China, the middle kingdom, had been one of the mightiest powers of the world for centuries.
Their hegemony led to its isolation from most geopolitical developments and world politics.
After all, “China lacked no products within its borders”, according to the Qianlong
Emperor.
When the British Empire demanded trading rights, a contemptuous refusal was all that was given.
The Chinese would soon be strong-armed into allowing Western powers to trade on their
territory however, and this all happened during two wars that became known as the Opium Wars.
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Historical Background
The early stages of the 19th century had been tumultuous for China.
In the south the White Lotus Rebellion waged over provinces in central China.
As for its international relations, they consisted of tributary states that assumed a subordinate
role to the empire.
When the British Macarthey expedition reached China, Macarthey himself was rather surprised
the Chinese emperor refused all their requests - such as trade and exchanging diplomatic
contacts.
Aside from this different take on international relations, the industrialized west far superseded
China in terms of industrial and military power.
There was an enormous discrepancy in power relations of which China was not yet aware.
It was during this time the British started shipping Opium, from British-controlled India,
into China.
Unable to directly trade with China, Western powers were forced into a separate trading
area, the Thirteen Factories, outside of Canton and had to rely on Chinese middle-men that
charged high taxes.
Thing is, tea, porcelain and silk were goods sold with an enormous profit in Europe.
As such, trade continued, though the situation was far from ideal.
Now, Opium was traded for China’s silver currency leading to the outflow and drain
of silver from the country.
It had a rather negative effect on China’s currency system, resulting in hardship on
all levels for the population.
While opium trade and usage was banned several times, the Brits simply started smuggling
opium into the country.
There was a movement in China that voiced their support for the legalization of opium.
If legalized, the Qing could levy tariffs and taxes on it, they reasoned.
This movement was opposed by the Beijing court, however.
When in 1934 British Lord Napier arrived in Canton as the first superintendent of trade,
one of many misunderstandings arose.
He refused to trade via the Chinese middle-men, instead demanding relations with the Chinese
governor-general.
Chinese officials were forbidden from holding relations with foreigners, however.
Traditional system and all.
When refused, Napier forced his fleet up to Canton.
He passed away of malaria before fighting seriously escalated.
But his death postponed war only by a few years.
Cooperation between the governments remained impossible As suppressing opium trade and
smuggling didn’t work, the Qing instated more rigorous measures such as the death penalty
for both users and smugglers.
All the while, tensions kept rising...
Anti-Opium alliance
The conditions under which the Qing allowed Western trade in Canton slowly became more
problematic for Britain.
But for China too the situation remained extremely negative.
Silver flowed out of the country at an incredible pace.
In 1839 the Qing government sent the imperial envoy, Lin Tse-hsü, to Canton.
He was authorized by the Daoguang Emperor to put a halt to the opium trade.
Known for being incorruptible and efficient, he seemed like the perfect man for the job.
He even sent a letter to Queen victoria in which he wrote “Suppose there were people
from another country who carried opium for sale to England and seduced your people into
buying and smoking it; certainly you would deeply hate it and be bitterly aroused…”
I feel that letter properly describes the opium trade in China.
Lin wanted to root out the opium importers and distributors in Canton.
He proved very able to do so.
Initially not willing to use force, much less to provoke war, British merchants resisted
and Lin saw it necessary to isolate them in their Thirteen Factories.
They were forced to rescind their opium stock, which Lin publicly destroyed.
Lin certainly was efficient.
He secured over 20.000 chests of Opium, but his treatment of British citizens was seen
as a crime against the London government and her Majesty, Queen Victoria.
The Chinese did not fully realize how their course of action would be perceived.
British merchants demanded compensation, the British government pointed to the Qing as
those that had to pay up.
Lord Palmerston, the British PM, was initially unsympathetic to British merchants not abiding
to Chinese law.
He changed his opinion in 1839 and now started advocating for British trading rights.
Tensions worsened further when a drunken English sailor killed a Chinese citizen in Canton.
The British refused to have him be tried under Chinese law.
The case was symbolic for the two different perceptions of international relations.
All the while Lin continued the cleanse of Guangdong province - addicts and dealers were
arrested and the price of opium skyrocketed.
The Opium War
When news of opium seizure reached England, parliament voted to take retaliatory action.
Wealthy opium merchants such as William Jardine even returned to England to advocate their
cause.
Though parliament was angry, war was not officially declared.
British warships under Admiral George Elliot’s command, from the Indian squadron appeared
in China’s pearl-river in June 1840.
By then there had already been skirmishes between Brits and Chinese at Hong Kong.
Local population in Canton and Hongkong poisoned wells and refused to sell food to the British
troops.
Chinese soldiers, Braves and Junks were mobilized.
Instead of attacking Chinese fortifications, Elliot’s fleet simply blocked the harbour
and sailed their force north, blocking other harbours along the way.
Sailing along the coast the British eventually reached the Dagu forts where serious negotiations
with Qishan, governor-general of the region, were undertaken.
While Qishan was initially praised by the emperor for his negotiation tactics, within
half a year he would be sentenced to death as it became clear the British didn’t adhere
to Chinese demands.
On the British side PM Lord Palmerston was equally furious with Elliott, replacing him
with Sir Henry Pottinger.
All the while, fighting on the Chinese coast and countryside continued.
Often led by Chinese gentry, militants attacked the Brits.
These would retaliate by virtually annihilating garrisons, fortresses, junks and occupying
parts of Canton.
With less than 7000 armed troops the British managed to beat the Qing both on sea and land.
It was their technological and naval superiority that made the Qing barely a match for them.
The Qing’s military backwardness became evident on land as the bannermen that fought
the British troops were often scrambled together groups of undisciplined soldiers.
In August 1841 Pottinger sailed north once again and seized multiple ports.
He decided to force the Qing to capitulate by cutting off China’s main river and seizing
Shanghai and Zhenjiang.
Local officials were afraid to report the extreme defeats and as such the emperor received
fabricated reports of victories over the Brits.
But when the expeditionary force conquered Chusan Island south of Shanghai, it became
clear that Lin had failed his task.
He was dismissed in disgrace.
It wasn’t difficult for the Brits to amass victory over victory, The amount of casualties
by the end of the war shows this all too clear.
There were under 1000 British casualties, while the Chinese suffered around 20.000.
They now started to wonder how to capitalize on their overwhelming military power.
After all, they weren’t eager to gain more territory in China.
They simply wanted to be able to use the country as their foreign market.
Open it up, so to speak.
Eventually British forces started to close in on Nanjing, China’s second largest city.
Pottinger, refused to negotiate with the Qing until they agreed to a complete deal.
Eventually the Qing gave in.
They had to give in if it wanted to continue its rule over the Chinese people, retain some
form of domestic stability, and maintain its mandate of heaven.
Ch’i-ying brokered the peace treaty - he would play an important role during the second
opium war as well.
Peace of Nanjing
When the Treaty of Nanjing was signed by Chi all demands by the British were met.
Ironically, the reason this war started, opium, was not mentioned at all.
To begin with, the Qing conceded Hong Kong which would become a British stronghold in
China.
Furthermore, Canton, Shanghai, Amoy, Fu-chou and Ning-po were the first ‘treaty ports’,
opened to foreign trade.
China was only allowed to raise extremely low tariffs which could not be altered.
British merchants were not subjected to Chinese law, but to British law, as long as they traded
within the treaty port.
Britain was acknowledged as a diplomatic equal and lastly the most favoured nations clause
was implemented.
This meant all privileges other powers enjoyed in China, the Brits now automatically would
enjoy.
An indemnity to pay for confiscated opium and war reparations had to be paid as well.
Other Western powers now hurried to the table to force similar treaties upon the Qing.
In short, an entire system of treaties was signed - referred to as ‘unequal treaties’
in Chinese historiography.
The British Supplementary Treaty, American Treaty and French Treaty followed in the years
after the Nanjing treaty.
These treaties and Western powers gaining a foothold in China, undermining the traditional
power, eventually led to a second set of wars and treaties in the late 1850s.
The Second Opium War (Arrow War)
Shortly after the peace of Nanjing tensions once again arose.
After all, the Qing accepted the peace terms with much reluctance.
The Treaty of Nanjing was considered a temporary setback and the most favoured nation clause
was considered a way to pit the Western powers against each other.
Opium trade expanded along the Chinese coast.
During the 1850s opium import rose to between 50 and 60 thousand chests a year - double
that of the 1830s.
Opium addiction increased and silver kept flowing out of the country.
In 1851 the anti-Western Hsien-feng Emperor ascended to the throne.
He was faced with the deadliest civil war the world had ever seen, the Taiping rebellion,
and concurrent Nian and Muslim rebellions.
Now, although rebellion spread, foreign trade in tea, silk and opium increased.
Now, when the provisions of the Nanjing treaty came up for debate in 1854, the emperor refused
to concede any more treaty ports nor should Westerners be allowed to move freely within
China.
Allowing foreign diplomats in Beijing was completely out of the question.
In treaty ports themselves Westerners were continuously subjected to anti-foreign sentiment,
unstable tariffs and corruption.
The assassination of a French missionary and the disregarding of a British flag on a Chinese
vessel (named Arrow), provided the pretext to once again wage war against China.
French and British naval fleets sailed onto Canton and without too much trouble the port
was captured and a puppet government was installed in the city.
In 1858 the Qing quickly sued for peace.
Accompanying the British and French delegation were American and Russian plenipotentiaries.
These secured near identical treaties for their own countries.
One of the treaty terms stated the Qing had to allow foreign diplomats to stay in Beijing.
Considering this would uproot the entire traditional system of tributary states, the Qing became
hesitant.
They decided to not concede this point, although it had been agreed to in drafts.
When British and French ministers wanted to enter beijing, they were refused passage.
British warships were sunk out of nowhere and the delegations were repelled from the
capital for now.
But in 1860, a year later, the French and Brits returned with a vengeance.
Outmatching the Qing troops under Prince Sengge Rinchen in both technology and numbers, the
bannermen were quickly defeated.
Beijing was captured and the emperor fled to Jehol.
British negotiator, Lord Elgin, was subsequently arrested during negotiations even though he
flew a flag of truce.
Twenty of his men were executed.
As a reprisal, once he was released, Elgin made sure to burn down the emperor’s summer
palace.
Prince Gong, now the main Chinese negotiator, agreed to a treaty encompassing all those
demands of 1858.
This treaty is considered the official opening of the Chinese Empire to the Western World.
Foreign privileges had been increased and trade would soon blossom for the West.
These Western powers would play a big role in the next couple of decades of Chinese history,
and Prince Gong too played an important role in Chinese politics, most notably as a proponent
of the self-strengthening movement.
Conclusion
In 1858 the import of opium was legalized, yet ever since 1839 there barely were any
obstacles imposed by the Chinese to its import.
It was not until the last phase of the Qing, in 1906, that laws were implemented to object
opium usage and trade.
Actual effective combating has been in place since 1949, over a century after the first
Opium War.
As the French and Brits waged war against China, the Taiping rebellion, the deadliest
civil war the world had ever seen broke out.
These concurrent events were testament to the dire instability the Qing dynasty found
itself in during these years.
After the Second Opium War a movement propagating Chinese reform, led by Prince Gong, was launched.
This self-strengthening movement was opposed by hardline conservatives in Chinese politics,
led by Empress Dowager Cixi.
If you want to know what happened in the decades after the Opium Wars, up until the eventual
downfall of the Qing dynasty and abdication of China’s last emperor, click on the playlist
on the screen right now.
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