Degree Date

1939

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Abstract

In the present monographs an attempt is made to study certain problems of international law with reference to their application in China. Whatever its pretensions in the realm of theory may be, the ultimate value of international law lies and its actual application by the nations in their relations with one another. As a sovereign state in the community of nations, China is entitled to be treated as the juristic equal of the other member states. Owing to her administrative and military weakness, however, China's jurisdictional rights have been frequently curtailed by the arbitrary sex of the so-called Great Powers. From the standpoint of China, the present study will exhibit the illegal limitations placed upon her juristic freedom as a result of the mistaken interpretations of international law by foreign states and the relations with China and their unjustifiable application of its rules. Beautiful and the side of international law, the following pages contained many instances of violations of the established rules of conduct between nations.

The monograph does not report to present original research in the fax of history. It is primarily an attempt to collect facts concerning China under certain head heaves of international law and to interpret or analyze those facts from a judicial point of view. The task is handicapped by the absence of casebooks and works on international law concerning China, and by the inaccessibility, due to present conditions in the far east, of such government documents as ts'ing tai ch'ou pan yi wu shih mo (Foreign Relations of the Ts'ing Dynast), tung hua lu (Imperial Records), and wai chiao kung pao (Gazette of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs); and of documentary studies of Chang Hsing-lang's chung hsi chiao t'ung kuan hsi shih (History of China's Intercourse with the West), and Wang Yun-Sheng's liu shih nien lai chung kuo yu je pen (Sino-Japanese Relations during the Last Sixty Years). Consequently references are frequently made to documents and other material in the form presented and secondary sources available in this country. It is believed, however, that the use of the secondary sources has not lessened the value of the general analysis of points of law.

Nor does the present study cover the whole field of international law. It is with regret that many problems in a larger field have been omitted from this monograph owing to the limit of time.

The writer wishes to acknowledge her gratitude to Prof. Charles G Fenwick of Bryn Mawr College for his painstaking supervision and criticism, and to Prof. Roger H Wells of the same institution for making many valuable suggestions in the matter of style. She is also indebted to Dean Younis Morgan Shenck and the Department of Economics and pPolitics of Bryn Mawr College for aids in the typing of the monograph.

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