Gunboat Justice: Warlords, Lawlords and the Making of Modern China and Japan
Part of the China Author Series
Supported by the China Committee
Join us for the first in our series of webinars where we are joined by leading authors focusing on China.
War, riots, rebellion, sedition, corruption, assassinations, murder, infidelity, and, even, a failed hanging. These were just some of the many challenges faced by the British and American courts that operated China, Japan and Korea for close to a 100 years. Established in the mid 19th Century under treaties signed when foreign gunboats forced all three countries to open to the outside world, these courts had the sole right to try their own nationals – leaving local courts with no power to punish foreigners.
Doug Clark trawled through through original archives and hundreds of trial transcripts to bring these fascinating courts back to life in his book Gunboat Justice. Doug will tell us the story of some of the more interesting cases before the courts, the eccentricities of many of the judges and lawyers as well as the cunning of the criminals and suffering of the victims. He will offer us his thoughts on how extraterritoriality changed the history of East Asia. For China, the period is the "Century of Humiliation"; for Japan the same era is celebrated. Understanding why this is so is fundamental to understanding the coming challenges to peace and security in East Asia.
About the speaker
Douglas Clark is an lawyer who has practised in Hong Kong and Shanghai for more than 25 years. He has a double degree in law and Asian Studies and speaks both Japanese and Chinese having attended school in Japan and university in China. He is the author of Gunboat Justice and also annotated and illustrated Norwood Allman’s classic Shanghai Lawyer. He has also published some (less interesting) legal texts such as Patent Litigation in China, Hong Kong Intellectual Property and Civil Litigation in Hong Kong. He promises not to talk about these.
Details on how to join will be sent via email by 5pm the day before the webinar.
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