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À côté de clauses économiques et commerciales discriminatoires, ils contiennent une série de dispositions imposant l’établissement de relations diplomatiques institutionnalisées, du moins telles que l’entendent les Européens : droit pour les Occidentaux d’établir à Pékin des représentations permanentes, obligation pour les gouvernements chinois et japonais de se doter d’un ministère des Affaires étrangères ou d’une structure équivalente, adoption du protocole en usage dans le monde « civilisé ».
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With the universalization of norms in mind, European international law set itself the goal of extending to the entire world the practices and codes specific to the diplomacy of the old continent. It was a long process from the Congress of Vienna in 1815, which sought for the first time to raise the question in legal terms, to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of April 18, 1961—which in the heart of the Cold War immediately became one of the most ratified texts in the world—although the central issues were clear: to define the legal framework in which diplomatic activity should take place, to codify aspects of protocol, and to rule on privileges (immunity, extraterritoriality, etc.). The uniformization of diplomatic rules, tools, and practices, as well as the adoption of a common language and grammar, were some of the elements present in the globalization of international relations that asserted itself during the nineteenth century, and which came to an end following decolonization. The “unequal” treaties signed between 1858-1862 by the major Western powers with China following the Second Opium War, as well as with Japan, provide a good illustration of this process. In addition to discriminatory economic and commercial clauses, they contained a series of arrangements that imposed the establishment of institutionalized diplomatic relations, at least as the Europeans understood it: the right of Westerners to establish permanent representations in Peking, the obligation for the Chinese and Japanese governments to equip themselves with a Ministry of Foreign Affairs or an equivalent body, and the adoption of protocols in use in the “civilized” world. China no longer imposed on foreign ambassadors the
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