Fixing Rapids on Paper: Translation of Riverine Knowledge and Diplomatic Negotiation over the Upper Yangtze Navigation Regulations

From the 1880s to the 1920s, commercial steam navigation was established on the Upper Yangzi River. Throughout this process, China, Britain, and the other treaty powers had tedious diplomatic negotiations over how to establish international navigation regulations for this complicated river segment. Because the Upper Yangzi River was densely distributed with fierce rapids, this riverine condition caused difficulties for localizing the standard “International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea” and propelled many commissions to survey rapids.

This paper traces the interaction between hydrographic surveys of rapids and the formation of the “Upper Yangtze Navigation Regulations.” Drawing upon Chinese, British, and French sources (e.g., legal treatises, expedition reports, hydrographic charts), this paper analyzes how the inland extension of maritime legal order hinged on various processes of translation, including translingual exchanges of hydrographic concepts, transformations of experiential knowledges into written or charted records, and the synthesis of riverine complexities into legal norms. This paper discusses the following issues. First, how did various institutions and people employ knowledge about international maritime law to facilitate or contest the inland extension of steam shipping networks? Second, what kinds of riverine knowledge were gained or lost during the localization of maritime legal order on the Upper Yangzi River? Third, how did local knowledge about rapids reshape the methods of establishing and enforcing international standards on navigation security? Overall, this paper engages with the scholarship on the transformation of international maritime policy after the 1880s, when regional compromises and international cooperation became central to developing navigation standards.