Treaty of Nanjing

The Treaty of Nanjing, signed aboard the British warship HMS Cornwallis, ended the First Opium War between Britain and the Qing dynasty of China. The war had arisen over the British trade in opium from India and Chinese efforts to suppress it. China ceded the island of Hong Kong to Britain, opened five ports, including Shanghai and Canton, to foreign trade, and paid a large indemnity. The treaty was followed by supplementary agreements that granted British subjects extraterritorial rights. Chinese people later came to call it the first of the unequal treaties, which marked the start of the so-called century of humiliation.

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