Retraction of customs is only one of them. For the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Beiyang Government, negotiating with Liu Qiang of various countries and abolishing all unequal treaties is the most important thing.

Since Wang Chenhao formed the cabinet, the Beiyang government has been negotiating with the powerful countries. The unequal treaties of some small countries have been abolished one after another, but negotiations with the seven countries of Britain, France, the United States, Russia, Germany, Italy and Austria have been quite complicated.

Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were weak and far away from China, but they had the support of Germany.

As the largest military alliance in the world, the Beiyang government has to consider their influence. Similarly, the French and Ding countries are also military contracting parties. Although the two major military groups are opposed in Europe, they have common interests in Asia. Therefore, the Beiyang government needs to act cautiously to prevent the five countries of Germany, Italy, Austria and France and Russia from forming an alliance to jointly deal with China.

Britain and the United States are slightly better. Although Britain does not agree to abolish all Sino-British treaties, it does not want to turn against China directly. Therefore, Sino-British negotiations have been delayed. The British deliberately delayed, and the negotiations have become a long battle. The United States and China have six unequal treaties, but they are basically signed with Britain to take advantage of the situation. The United States acted in a way, the United Kingdom deliberately delayed, and the United States also learned to delay time.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs hopes to open the gap from Britain and the United States as soon as possible. In the end, Wang Chenhao believes that the clause that seriously infringes on China's sovereignty is the consular judgment right, the right to concession and one-sided most-favored-nation treatment, while the first two are the most core issues.

The United States is under a lot of pressure. The United States' military threat to China is far less than that of Britain. In addition, the United States hopes that China will provide more support in the US-Philippines war, so the United States will eventually take the lead in compromise.

On February 2, 1899, the US government representative Charles signed the Sino-US Treaty of Beijing with the Chinese Foreign Minister Li Hongzhang. The treaty stipulates that the US government voluntarily abandoned a series of unequal treaties signed with China since 1841, abolished the consular right to judge China, one-sided most-favored-nation treatment, right of lease, and other clauses involving infringement of China's sovereignty independence and territorial integrity. The Chinese Beiyang government promised to take back the concession area and protect the property and personal safety of US citizens in China, and China and the United States are the most-favored-nation treatment of each other.

The annex to the treaty stipulates that China supports the United States' position on the Philippines issue and continues to provide material supplies to the US military in the Philippines. Since the Philippines is an archipelago terrain, wars are mostly between islands and require the help of maritime hospital ships. China will send three hospital ships to the Philippines to help the US military treat the wounded. China cancels the provision of "humanitarian" assistance to the Philippine Republic and prohibits Chinese companies from providing arms to the Philippine military.

The content of the attachment is a secret agreement reached by China and the United States and is not disclosed to the public. The US government has noticed that the Philippine Revolutionary Army has equipped a large number of Chinese weapons, which has caused serious consequences to the US military. In order to end the US-Philippine War as soon as possible, the US government has had to make concessions in the negotiations on the abolition of the unequal treaty.

After the United States abolished all unequal treaties with China, China and the United States officially established an equal and mutually beneficial strategic partnership, and the diplomatic hierarchy between the two sides has also been upgraded from the current ministerial level to the ambassador level.

When the United States saw that it gave in, it had to make some statements to maintain China-UK relations. The conflict between Britain and China is much greater than that of the United States. In addition to the consular judgment, one-sided most-favored-nation treatment, concession area and other disputes, there are also territorial disputes between Hong Kong Island, Yunnan border and Tibet border. In the end, the British government only announced the abolition of consular judgment power against China and upgraded the one-sided most-favored-nation treatment to the two countries as the same most-favored-nation treatment. However, there was no leniency in the consular area and the issue of cedestination.

For Britain, this level of concession has been considered a huge diplomatic victory for China. Therefore, Wang Chenhao instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to first reach an abolition agreement with Britain. As for the issue of the concession area and the retraction of land seizure, it can be put aside first. At present, Britain's benefits to China outweigh the disadvantages. China's main goal is Russia, and will go back to negotiate with Britain after dealing with the Russian issue.

So on February 15, China and Britain also signed the Beijing Treaty. The United Kingdom, like the United States, promised to abolish all unequal treaties signed with China. However, in the annex, China and Britain chose to temporarily shelve the dispute over the concession area and land seizure, which urgently needs to be resolved in the future.

The concessions between Britain and the United States have caused the governments of Germany, Italy, Austria and France and Russia to be pondered.

Italy and Austro-Hungary were the leader of Germany, and Germany saw that Britain and the United States had compromised against China and were unwilling to offend China. So the German government began to actively respond to China's diplomatic negotiations and proposed their compromise conditions to the Chinese government.

Germany hopes to obtain relevant technical parameters for destroyers developed by China and the United Kingdom. Among them, Germany is most interested in the high-speed steam turbine project and China's radio technology.

The Ministry of Defense opposed Germany's request, but in the end Wang Chenhao agreed. Because Wang Chenhao hoped to have a strong Germany in Europe to restrain Russia and the United Kingdom. The Ministry of Defense naturally did not dare to go against Wang Chenhao's intentions, so he secretly sent the British C-class destroyer project plan to the German side, and at the same time transferred the high-speed steam turbine and the latest radio technology to Germany.

After obtaining these technical information, Germany immediately announced that it would unconditionally abandon all unequal treaties with China, abandon the concession area in China, and establish an equal cooperative partnership with China, and also upgrade the ambassador to an ambassador.

Germany gave in, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire had no backstage, so it also announced that it would unconditionally abandon all unequal treaties and concessions with China.

After the Allies abolished all unequal treaties against China, France and Russia opened their noses.

All countries have improved relations with China, but France has refused negotiations because of Russia's strong pull, and now it has offended China. France's national strength is no longer as good as before, and France is in a serious internal crisis at this time.

In the French government and parliament, there are many factions, fierce struggles, frequent cabinet changes, endless scandals, and serious crises in the republic system.

In the Panama scandal of 1898, the Dreyfus case destroyed the prestige of the ruling moderate republicans and could not continue to rule. The Jijin Republicans' reputation increased greatly due to their extensive intervention in the retrial of the Dreyfus faction. The moderate republicans were soon replaced by Jijin.

The French Dibi Cabinet is on the verge of collapse, so at this time, France has no time to toughen up with China. Especially because of the political crisis, France cannot maintain the French army in Vietnam on a large scale, and now it has cut less than 20,000 troops. France does not want to offend China and give China an excuse to attack Vietnam. Therefore, the French government announced the conditions for abolishing the unequal treaty after Germany.

The French government's condition is that France can give up the right to judge and lease in China, but the French army has built a naval base, and the Chinese government needs to invest in buying the Guangzhou Bay back. The French government has attached a condition on the issue of Guangzhou Bay, which is to require China to exchange steam turbine technology and radio technology.

It is obvious that there are spies in France within Germany, so they make the same request as Germany. Wang Chenhao generously agreed.
Chapter completed!