unequal treaty

plural unequal treaties

1. historicaltreaty forced upon weaker nations by imperialist powers

   In China, where a subcolonial state had resulted from a series of unequal treaties imposed upon her, the Russian Communists found fertile soil for the reception of their ideas, and thus prepared the way for their subversive infiltration.

   1957, Chiang Chung-cheng (Kai-shek), “Introduction”, in Soviet Russia in China: A Summing-up at Seventy, New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 5

   1 more example

   Officials charged with managing China’s foreign relations offered concessions in various cities — but they deliberately invited multiple sets of foreigners to share in the spoils, so that they could “use barbarians against barbarians” and avoid dominance by any one power. They eventually insisted on scrupulous adherence to the “unequal treaties” with the West and to foreign principles of international law, not because Chinese officials believed them to be valid, but because such conduct provided a means to circumscribe foreign ambitions.

   2011, Henry Kissinger, On China, New York: Penguin Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 59–60