TREATY BETWEEN FRANCE AND CHINA.
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Art. II.-China, having decided to do nothing which may compromise the work of pacification undertaken by France, engages to respect, in the present and in the future, the treaties, conventions, and arrangements concluded directly between France and Annam, or which may hereafter be concluded.
As regards the relations between China and Annam, it is understood they shall be of such a nature as shall in no way offend against the dignity of the Chinese empire or give rise to any violation of the present treaty.
Art. III.—Within a period of six months from the signature of the present treaty commissioners appointed by the high contracting parties shall proceed to the place to determine the frontier between China and Tonquin. They shall place land- marks wherever necessary to mark out the line of demarcation. In those cases where they may not be able to agree as to the location of these landmarks or on such recti- fications of detail as it may be desirable to make, in the interest of the two nations, in the existing frontier of Tonquin, they shall refer to their respective Governments.
Art. IV. When the frontier shall have been decided upon, French or French protégés and foreign residents of Tonquin who may wish to cross it in order to enter China may only do so on obtaining beforehand passes, to be supplied by the Chinese frontier authorities on the requisition of the French authorities. For Chinese subjects an authorisation given by the Imperial frontier authorities shall be sufficient.
Chinese subjects wishing to pass from China to Tonquin by the land route shall be supplied with regular passports given by the French authorities on the requisition of the Imperial authorities.
Art. V.-Import and export trade shall be permitted to Chinese merchants and to French merchants or French protégés on the land frontier between China and Tonquin. This trade shall be conducted only at certain points which shall be determined upon hereafter, the position and number of which shall be decided with regard to the direction and importance of the trade between the two countries. In this matter regard shall be had to the regulations in force in the interior of the Chinese empire.
In any case two of these points shall be fixed on the Chinese frontier, one above Lao-kai and the other beyond Langson. French merchants may establish themselves there under the same conditions and with the same advantages as in the ports open to foreign trade. The Government of the Emperor of China shall establish Custom Houses there and the Republic may appoint Consuls whose privileges and preroga tives shall be identical with those of the agents of the same country in the open ports.
On his side the Emperor of China may, in accord with the French Government, appoint Consuls in the principal towns of Tonquin.
Art. VI. A special regulation annexed to the present treaty shall specify the conditions under which trade by land between Tonquin and the Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Kwangsi, and Kwangtung may be carried on. This regulation shall be elaborated by Commissioners to be appointed by the high contracting parties within three months after the signature of the present treaty.
Goods passing between Tonquin and the provinces of Yunnan and Kwangsi shall be subjected to duties inferior to those stipulated by the existing tariff on foreign trade. The reduced tariff shall not be applied, however, to goods transport- ed by the land frontier between Tonquin and Kwangtung, and shall have no effect in the ports already opened by treaty.
Trade in arms and in engines, provisions, and munitions of war of all kinds shall be subject to the laws and regulations made by each of the contracting states in its own territory.
The exportation and importation of opium shall be arranged by special provi- sions to be inserted in the special regulation above mentioned.
Trade by sea between China and Annam shall also be the subject of a particular regulation. Meantime no alteration shall be made in the existing practice.
Art. VII.—In order to develop under the most advantageous conditions the relations of trade and good neighbourhood which the present treaty has for its object