.
   Chinese subjects who wish to travel from China to Tonkin, by the land route, must be provided with regular passports by the French authorities on request by the Imperial Authorities.
   ARTICLE FIVE
   Import and export trade will be permitted to French merchants or French protégés and to Chinese merchants on the land frontier between China and Tonkin. It must be carried out, however, at certain points which will be determined later and the choice as well as the number will be in agreement with the direction of flow as well as the importance of the traffic of the two countries. The regulations in force in the interior of the Chinese Empire will be taken into account in this respect.
   Two trading posts will be designated on the Chinese frontier, one above Lào Cai and the other above Lạng Sơn. French merchants may establish themselves there under the same conditions and with the same advantages as in the treaty ports. The Government of His Majesty the Emperor of China will set up customs posts there, and the Government of the Republic will be able to maintain consuls there with the same privileges and prerogatives accorded to similar agents in the treaty ports.
   His Majesty the Emperor of China may appoint consuls in the principal towns of Tonkin, subject to the agreement of the French Government.
   ARTICLE SIX
   A special regulation, annexed to the present treaty, will specify the conditions in which will be carried out the land commerce between Tonkin and the Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi and Guangdong. That regulation will be prepared by commissioners who will be named by the High Contracting Parties within three months of the signing of the present treaty.
   The merchandise which will be the object of this commerce will be subject to, on entering and leaving Tonkin and the provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi, the same duties as those stipulated for foreign commerce. However, the reduced tariff will not be applied to merchandise transported across the land frontier between Tonkin and Guangdong and will not have effect in the ports opened by the treaties.
   Trade in arms, machinery, provisions and munitions of war of all kinds will be subject to the laws and regulations laid down by each of the contracting states on its territory.
   The export and import of opium will be regulated by special arrangements which will be part of the above mentioned commercial regulations.
   The sea trade between China and Annam will be equally the object of a special regulation, provided that it contains no deviations from common practice.
   ARTICLE SEVEN
   In view of the development of conditions advantageous for commercial relations and neighbourliness which the present treaty has for its object to reestablish between France and China, the Government of the Republic will construct roads in Tonkin and will encourage the construction of railways there.
   When, on her side, China decides to construct railway tracks, it is intended that she will address herself to French industry, and the Government of the Republic will provide her with every facility for the procurement in France of the personnel that she needs. It is also intended that this clause will not be considered as constituting an exclusive privilege in favor of France.
   ARTICLE EIGHT
   The commercial stipulations of the present treaty and the regulations arising from them can be revised after an interval of ten years has elapsed, dating from the exchange of ratifications of the present treaty. But, in the case where, six months before the appointed time, neither one nor the other of the High Contracting Parties has manifested a desire to proceed with revision, the commercial stipulations will remain in force for a new period of ten years and so forth.
   ARTICLE NINE
   After the present treaty has been signed, French forces will receive the order to retire from Keelung and to cease visitation, etc., on the high seas. Within one month after the signature of the present treaty, the Island of Formosa and the Pescadores will be entirely evacuated by French troops.
   ARTICLE TEN
   The provisions of older treaties, accords and conventions between France and China, not modified by the present treaty, remain in full force.
   The present treaty will be ratified first by His Majesty the Emperor of China, and after that it will be ratified by the President of the French Republic, the exchange of ratifications to take place at Beijing after the shortest possible delay.
   Done at Tianjin in four examples, 9 June 1885, corresponding to the 27th day of the fourth month of the eleventh year of Guangxu.

## Restoration of diplomatic relations

The signing of the treaty on 9 June was followed by a banquet at which the two plenipotentiaries expressed their satisfaction with the results of the negotiations. Patenôtre spoke as follows:

   I have every confidence that the diplomatic agreement we have just signed will do more than just put an end to our past disputes and—I hope—speedily efface them from our memory. By creating new links between France and China, by opening new markets for the commercial activity of all nations, the Treaty of 9 June will indubitably help to entrench and develop between the Chinese Empire and foreign countries that community of interests which has always most effectively cemented friendships between peoples. If the imperial government holds the same sentiments in this respect as the government of the Republic, this treaty will confer real and lasting benefits on everyone.

Li Hongzhang made the following reply:

   We Chinese have a saying: 'Friendship shines as brightly as the sun.' This proverb applies particularly to the bonds that link two great countries. China also desires the general welfare and wellbeing. From now on, the friendship between our two countries will shine as brightly as the morning sun when it emerges from the gloom of night.

## Implementation of the treaty

On 10 June 1885, immediately after the signature of the peace treaty, the French lifted their naval blockade of the Yangtze River, Ningbo, and Beihai. They evacuated Keelung on 21 June 1885 and the Pescadores Islands on 22 July 1885.

Ratifications of the Treaty of Tianjin were exchanged at Beijing on 28 November 1885.

Article 3 of the treaty provided for the appointment of a Sino-French commission to demarcate the border between Tonkin and China, which largely forms today's China-Vietnam border. China's commissioners were zh, Hong Lusu (鴻臚寺) and Qing Dengcheng (卿鄧承). The French commission was led by M. Bourcier Saint-Chaffray, and its members included M. Scherzer, the French consul in Canton, Dr Paul Neis, a noted Indochina explorer, Lieutenant-Colonel Tisseyre, Captain Bouinais, and M. Pallu de la Barrière (though the latter took no part in the commission's work). In preparation for the commission's work General de Courcy dispatched French troops to occupy Lạng Sơn, That Khe and other border towns in October 1885.

Demarcation work began in late 1885 and was completed in 1887. The French rejected Chinese claims to the Vietnamese town of Đồng Đăng, close to the Guangxi border and the site of a French victory during the Sino-French War, but agreed that the Bailong peninsula on the western border of Guangdong province should be awarded to China. A dispute over two areas on the border between Yunnan province and Tonkin was settled by the award of zh and Menglai (猛賴) to Vietnam, and the transfer of a large tract of fertile arable land between Mabaiguan (馬白關) and Nandan Mountain (南丹山) to China. An agreement confirming the new border between Vietnam and China was signed in Beijing on 26 June 1887 by French and Chinese representatives.

## Significance

The peace treaty of June 9, 1885 formalized France's diplomatic victory in the Sino-French War. Although the French were obliged to evacuate Keelung and the Penghu Islands (which Admiral Courbet had wanted to retain as a French counterweight to the British colony of Hong Kong), the Chinese withdrawal from Tonkin left the way clear for the French to reoccupy Lạng Sơn and to advance up the Red River to Lào Cai on the Yunnan-Tonkin border. In the years that followed the French crushed a vigorous Vietnamese resistance movement while consolidating their hold on Annam and Tonkin.

In 1887, Cochinchina, Annam and Tonkin (the territories which comprise the modern state of Vietnam) and Cambodia were incorporated into French Indochina. They were joined a few years later by Laos, ceded to France by Siam at the conclusion of the Franco-Siamese War in 1893.

## See also

* Unequal treaties
* Imperialism in Asia

## References

### Notes

* ↑ Thomazi, 1934, pp. 258–262.
* ↑ Billot, 1888, p. 406.
* ↑ Eastman, 1984, pp. 200–201.
* ↑ Chere, 1988, pp. 193–199.
* ↑ Lung Chang, 1993, p. 369.
* ↑ Thomazi, 1934, p. 265.
* ↑ Rouil, 2001.
* ↑ Lung Chang, 1993, pp. 377–378.

### Bibliography

* Billot, A. (1888). L'affaire du Tonkin: histoire diplomatique du l'établissement de notre protectorat sur l'Annam et de notre conflit avec la Chine, 1882–1885, par un diplomate. Paris.
* Chere, L. (1988). The Diplomacy of the Sino-French War (1883–1885): Global Complications of an Undeclared War. Notre Dame, IN.
* Eastman, L. (1984). Throne and Mandarins: China's Search for a Policy during the Sino-French Controversy. Stanford.
* Lung Chang (1993). Yueh-nan yu Chung-fa chan-cheng [越南與中法戰爭] [Vietnam and the Sino-French War]. Taipei.
* Neis, P. (1888). Sur les frontières du Tonkin. Le tour du monde.
* Rouil, C. (2001). Formose: des batailles presque oubliées. Taipei.
* Thomazi, A. (1934). La conquête de l'Indochine. Paris.

Plantilla:Sino-French war

