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Opening up as a treaty port

In 1856, Chinese soldiers boarded The Arrow, a Chinese-owned ship registered in Hong Kong that flew the British flag and which was suspected of piracy, smuggling, and involvement in the opium trade. The soldiers captured twelve men and imprisoned them. In response, the British and French sent gunboats under the command of Admiral Sir Michael Seymour to capture the Taku forts near Tianjin in May 1858. At the end of the first part of the Second Opium War in June of the same year, the British and French prevailed, and the Treaty of Tientsin was signed, which opened Tianjin (Tientsin) to foreign trade. The treaties were ratified by the Xianfeng Emperor in 1860, so Tianjin was formally opened to Great Britain and France and thus to the outside world. Between 1895 and 1900, Britain and France were joined by Japan, Germany and Russia, and some countries without Chinese concessions, such as Austria-Hungary, Italy and Belgium, in establishing self-contained concessions in Tianjin, each with its own prisons, schools, barracks and hospitals. These nations left architectural reminders of their rule, which include churches and thousands of villas.

The presence of foreign influence in Tianjin was not always peaceful; one violent incident was that of the Tianjin Church Massacre. In June 1870, the orphanage held by the Wanghailou Church (translated as Church Our Lady's Victories) in Tianjin, which built by French Roman Catholic missionaries, was accused of kidnapping and brainwashing Chinese children. On June 21, the magistrate of Tianjin County initiated a conflict at the church that developed into violent clashes between the church's Christian supporters and some non-Christian Tianjin residents. The protesters eventually burned down Wanghailou Church and the nearby French consulate, killing eighteen foreigners, including ten French nuns, the French consul, and merchants. France and six other Western nations complained to the Qing government, which was forced to pay compensation for the incident.

In 1885, Li Hongzhang founded the Tianjin Military Academy (天津武備學堂) for Chinese army officers with German advisors as a part of his military reforms. The academy's founding was supported by the Anhui Army commander Zhou Shengchuan. The academy was to serve the Anhui Army and the Green Standard Army officers. The instructors were German officers. In 1887, the academy started a program to train teenagers to become army officers; the program continued for five years. Practical and technical subjects including sciences, foreign languages, Chinese literature, mathematics, and history were taught at the school and exams were administered to students. The lessons taught at the Tianjin Military Academy were copied for the Weihaiwei and Shanhaiguan military schools. A maritime defense fund supplied the budget for the Tianjin Military Academy, which was located in the same area as the Tianjin Naval Academy. In 1886, the Tianjin Military Academy adopted Romance of the Three Kingdoms as part of its curriculum. Among its alumni were Wang Yingkai and Duan Qirui; its staff included Yinchang.

In June 1900, the Boxers were able to seize control of parts of Tianjin. On June 26, European defense forces heading towards Beijing were stopped by Boxers at nearby Langfang; they were defeated and forced to turn back to Tianjin. The foreign concessions were also under siege for several weeks.

In July 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance recaptured Tianjin. This alliance soon established the Tianjin Provisional Government, which was composed of representatives from each of the occupying forces (Russia, Britain, Japan, Germany, France, America, Austro-Hungary, and Italy). The city was governed by this council until August 15, 1902, when the city was returned to Qing control. Qing General Yuan Shikai led efforts to transform Tianjin into a modern city, establishing the first modern Chinese police force. In 1907, Yuan supervised China's first modern democratic elections for a county council.

Western nations were permitted to garrison the area to ensure open access to Beijing. The British maintained a brigade of two battalions in Tianjin, and the Italians, French, Japanese, Germans, Russians, and Austro-Hungarians maintained their forces using strength regiments; the United States did not initially participate. During World War I, the German and Austro-Hungarian garrisons were captured as prisoners of war by Allied Forces; meanwhile, in 1918, the Bolshevik government withdrew the Russian garrison. In 1920, the remaining participating nations asked the United States to join them, and the US then sent the 15th Infantry Regiment, minus one battalion, to Tianjin from the Philippines.

Because of the development of industry, commerce and finance in the city, Tianjin was established as a municipality of China in 1927. From 1930 to 1935, Tianjin was the provincial capital of Hebei; afterwards, it was reestablished as an independent municipality.

Garrison duty was highly regarded by the troops. General George C. Marshall, the "architect of victory" in World War II, during which he was the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, served in Tianjin in the 1920s as the Executive Officer of the 15th Infantry. The US withdrew the infantry unit in 1938, but the nation's presence was maintained by the dispatch of a small US Marine Corps unit from the Embassy Guard at Beijing.