“…Second, the treaty ports are usually regarded as a tool of western powers to depredate Chinese economy (Qi, 1930, p. 189; Xia, 1982, p. 610). Western scholars also recognise that treaty ports were the beachhead of western powers to invade the Chinese economy (Nield, 2010, p. 13), and that the treaty‐port system failed to push China to realise modernization (Murphey, 1970).…”