How China Administrates Her Foreign Affairs

Extract

The foreign relations of China may be said to begin with the year 1689, when the first treaty, consisting of six articles, was concluded with Russia at Nerchinsk. Although several embassies from Europe made their way to China by land and sea in the 17th and the 18th centuries, regular diplomatic relations were not established till the spring of 1861, when the diplomatic representatives of Great Britain and France took up their residence in the southeastern part of the inner city of Peking, now known as Legation Street. On the 19th of January, 1861, an Imperial Edict was issued, commanding the formation of a new bureau, named the Tsungli Yamên, for the administration of foreign affairs. By the terms of the Protocol of 1901, the Tsungli Yamên was transformed from a bureau or commission into a regularly constituted ministry or department, taking precedence over the then six other ministries of state, and has since been called the Waiwu Pu, or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.