Beijing Legation Quarter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Beijing Legation Quarter was the area in Beijing where a number of foreign legations were located between 1861 and 1959. In Chinese, the area was known as Dōngjiāo mínxiàng (東交民巷), which was the name of the street running through the area. Following China's defeat in the Second Opium War in 1856-60, the Zongli Yamen was established as a foreign office of the Qing and the area around Dongjiao minxiang was opened for a number of foreign legations. Previously, the area had housed a number of hostels for tributary missions from Vietnam, Korea and Burma.
The foreign legations were originally scattered close to the Qing imperial government in the southern part of Beijing's old inner city, just west of Tian'anmen Square and north of Qianmen and Chongwenmen. During the Boxer rebellion in 1900, the Legation Quarter became the center of an international incident as it was besieged by boxers for several months. After the siege had been broken by the Eight-Nation Alliance, the foreign powers obtained the right to station troops to protect their legations under the terms of the Boxer Protocol. The Legation Quarter was encircled by a wall and all Chinese residents in the area were ordered to move out. Sealed off from its immediate environment, the Legation Quarter became a city within the city exclusively for foreigners and many Chinese nationalists resented the Quarter as a symbol of foreign aggression.
At the time of the establishment of the People's Republic of China, a number of foreign legations were still situated here, but after 1959 foreign missions were moved to Sanlitun outside the old city walls.
[edit] Reference
- Moser, Michael J., and Yeone Wei-chih Moser. Foreigners within the Gates: The Legations at Peking. Hong Kong, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
