@article{THESIS,
      recid = {12904},
      author = {Sheng, Jiakai},
      title = {Re-Colonizing Shanghai: The Japanese Settlement in a  Chinese Treaty Port, 1895-1937},
      publisher = {University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2024-08},
      number = {THESIS},
      abstract = {This dissertation examines the history of the Japanese  community in Shanghai between 1895 and 1937. Situated at  the intersection of the study of Japan’s empire and  overseas expansion, imperialism in China, the urban history  of treaty ports, and the study of modern Shanghai, this  project offers a fresh perspective on Japan’s ascent as a  colonial power and its impact on the established imperial  order in East Asia. It moves beyond the simplistic  portrayal of Japan as a late entrant into China’s  treaty-port system with an aim to subvert the  “semi-colonial” or “transnational colonial” structures  dominated by Western powers—a narrative that risks reading  history backwards from Japan’s full-scale war efforts after  1937. Instead, it explores how the Japanese integrated  themselves into the treaty-port configuration while  reappropriating its existing institutions. Throughout the  early twentieth century, Japanese presence in Shanghai and  the city’s evolvement as a modern cosmopolis profoundly  influenced each other. Specifically, this study  investigates the interlinkage of the Japanese challenge to  British control over municipal governance, their response  to the rise of Chinese nationalism, and their quotidian  experience that was constantly shaped by the built  environment of the host city. Central to my analysis is how  ordinary Japanese settlers negotiated their position in  Shanghai’s International Settlement, and how their  contestation of the treaty port’s entrenched political and  racial hierarchy eventually led to a stronger alignment  with their state power, which ultimately compromised the  Settlement’s tradition of self-governance and  inter-imperial cooperation.	This project employs a  synthetic analysis that weaves together local, national and  transnational perspectives to illuminate key aspects of  East Asia’s modern transformation, including the  conceptualization and practice of imperial dominance,  nationalist resistance, community-building, state-society  relations, and the development of urban administration,  showing how these dynamics interacted with each other in  shaping the political, social, and spatial fabric of  treaty-port colonialism. To this end, it draws upon a  diverse array of sources in multiple languages, including  documents from the Shanghai Municipal Archives, the  National Archives of Japan, and the archives of the British  Foreign Office and the U.S. Department of State; it also  combines a broad selection of newspapers and periodicals  from both Shanghai and the imperial metropoles, as well as  guidebooks, local gazetteers, police records, personal  writings and memoirs, to provide a multifaceted and  balanced view essential to understanding Japanese  interaction with the treaty-port regime.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/12904},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.12904},
}