[The establishment, development and change to the modern quarantine system at Swatow seaport].

Abstract

The right of seaports to quarantine in modern China was lost to western colonists in the 1880s. The establishment of the quarantine system at Swatow seaport made Swatow the first city in modern Guangdong to have such a system. This paper examines the content and development of the quarantine system at Swatow seaport and found the two main periods of the quarantine system development. 1883 -1926 was the period for the preliminary development of the quarantine system, which was under the management of the westerners. 1926 - 1949 was the period when it was regained by the then Chinese government but it was caught in a bid of multiple political powers before new China evolved. In such a process of power shifts and system changes, the benefits to the public were not valued and guaranteed. The development history of the quarantine system in modern Swatow seaport in the Republic of China Period mirrored the development of the quarantine system in China at that time.