An Examination of Extra-Universal Systems of Government

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Indiana Beach Crow

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There, I spoke with Marcel Duchamp, former ambassador of the French Popular Republic

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Does the pandemic in the “Republic of Singapore Pandemic Response Commission” refer to the 2004 SARS virus? I’m guessing a version of SARS that doesn’t get controlled globally killing lots of people, and Singaporean institutions simply not giving up emergency powers.
 
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Does the pandemic in the “Republic of Singapore Pandemic Response Commission” refer to the 2004 SARS virus? I’m guessing a version of SARS that doesn’t get controlled globally killing lots of people, and Singaporean institutions simply not giving up emergency powers.

That’s the idea.
 
Shanghai International Settlement

From the minute I land in Shanghai, it is difficult for me to follow the conversations that go on around me. While I have a fairly proficient command in several languages, many of which are spoken here, the constant barrage of dozens of tongues overlayed on top of each other makes it impossible to pick out any individual sentences. From when I step out onto the tarmac of the Shanghai International Airport, through the gates of the airport and into the streets of the city, right up until my meeting with Mrs Gloria Stewart, British Representative in Shanghai, at her spacious and well furnished office in the centre of the city, I am assaulted with neon signs, advertisements and spoken phrases from across the entirety of this world. Such is fairly typical in the Shanghai International Settlement, the nation without citizens.

"Shanghai is the only country on the planet which has no citizens and represents no subjects," Mrs Stewart explains. "Strictly speaking, its governing body doesn't actually represent the residents of the city - on paper, we represent the interests of the nations which have seats on the council. That being said, the Shanghai International Municipal Council does end up looking after the well being and needs of the city's residents as a whole by virtue of the fact that we live here, and the betterment of the city in turn benefits the citizens of member countries who do live here, but that's not our primary role officially. The primary function of the Authority is to enforce the extraterritoriality of other nations within the borders of the Shanghai International Settlement."

The birth of the Shanghai International Settlement dates back to the end of the Opium Wars of the 1840s between the British Empire and the Qing dynasty. The unequal treaties forced upon China by Britain, followed by the Americans and the French, allowed for the opening of the port of Shanghai to European powers and the extraterritoriality of their citizens within the designated treaty ports. Further expansion of European power in Shanghai followed, including the leasing of parts of the city to Great Britain, the United States and France. Under the laws of extraterritoriality, subjects from treaty powers would be tried under their own laws generally by representatives of their own national judicial systems, be it consuls deputised to act as judges or by specially appointed justices. The local extraterritorial courts were also deputed to enforce debts and do their best to cooperate with other court representatives for the resolution of civil disputes. Complaints against foreign subjects would be presented to the relevant consul - most commonly they too would be "arranged amicably," and crimes against Chinese citizens were very rarely taken to trial.

In 1854, businessmen from the relevant countries came together - without the blessing of their national government and consulates - to form the Shanghai Municipal Council to manage their own interests within the foreign concessions. The Municipal Council was to manage the roads and refuse collection within the international concessions, but later grew to have oversight over utilities, public transport and even formed its own police force. Roads throughout Shanghai were also effectively claimed by the Council, extending a web of Concession administration throughout the city. Despite being the de facto authority in the city, the Municipal Council was explicitly still under Chinese sovereignty - the Settlement merely governed itself as the most practical administrator of municipal affairs, despite having the backing of the participating treaty powers, through the issuance of Land Regulations.

Despite the leadership of the concession changing over time, with what was a primarily British project being overtaken by Japanese influence as Japan's power and interests in China grew, it received a broad base of support both from Western businessmen in Shanghai and their Chinese counterparts, who reaped the economic benefits of the entrepot (less so their poorer Chinese bretheren, who were routinely treated as second class citizens within their own country). However, throughout the Long Civil War, Shanghai and its residents prospered. Shanghai was home to one of the largest ports in China, through which Chinese enterprises made a lot of money, had favourable tax concessions, and was foreign enough that wealthy Chinese businessmen and strongmen could squirrel away their money and even find a place to flee to if things went south for them. Shanghai's favourable tax concessions saw many European and American businesses set up shop there, and the cheap labour costs created a manufacturing boom in the city even while the Republicans fought warlords and domestic radicals across the border.

After the victory of the Republican Nationalists in the Long Civil War and the rise of China as a power in its own right, the unequal treaties which underpinned extraterritoriality for foreigners in China were revoked, as were their concessions. However, when it came to Shanghai, business interests and concerns ensured both a hesitation to move on the settlement in China and a guarantee of its quasi-autonomy by the European powers. The Hangkow Incident of 1952 - in which an assault by Japanese nationals on a Chinese servant saw the arrest of the offenders by Chinese municipal police, in contravention of their exterritoriality, and escalated to the deployment of a Chinese division and a Japanese destroyer squadron to just outside the International Settlement - was halted by business concerns and a multinational spirit of cooperation by everyone involved to protect their interests in the city. The result was the 1953 Shanghai Agreement, which saw the full internationalisation of the city. All signatory powers would have their extraterritorial rights fully revoked - except within the Shanghai International Settlement, where all nations would be granted it.

"In principle," Mrs Stewart explains, "all Shanghai residents are governed under the laws of the nation of their citizenship. If you commit a crime under the laws of your own country, the aggreived will petition their consulate to file a complaint for redress, which will be taken to the Municipal Council or in most cases a delegate to examine the merits of the case. Should a resident of a country, or the state itself, wish to file charges against another countrymen residing in Shanghai, they shall do the same. The Council will decide if the individual case has merit and if so, direct the Municipal Police to file an arrest, after which the individual is brought before a court of their own country of citizenship for a trial under their laws in their relevant Consular court. In practice, only the very serious or controversial cases actually go before the Municipal Council to vote on - in practice, we delegate the decision to legal bureaucrats who's decision on the subject is binding."

So Shanghai has no laws at all?

"Not quite. The Shanghai Agreement allows the Municipal Council to legislate some laws, which are purely necessary for the public order. Things like murder, vandalism, and sexual intercourse with a minor are illegal under Municipal law, just to cover the bases just in case. If the country of origin refuses to prosecute, then you will be charged by the Municipal Council itself and tried in the Mixed Court. And we've got the power to enforce traffic laws and the few land taxes we do collect, and the Municipal Police have the authority to detain you if they see you in the progress of committing an offense detrimental to the public order."

I express my surprise at the system. Surely it must be difficult to enforce the competing laws of a hundred countries. Is every country represented in the International Settlement's legal system? Managing the competing moral codes of the entire planet would be impossible.

"Basically everywhere, barring the handful of Afrocommunist states. But otherwise, yes, and it is difficult. By necessity, the Shanghai Agreement allows for the non-enforcement of, er, "vice laws" for practicality's sake - you can't force a brothel to demand a passport at the door, nor can you crack down on adulterous or homosexual intercourse by country of origin alone - but beyond that you can do anything your country of origin doesn't proscribe. There's always a handful of cases a year which are brought to the Municipal Council to prosecute which is rejected outright by the majority vote, either because it's impossible to enforce or it's unpalatable to the Councillors or their government, but that's always political."

I ask for an example. "Well, Shanghai has never enforced the crime of apostasy. Every few years the Hedjazi will put in a request for the extradition for trial of a Hedjazi citizen residing in Shanghai for the crime of apostasy, at which point it goes before the Municipal Council. The Council will then vote on allowing the case to proceed, at which point everybody but the French and the Russians will vote no, because their governments can't justify the extradition of someone for beheading for the crime of converting from Islam. The Russians will vote yes, because they're trying to keep their clients in Persia happy, and the French have a close alliance with the Hashemites so they abstain. No warrant is issued, and the citizen in question can basically never return home - not that they would want to."

Clearly, much power is invested in the 19-member Municipal Council. But rather than these representatives being elected, opening justice up to the public, the vast majority are appointed by the national governments of foreign countries. "Each government explicitly enumerated in the Shanghai Agreement gets to nominate representatives on the board. China gets three, Japan, the British Empire - including myself -, the US, Japan and France get two, and then the Germans, Italians, Russians, Indians, Dutch, Swedes, and Belgians get one each. There's one last representative who is elected by citizens of non-enumerated powers, but that one ends up being from the East Indies or the Middle East depending on who wins the horse trading."

Mrs Stewart clearly sees the look on my face, because she is very quick to follow up. "Oh, it all sounds very undemocratic, but the Municipal Council isn't actually there to govern as much as it is to support and protect the needs of the foreign citizens in the city. I'm appointed to look after British subjects in Shanghai, why should anyone else be given a vote over their fates? And between the lot of the enumerated nations we comprise 97% of residents in Shanghai anyway - enumerated nations have been added and removed from the Shanghai Agreement before. If you want an example, Austria-Hungary was removed in the 60s following the Dissolution and replaced with India, to acknowledge the change in foreign residency makeup in Shanghai. For anything actually municipal, we are advised by the 99-member Advisory Council of Shanghai, which is elected directly anyway."

"The crux of it is that foreign businessmen and financiers are basically the core and most influencial people of Shanghai and were well before the Shanghai Agreement. They'd be sorting things out between them without us anyway, and dragging in their own governments to bully each other when that doesn't work. The International City model makes that far more orderly, regulated, and more importantly fair. And the International City benefits everyone, both back home and in China proper - and extraterritoriality underpins that."

Mrs Stewart has left me with many questions - notably if the system of citizen representation protects anyone but those with pull in their home countries. In a smaller office outside of the business district - where I notice most of the signs are in Chinese - I meet with Yang Xi, Member of the Advisory Council and member of the Chinese Communist Party (Shanghai Branch). "Modern extraterritoriality is explicitly and deliberately designed to enforce a brand of capitalist neo-colonialism which is all too popular now. It exists so that foreigners in Shanghai can enforce their own minority rule over the city - it just so happens that that's convenient for the Nationalists so they permit it. 90% of the city is Chinese, as opposed to three of 19 in the municipal council."

And Ms Stewart's claims of the Advisory Council being a democratically elected body? "The Advisory Council," Mr. Yang explains, "is just that - advisory. It has no power of legislation or authority. Even though it's makeup is much closer to that of the city itself, having a democratically elected body doesn't constitute representative governance if it doesn't govern. Its resolutions can be ignored at any time by the Municipal Council no matter how much it is consulted."

And is it?

"Well, no." Mr. Yang says, a little sheepishly. "Foreign powers don't care much about what the Municipal Council does with the rates it collects or when garbage is collected, and anything that would be sufficiently controversial won't pass their influence in the Advisory Council in the first place. The same people who are influential enough to lobby their country of origin to ensure they don't pay more in rates are influential enough to make sure that budget won't pass in the Advisory Council too. But that isn't the point. The Shanghai International Settlement is just another colony - the fact that its convenient to the colonised doesn't make it any less so."

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Japan listed twice in


Clearly, much power is invested in the 19-member Municipal Council. But rather than these representatives being elected, opening justice up to the public, the vast majority are appointed by the national governments of foreign countries. "Each government explicitly enumerated in the Shanghai Agreement gets to nominate representatives on the board. China gets three, Japan, the British Empire - including myself -, the US, Japan and France get two, and then the Germans, Italians, Russians, Indians, Dutch, Swedes, and Belgians get one each. There's one last representative who is elected by citizens of non-enumerated powers, but that one ends up being from the East Indies or the Middle East depending on who wins the horse trading."
 
Japan listed twice in


Clearly, much power is invested in the 19-member Municipal Council. But rather than these representatives being elected, opening justice up to the public, the vast majority are appointed by the national governments of foreign countries. "Each government explicitly enumerated in the Shanghai Agreement gets to nominate representatives on the board. China gets three, Japan, the British Empire - including myself -, the US, Japan and France get two, and then the Germans, Italians, Russians, Indians, Dutch, Swedes, and Belgians get one each. There's one last representative who is elected by citizens of non-enumerated powers, but that one ends up being from the East Indies or the Middle
At this phase, I think he meant Korea for one of them: korea is seen as independent.
 
Also, I'm curious as to who controls the Liandiao peninsula at the North end of the Yellow Sea (where iOTL the PRC borders the PRK).

It is white, which is the same color that the Philippines are.

This leads to several possibilities
1) The independent Philippines controls them. Awesome!
2) The USA controls both the Philippines and this area. (Possible, though the POD, while unclear seems to be in the 19th century.)
3) Russia controls it, possible, with an alt Russo-Japanese war being a Russian Victory and Korea set up as a Buffer state.
4) A Mongolian coastline.
5) Something else...
 
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