Kwang-Chou-Wan (also spelt
Guangzhouwan or
Kwangchowan) was a small
enclave on the south coast of
China ceded by
Qing China to
France as a
leased territory.
[Gale 1970: 201] The territory did not experience the rapid growth in population that other parts of coastal China experienced, only rising from 189,000 in 1911
[EB 1911: Kwangchow Bay] to 209,000 in 1935.
[Priestly 1967: 441] Industries included shipping and coal mining. The colony was invaded and taken over by Japan in February 1943, taken back by France in 1945, and finally returned to China in 1946,
[Olson 1991: 349-350] at which point its original name of
Zhanjiang was restored.
Geography
The leased territory was situated in
Guangdong Province (Kwangtung Province) on the east side of the
Leizhou Peninsula, north of
Hainan, around a bay then called Kwang-Chou-Wan (Kwangchow Bay), now called Zhanjiang Gang (Zhanjiang Harbor). The bay forms the estuary of the
Maxie River (Maxie He). The Maxie is navigable as far as 19 km (12 mi.) inland even by large warships. The territory ceded to France included the islands lying in the bay, which enclosed an area 29 km long by 10 km wide and a minimum water depth of 10 metres. The islands were recognized at the time as an admirable natural defense. The limits of the concession inland were fixed in November 1899; on the left bank of the Maxie, France gained from
Gaozhou prefecture (Kow Chow Fu) a strip of territory 18 km by 10 km, and on the right bank a strip 24 km by 18 km from
Leizhou prefecture (Lei Chow Fu).
The total land area of the colony was 842 km².
The town of
Zhanjiang was named
Fort Bayard by the French and developed as a port.
History
Annexation and early development
Kwang-Chou-Wan was annexed by France on
27 May 1898 as
Territoire de Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, to counter the growing commercial power of British
Hong Kong and Portuguese
Macau. Their colony was described as "commercially unimportant but strategically located"; most of France's energies went into their administration of
French Indochina, and their main concern in China was the protection of
Catholic missionaries, rather than the promotion of trade.
Following the annexation, a 99 year lease to France was formally conceded by imperial China in 1900; Kwang-Chou-Wan was effectively placed under the authority of the French
Resident superior in
Tonkin (itself under the Governor general of
French Indochina, also in
Hanoi); the French Resident was represented locally by Administrators.
[Olson 1991: 349] In addition to the territory acquired, France was given the right to connect the bay by railway with the city and harbour situated on the west side of the peninsula; however, when they attempted to take possession of the land to build the railway, forces of the provincial government offered armed resistance. As a result, France demanded and obtained exclusive
mining rights in the three adjoining prefectures. The population in 1911 was recorded as 189,000.
The return of the colony to China was promised at the
Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922, but this plan was in fact never realised.
By 1931, the population of Kwang-Chou-Wan had reached 206,000, giving the colony a population density of 245 persons per km²; virtually all were Chinese, and only 266 French people and four other Europeans were recorded as living there.
Industries included shipping and coal mining.
The port was also popular with smugglers; prior to the 1928 cancellation of the American ban on export of commercial airplanes, Kuang-Chou-Wan was also used as a stop for Cantonese smugglers transporting military aircraft purchased in Manila to China, and US records mention at least one drug smuggler who picked up
opium and
Chinese emigrants to be smuggled into the United States from there.
World War II
After the
fall of Paris to Nazi Germany in
1940, the
Republic of China recognised the
London-exiled
Free French government as Guangzhouwan's sovereign rulers and established diplomatic relations with them; from June 1940 until February 1943, the colony remained under the administration of Free France.
This is an interesting fact bearing in mind that Guangzhouwan had been governed from French-Indochina, and that the authorities there were loyal to the Vichy regime. The explanation may lie in the fact that Guangzhouwan was totally surrounded by Free China and that the Japanese did not occupy that part of the China coast.
During the
Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, Guangzhouwan was often used as a stop on an escape route for civilians fleeing
Hong Kong and trying to make their way to
Free China;
Patrick Yu, a prominent trial lawyer, recalled in his memoirs how a
Japanese civilian in Hong Kong helped him to escape in this way. However, the escape route would not remain open for long; in collaboration with German-controlled
Vichy France, which relinquished the concession to the Japanese-sponsored
Chinese National Government (another claimant to the succession of the former Chinese empire), the
Imperial Japanese Army would invade and occupy the area in February
1943.
Just prior to the
Japanese surrender which ended
World War II, the
National Revolutionary Army, having recaptured
Liuzhou,
Guilin, and
Taizhou, as well as
Lashio and
Mandalay in
Burma, was planning to launch a large-scale assault on Guangzhouwan; however, due to the end of the war, the assault never materialised. The French lease over Guangzhouwan would soon be terminated regardless, under an agreement concluded on
February 28,
1946. In exchange for a withdrawal of Chinese forces from northern
Vietnam, the French not only returned Guangzhouwan to the
Nationalist government, but also gave up extraterritorial rights in
Shanghai,
Hankou, and
Guangzhou, sold the Yunnan Rail Line to China, and agreed to provide special treatment for
ethnic Chinese in Vietnam and Chinese goods exported to Vietnam. After the handover, the
Zhanjiang City Government was formally established to administer the city.
French cultural and economic influence
A French school,
École Franco-Chinoise de Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, as well as a branch of
Banque de l'Indochine, were set up in Fort Bayard. In addition, a Catholic church constructed during the colonial period is still preserved today.
See also
