鄭觀應與近代中國領事的設立和管理

After the Opium War, the collapse of the maritime prohibition policy and the emergence of the problem of Chinese labour led to the change of the Qing Dynasty’s policy towards overseas Chinese. Zheng Guanying proposed the establishment of consuls abroad to protect the interests of overseas Chinese, aiming to promote the establishment of modern Chinese consuls. Zheng Guanying’s opinion was that the establishment of modern Chinese consuls should be promoted. With the establishment of consuls overseas, the management of consuls was to become increasingly important. In terms of the consular management, Zheng Guanying emphasized that the consular management of staff should be selected, trained and assessed in three key ways and as a result he improved the system of modern Chinese consulate management. As a consequence of his ideas, the management of the modern Chinese consulate became more institutionalized and regularized. Zheng Guanying’s ideas on consul included attaching importance to the post of diplomatic envoy, establishing consular system, improving consular management and training diplomatic talents. Zheng Guanying’s thoughts on consular services promoted the germination and development of the modern Chinese consular system and had the actual effect of establishing modern Chinese consuls abroad, thus proving the correctness of Zheng Guanying’s ideas, which were closely related to each other. Zheng Guanying’s consular thoughts and the modern Chinese consular system were both of their time but also had a great deal of valuable ideas, and have added significant and important knowledge to the development of the present Chinese consular.