Opium War

Opium War

The Anglo-Chinese war, known as the Opium War that took place between 1839 and 1842 was an amazing disturbance to China. The use of Opium had a crippling effect on the people and economy in China, thus the Qing Court made an attempt to end BritainÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs trade of opium with China. This was the first time since the origin of Chinese society that China had a major conflict with a foreign nation. This conflict not only caused China to suffer major losses at the hands of the British but most importantly a great embarrassment within Chinese society. But the truth is that this war was caused by a fundamental cultural conflict between Britain and China, in which the opium trade was the proverbial straw that broke the camelÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs back. In many ways, this cultural clash also made the war that much more devastating.

This cultural rift started in the Shang dynasty when a sophisticated system of rituals was developed, which led to the belief that China was the center of the Earth and the emperors were the rulers of the world. (Gutherie, Lecture 2). Therefore; long before the start of the Opium War China's foreign policy was dominated by a strong sense of superiority. This sense of superiority was created since the Chinese believed that the Heaven was round, and that the Earth was a square. The Heaven projected a circular shadow onto the center of the Earth. The area under the shadow, known as Tian Xia (Zone Beneath the Heaven) was China. Hence China thought of itself as the Heavenly Middle Kingdom. Barbarians ruled the corners of the square which did not bask in the glow of the celestial shadow. With this concept passed down from generation to generation, no nation could possibly stand on equal grounds with the Heavenly Middle Kingdom. (Roberts, Pg 4)

This notion was pursued even further because China had a self-reliant economy and a self-sufficient domestic trade. "One excellent reason why China is only moderately fond of trading with foreigners is that her home trade is immense... China is such a vast, rich and varied country that internal trade is more than enough to occupy the part of the nation which can perform commercial operations... there is everywhere to be seen movement and a feverish activity which is not to be found in the largest towns of Europe." (Chesneaus, Pg 53) Thus the Chinese probably thought that they had nothing to gain in trading with foreigners.

The Europeans at this time were Ð'ÐŽÐ'odriven by a doctrine of action - the belief that free trade and the internationalisation of commerce would create wealth for all nations, and the utopian idea that this would produce a new peaceful world order.Ð'ÐŽÐ'± (Marchant) This ideology was first established by the free trade movement in 1776 by the publication of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Ten years later William Pitt laid further foundations for free trade with a commercial treaty with France abolishing protective duties. But the real change in free trade principles came in 1823 with William Huskisson's Reciprocity of Duties Bill, which relaxed the protectionist Navigation Acts. (Marchant) But by the late 18th to 19th century, Britain along with other European nations had a great trade deficit with China. Europeans had great demands for Chinese goods such as silk and tea, but only limited access to these goods. Thus due to the laws of supply and demand, Europeans were paying an extensive amount of silver for these goods. (Gutherie, Lecture 3) This angered Britain tremendously and so she sought out ways to leverage the trade imbalance with China. The two countryÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs different ideology in trade was probably the most significant factor that fostered the start of the Opium War.

Westerners were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the trading system and how they were being treated in China. The British government sent Macartney to China in 1792 as a representative of his country to improve commercial access between the two countries. The Chinese received him as an envoy from a tributary nation, but his refusal to kotow challenged this relationship. This made his request of unrestricting foreign trade, a matter that the Qing court thought as non-negotiable, even more impossible. (Roberts, Pg 24) Macartney was sent away without acquiescing to any of BritainÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs requests. Emperor Qianlong even sent a rather crude and disrespectful letter to Emperor George III stating that BritainÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs manufactured goods were useless to China; therefore, it was impractical for Britain to send a representative to China. (Gutherie, Lecture 3) In 1816, the British government sent Lord Amherst to China to once again negotiate improvements in commercial relations between the two nations. But Amherst was treated with no respect and his failure to kotow guaranteed further failure. (Roberts, Pg 25) Britain was now considered to be one of most powerful nations in the world, but China still treated her on the level of a tributary nation. As President John Quincy Adams started: Ð'ÐŽÐ'oThe cause of war is the kotow!- the arrogant and insupportable pretensions of China, that she will hold commercial intercourse with the rest of mankind, not upon terms of equal reciprocity, but upon the insulting and degrading forms of relation between lord and vassal.Ð'ÐŽÐ'± (Roberts, 32) This showed the ignorance that China had towards the outside world and her path to inevitable doom.

China was buying almost 3.4 million tons of Opium from Britain by the year 1832. And an estimated one million Chinese people were addicted to Opium. This addiction tipped the balance of trade to favor