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The Shanghai International Settlement ( Chinese: 上海公共租界) originated from the merger in the year 1863 of the British and American enclaves in Shanghai, in which British subjects and American citizens would enjoy extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction under the terms of treaties agreed by both parties. These treaties were ...
The only department not chaired by a Briton was the Municipal Orchestra, which was controlled by an Italian . The Settlement maintained its own fire-service, police force (the Shanghai Municipal Police), and even possessed its own military reserve in the Shanghai Volunteer Corps ( 萬國商團 ).
On the orders of Sir Henry Pottinger, first Governor of Hong Kong, Captain George Balfour of the East India Company 's Madras Artillery arrived as Britain's first consul in Shanghai on 8 November 1843 aboard the steamer Medusa. The next morning Balfour sent word to the circuit intendant of Shanghai, Gong Mujiu (then romanized Kung Moo-yun), requesting a meeting, at which he indicated his desire to find a house to live in. Initially Balfour was told no such properties were available, but on leaving the meeting, he received an offer from a pro-British Cantonese named Yao to rent a large house within the city walls for four hundred dollars per annum. Balfour, his interpreter Walter Henry Medhurst, surgeon Dr. Hale and clerk A. F. Strachan moved into the luxuriously furnished 52-room house immediately.
A caricature of Stirling Fessenden, one of the longest serving chairmen of the SMC, as the "Lord Mayor of Shanghai". No Chinese residing in the International Settlement were permitted to join the council until 1928.
By the late-1860s Shanghai's official governing body had been practically transferred from the individual concessions to the Shanghai Municipal Council (工部局, literally "Works Department", from the standard English local government title of 'Board of works'). The British Consul was the de jure authority in the Settlement, but he had no actual power unless the ratepayers (who voted for the Council) agreed. Instead, he and the other consulates deferred to the Council.
The aims of this first Council were simply to assist in the formation of roads, refuse collection, and taxation across the disparate Concessions.
The Sino-American Treaty of Wanghia was signed in July 1844 by Chinese Qing government official Qiying, the Viceroy of Liangguang, who held responsibility for the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, and Massachusetts politician Caleb Cushing (1800–1879), who was dispatched with orders to "save the Chinese from the condition of being an exclusive monopoly in the hands of England " as a consequence of the 1842 Nanking treaty. Under the Treaty of Wanghia, Americans gained the same rights as those enjoyed by the British in China's treaty ports. It also contained a clause that effectively carved out Shanghai as an extraterritorial zone within Imperial China, though it did not actually give the American government a true legal concession.
The British Government annexed Hong Kong, which became British territory, and subject to British law. The land on which the Foreign Settlement of Shanghai was created was, on the other hand, only leased to the British Government.
The 1911 Xinhai Revolution, spurred in part by actions against the native-owned railways around Shanghai, led to the establishment of the Republic of China. During that time, Shanghai became the focal point of many activities that would eventually shape modern China.
In 1863 the American concession (land fronting the Huangpu River to the north-east of Suzhou Creek) officially joined the British Settlement (stretching from Yang-ching-pang Creek to Suzhou Creek) to become the Shanghai International Settlement. Its waterfront became the internationally famous Bund.
The Treaty of Shimonoseki which ended the First Sino-Japanese War saw Japan emerge as an additional foreign power in Shanghai. Japan built the first factories in Shanghai, which were soon followed by other foreign powers. The Chinese defeat also spurred reformers within the Qing government to modernize more quickly, leading to the reëstablishment of the Songhu Railway and its expansion into the Shanghai–Nanjing Railway .
The telegraph that had been strung along the line of the railway – also China's first – was, however, allowed to remain in operation. By the mid-1880s, the Shanghai Municipal Council had a practical monopoly over a large part of the city's services.
In 1850, the first English-language newspaper in Shanghai, the North China Herald, was launched. Shanghai, c. 1886. The Taiping Rebellion was the largest of a number of widespread rebellions against the hugely unpopular Qing regime.
Xu later bequeathed some of his land in Shanghai, today's Xujiahui, meaning Xu family village, to the Catholic Church. By the end of the Ming dynasty in 1644, Shanghai had become a major cotton and textile center with a population that would soon reach 200,000.
Originally a small agricultural village, Shanghai developed during the late Qing dynasty (1644–1912) as one of China's principal trading ports. Although nominally part of China, in practice foreign diplomats controlled the city under the policy of extraterritoriality.
He was assisted by Eskimos of Savoonga and Gambell on St. Lawrence Island. Shortly afterward, 14 Siberians arrived for "a visit" and questioned inhabitants whether they had seen a "white Russian". Anatoli Granovsky.
KGB propaganda agent. Russia. 1970. Left his KGB station in India disguised as a hippie, traveled to Greece, was debriefed in the United States, but refused to stay in the country because of KGB infiltration of the CIA, and was granted asylum in Canada.
1953. Defected on a mission in East Berlin; he went on to reveal in Radio Free Europe broadcasts the internal struggle in the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) and the true face of the Security Office (UB). One result of his escape was the liquidation of the Ministry of Security (MBP).
After a couple of months of interrogation, he was turned over to the CIA, which flew him to Washington, D.C. for debriefing. Kopali had, among his other anti-western assignments in 1946-47, tried and failed to set up a liaison with the editor of an ethnic newspaper in Boston.
Deputy head of the NKVD in Istanbul, Turkey; contacted the British Istanbul consulate about defection, was arrested by the Soviets and disappeared forever (possibly executed) Valeri Tihonovitch Minakov.
In honour of his new home, Pakistan; he designed and constructed the Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore, Punjab which stands as a national symbol of the country to this day. He also constructed the Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore and Nishtar Medical University in Multan . Victor Kravchenko. Engineer. Ukraine.
Soon after the formation of the Soviet Union, emigration restrictions were put in place to keep citizens from leaving the various countries of the Soviet Socialist Republics, though some defections still occurred. During and after World War II, similar restrictions were put in place in non-Soviet countries ...
On September 29, 1983, Fuji Television aired a documentary "One visa that decided their fate - the Japanese who saved 4,500 Jews". In 1985, when Chiune Sugihara received Righteous among the Nations award, some Japanese newspapers reported that he saved 6,000 persons and others 4,500.
As the Soviet Union occupied sovereign Lithuania in 1940 , many Jewish refugees from Poland ( Polish Jews) as well as Lithuanian Jews tried to acquire exit visas. Without the visas, it was dangerous to travel, yet it was impossible to find countries willing to issue them. Hundreds of refugees came to the Japanese consulate in Kaunas, trying to get a visa to Japan. At the time, on the brink of the war, Lithuanian Jews made up one third of Lithuania's urban population and half of the residents of every town. In the period between 16 July and 3 August 1940, the Dutch Honorary Consul Jan Zwartendijk provided over 2,200 Jews with official third destination passes to Curaçao, a Caribbean island and Dutch colony that required no entry visa or to Surinam .
Chiune Sugihara. Chiune Sugihara (杉原 千畝, Sugihara Chiune, 1 January 1900 – 31 July 1986) was a Japanese diplomat who served as vice-consul for the Japanese Empire in Kaunas, Lithuania.
In 1939, Sugihara became a vice-consul of the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania. His duties included reporting on Soviet and German troop movements, and to find out if Germany planned an attack on the Soviets and, if so, to report the details of this attack to his superiors in Berlin and Tokyo.
Righteous Among the Nations (1984) Chiune Sugihara (杉原 千畝, Sugihara Chiune, 1 January 1900 – 31 July 1986) was a Japanese diplomat who served as vice-consul for the Japanese Empire in Kaunas, Lithuania. During the Second World War, Sugihara helped thousands of Jews flee Europe by issuing transit visas to them so that they could travel ...
Chiune Sugihara's birth Registry, indicating his birthplace as Kozuchi Town, Mugi District, nowadays known as Mino City in Gifu Prefecture. Observation Kozuchi-town from Mt. Ogura. Kyosenji Temple where Chiuna Sugihara was born and village section Named "Chiune" which can be seen from the temple.