WordNet
n. a port in China or Korea or Japan that once was open to foreign trade on the basis of a trading treaty
Usage examples of "treaty port".
Shanghai was the great Treaty Port, where the Foreign Devil Trade Missions were - British, French, German, American, Scowegian, Russian, and all, but it was still the Emperor's city, where we were tolerated and detested (except for what could be got out of us), and once you poked your nose out of the consulate gate you realised you were living on the dragon's lip, with his fiery eyes staring down on you, and even the fog that hung over the great sprawling native city was like smoke from his spiky nostrils.
After that, the treaty port could serve as the staging centre of a slower conquest of Nippon, conceived of as happening in stages rather than all at once.
A key clause of the treaty allowed the Japanese to establish industries along the China coast at the designated treaty port cities.
The result is that though interplanetary trade is brisk and Phobos a treaty port, a human is still a rare sight in Sabaeus.
There was even a pair of Klingon traders heading quickly from one of the local gates to an interstellar flight bound for a neutral treaty port.
By their own lights, this meant we were entitled to the equivalent of diplomatic recognition, including an agreement to respect our funny insistence that all contacts be handled through the 'treaty port' on the back side of the Moon.