Page 468 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

454.

government became less capable of discriminating in favor of

nations who observed Chinese regulations. Cushing's recog­

nition of the potential difficulties facing Americans within

the emerging "treaty system" prompted him to insist on form­

alizing American relations with the Celestial Empire.

Cushing exchanged the advantages which Americans had

enjoyed under the "Canton system" for corrnnercial regulations

and legal and extraterritorial rights guaranteed by a treaty.

His achievement, however, reached beyond the American community
in China. The English, because of a most-favored-nation clause

in the Treaty of Nanking, also received all benefits awarded

to Americans in the Treaty of Wang-hsia. Contemporary English

politicians and writers used the most-favored-nation clause to

denigrate Cushing's efforts. They argued that England's military

victories and subsequent negotiations made the American mission

superfluous. The English certainly had opened new ports to

foreign trade. But, as Cushing countered English ridicule, the

English treaties "did not stipulate that the advantages obtained

by her should be made common to the rest of Europe." Instead,

England merely gained for itself any treaty concessions which

1
China granted to other foreign states. In Cushing s opinion,
"the opening of the Five Ports to other nations was in fact, as

it certainly was in form, the spontaneous act of the Chinese
2
Government." The English, furthermore, obtained many important

2
U.S., State Department, Diplomatic Despatches: China,
C. Cushing, Jul. 5, Aug. 16, and Aug. 26, 1844.