The Research On The Negotiation Of Late Qing Government Setting Up Consulates In Dutch East India

The Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) are dotted and have the vast area and thefertile land. Chinese people have settled down here long before. They madeoutstanding contributions for the local development. However, since the Dutchcolonists came here, Chinese people continuously were exploited and oppressed. Inmodern times, Chinese people in the Dutch East Indies have become the Dutchcolonial government’s main exploitation and oppression object due to the lack ofmother country’s protection. They wrote to Qing government in succession in order toask for setting up consulates to protect them. In1882, LiFengbao negotiated withNetherlands government on the setting up consulates in the Dutch East Indies, whichopened a prologue that up to30years negotiation.In the early days of the negotiation, the governors of Fujian and Guangdongbrought the most active attitude. On the one hand, Chinese people in the Dutch EastIndies had a close relationship with Fujian province and, Guangdong province. On theother hand, along with the continuous self-improvement movements, they wanted totake advantage of overseas Chinese economic power to enhance the strength of theQing government. However, due to the negative attitude of the Qing government, thematter dropped. After that, LvHaihuan, QianXun and LiuZhengXiang madeoutstanding contribution for the success of the negotiation. When LvHaihuan tookover the minister of Netherlands, he negotiated with Netherlands government actively.Although the event made their effort failed, but he brought the later with experienceand lesson.QianXun’s contribution embodied in that he collected the evidence ofabusing Chinese by the Dutch colonial authorities,persuaded in setting up theChinese Chamber of Commerce, promoted the development of the education andadvised the recruitment to promote to set up consular. All these provided a strongsupport for the later LuZhengxiang’s negotiation. So LuZhengxiang debated andpersevered in the negotiation, and ultimately he signed the treaty of establishment ofconsulates with the Government of the Netherlands.This paper has pointed out the reasons that led to so long negotiation through thenegotiation of setting up consulates in Dutch East India，discussed the importance ofsetting up consulates beyond the seas，thought that variety of factors drove thesuccess of negotiation, reflected the Qing government protected and strived for the Chinese people in the Dutch East Indies, enhanced the relationship between the Qinggovernment and the overseas Chinese and gave them some security. However, theQing government had a long way to fulfill the overseas people’s protectionrequirement due to its corruption and weakness.