The Opium Wars About Opium - Essay Example

The wars fought between the British and the Chinese under the ruler ship of the Qing dynasty in 1839-1842 and 1856-1860 which emerged as the final culmination of gradually declining relations between the two nations due to disputes stemming from strong bilateral differences in cultural perceptions and more importantly economic motivations for the trade of Opium are thus referred to as the Opium wars or alternatively the Anglo-Chinese wars (Hanes III & Sanello, 2002). Though directly, the conflicts were results of China making opium trade illegal against the interests of the British traders, the true causes of the War lay in the conflicting nature of the associated respective interests embedded in significant economic and social implications of the trade of opium for the two nations. The objective of the present endeavour is to explore the causes of the conflicting interests strong enough to result in the two wars from the perspectives of both the British and the Chinese to perceive the extent to which Opium wars were truly about Opium to the degree of detail allowed by the scope of this brief essay. In this pursuit it is first necessary to comprehend the reason for opium assuming significance in the Sino-British trade relations to a degree such that not one but two wars were fought over disputes regarding its trade. So in what follows, first the main features of the Sino-British trade relation are presented briefly. The Qing dynasty, whose reign was initiated in the mid 17th century, though often historically accused of preferring isolationist policies had in fact stronger predilections for participating in some limited foreign trade activity under strict regulatory controls rather than making China an autarky (Ownby, 2003). Such preferences were reflected in the establishment of the “Canton system of trade” which restricted foreign trade by making Canton the only legal port for trading and moreover, there were heavy regulations set-up by the “cohong”, a Chinese merchant group who operated as a monopoly in overseeing the trade that was undertaken in this system. The emperor allowed the Cohong to monopolize operations through price controls, duties and other fees in return for the high payments they made to the empire. Foreign merchants were subjected to severe restrictions in various forms. Interacting with locals as well as lodging formal complaints to Chinese authorities was legislatively prohibited. However, the British traders, long accustomed to dealing with such local official monopolies and further with operating under heavy restrictions were not dissuaded by these. Trade flourished under these conditions and tea became the principal trade commodity, with huge volumes of the product being transported into Britain by the merchants. The main problem that emerged for the British was a gradual worsening of the trade balance resulting from the steady outflow of silver bullion in exchange for the tea imports due to a considerable dearth of British exportable products for which the Chinese had any significant demand (Ownby, 2003). For the British, this continuous deterioration of the trade balance turned to be a pervasive problematic and thus the necessity of breaking in to the Chinese market was assuming more and more importance by the day. This objective of penetrating the Chinese market was achieved by introducing Opium as a tradable. Opium was no stranger to the Chinese where historically it had been utilized for medicinal purposes. However, the Chinese authorities were aware of the dangerously addictive nature of the drug and its potentially destructive consequences when utilized for recreational purposes, a fact reflected in the ban on the consumption and trading of opium imposed back in 1729 (Hanes III & Sanello, 2002). However, with Opium being the only tradable product that was in demand in China and thus the only existing route out of the deteriorating trade balance situation for the British, and with the establishment of a monopoly in Opium cultivation in India by the East India Company which thereby enhanced the profitability of the Opium trade in 1773, the East India Company, which had a monopoly in trading with China, continued marketing opium into China through licensed western merchants who did not have membership of the Company. In 1793, a British diplomatic mission to China was also organized with the objective of securing greater trading privileges through the abolishment of the Canton system and having all the other Chinese ports opened to British traders. The negotiations however were a failure with the Qianlong emperor denying approval to the British proposals averring China to be self-sufficient and thereby declaring British products to be superfluous for the Chinese empire (Beeching, 1975). To the further dissatisfaction of the British, through a decree in 1796 imports as well as the cultivation of Opium were declared to be illegal practices by the Emperor. However, one should take note of the fact that this ban was in essence a reflection of the gradually rising volume of Chinese consumption of imported Indian Opium (Ownby, 2003) and thus of the success in penetration of the Chinese market by the British through the drug trade. However, due to flourishing illegal trade practices, the ban proved to have little effect in establishing any considerable control on the import and consumption of the drug. Further, a significant decline in the prices of Opium, primarily the result of increased competition in India caused a strong upsurge in Chinese consumption in 1819. In 1833, the trade monopoly of the East India Company was dismantled which resulted in newer western merchant groups entering the market. Within one year, the volume of British exports to China greatly increased, and this rise was sufficient to cause a reversal in the direction of the flow of silver reflecting a significant directional shift in the respective trade balances of the two nations (Inglis, 1976). Until then, the effects of the mounting Opium imports for the Chinese had been reflected only in gradually rising number of addicts the majority of which was constituted by rich and idle class. But this shift in the Chinese trade balance resulting from the Opium trade for the first time revealed its potential in causing massive wealth outflows for the Emperor. The economic effects of increasing volume of wealth outflow in the form of silver coupled with significantly rising number of addicts with the poorer classes also slowly beginning to get into the habit gradually began to reflect the disastrous potential of the drug for the entire empire and emerged as a considerably strong problematic (Ownby, 2003). Thus, while the opium trade had turned around the profitability of trading in China for the British and thereby provided considerable incentives for further expansion into the markets, the proliferation of the drug in its domestic market was beginning to hurt China economically not only in terms of the large wealth losses but also in terms of the reduced productivities of the addicts and herein lay the conflict of interests that finally culminated to the first opium war. With the East India Company’s monopoly privilege being withdrawn and the consequent surge in opium trafficking due to greatly increased number of merchant operations, the British government felt obliged to significantly raise official intervention in China. A significant number of British merchants were pressing their government for increased trading privileges and greater access to the promisingly large markets of China and the British government officially initiated attempts to attain these objectives by coercing the Chinese. However having witnessed the continuously deteriorating trade imbalance and the plague of the Opium addiction, not only did the emperor adopt an obdurate stance against such British approaches, he sought to have the problem eliminated totally and sent Lin Zexu, an official given appointment as the imperial commissioner for the purpose, to Canton in the later part of 1838 (Inglis, 1976). In March of the following year, the British Merchants were ordered by Lin to surrender the stocks of Opium in their entireties and to sign a particular bond that implied forever forsaking their rights of Opium trading in China (Ownby, 2003). When the british merchants attempted to negotiate, they were taken hostages and forced to surrender their stocks. The entire consignments of Opium were destroyed by Lin and for the British this resembled a destruction of the property of the crown and thus triggered the first war. Reconciliation was arrived at in January of 1841 through negotiations in the Quanbi convention, but these were rather tenuous with neither side being satisfactorily nearer to their objectives with the British feeling only the minimal of their demands had been met while on the other hand the Chinese emperor feeling angered at having to reconcile. Consequently the agreement was mutually rejected and further offensives ensued. The British forces attacked and occupied important coastal cities of Ningbo and Tianjin in august 1841 and by June were able to acquire Zhenjiang, which was vital to the Chinese not only as a communication core but more so being the entry point to the grand canal, the main route for rice to be transported from the southern areas to the capital in the north. The Chinese had already suffered significant losses being outgunned greatly and with the capture of Zhenjiang were forced to enter negotiations and on August 29, 1942 the treaty of Nanking was signed marking the end of the first opium war. This treaty was a satisfactory achievement for the British merchants since it served in attaining more than the initial objectives. The system of Cohong was eliminated and further not only were the four ports of Fuzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, and Xiamen opened to the British traders, Hong-Kong was relinquished to the British (Collins, 1946). A pertinent point to note here is that there was no mention about the trade of opium in the treaty. The second opium war was in essence an inevitable outcome of the motivations that led to the first war itself particularly from the Chinese side, and more importantly of the Nanking treaty itself. Not only had the conditions had not improved for the Chinese empire, The Nanking treaty essentially acted to worsen them further. Not only did the turn of events fail to prevent the proliferation of Opium in the Chinese markets, the British now had greater access to the Chinese markets (Collins, 1946). The clauses of the treaty did appear thus to be firmly biased against the Chinese. Again, the British merchants expecting a prodigious rise in profits as an aftermath of the Nanking treaty were being disappointed (Ownby, 2003). The Chinese resentment for the British grew during the interim years as there was also a rise in illegal practices like piracy and trafficking of humans. Since the British were mostly using illegal and unofficial sources to promote their merchandise, the disorder and lawless state was accorded to the unscrupulous ways of the British. On the other hand, for a large number of Chinese officials abiding the Nanking treaty seemed unjust and this resulted in an inability of the merchants to enter towns like Canton as the number of assaults by locals not only were rising but also were being promoted by certain people like the Hsien-feng Emperor. This Adamant behaviour for the British signified a flouting of official decrees thereby necessitating forcible subduing (Collins, 1946). In this tense ambience, with either parties gradually becoming hostile towards one another, the second war was directly sparked on 8th October 1856 by the Lorcha Arrow incident. The Lorcha Arrow was a ship that had Chinese ownership but was registered for service under the British flag. Canton authorities boarded and seized the ship accusing a number of crew members of smuggling and piracy and the British flag that the ship was sporting was pulled down. This event quickly escalated in to a full mounted attack on Canton by the British gunships which would signal the initiation of the second Opium war (Ownby, 2003). Thus what emerges is that, though apparently the Opium trade acted as the prime catalyst for both wars, they were not entirely about Opium. In fact it was only the first war that stemmed directly from opium trade related causes. While for the Chinese, the mounting despair caused by rise in Opium trades and the subsequent controlling attempts motivated the aggression, for the British it was the potential adverse implications of the regulations on the trade of opium that generated enough incentive to resist. For the British, the motivation primarily lay in gaining higher access into the lucrative markets of China much more than embalming the opium trade practice itself, a fact well reflected in the Nanking treaty which lacked any clause relating to the opium trade and rather stressed on achieving enhanced access to the markets and securing greater control rather than protecting the opium trade. In the case of the second war, from the British perspective, the trade of opium had little role to play and it was more an offensive that was motivated by the need to enforce the rights and privileges gained through the Nanking treaty while for the Chinese it was more a case of exhibiting an adamant violation of the decree which they felt to be unjust which grew with the persistence of the proliferation of British exports. Thus, it may be concluded that the Opium wars were in essence a conflict of two entities with conflicting economic and strategic motivations and interests which centred on the trade of Opium, but in reality were outcomes of the inversely related nature of implications for the objectives of either parties. References: Beeching, J. (1975) The Chinese Opium Wars, Harvest Books Collis, M., (1946) Foreign Mud: The opium imbroglio at Canton in the 1830s and the Anglo-Chinese War, W. W. Norton, New York Hanes III, W. T., Sanello. F, (2002) Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another, Sourcebooks, Inc Inglis, B., (1976) The Opium War, Coronet Books Read More