The Origin and Outcome of the Opium War to China - Research Paper Example

 The Opium Wars In China Introduction China in the old days of imperialism and colonization was seen as one of the great prize acquisition for any colonial power, similar to the British possession of India as a crown jewel. A big demand for Chinese products, such as silk, porcelain items (known as fine china like that of tableware) and tea in Western markets spurred British and other European traders to go to great lengths to do commercial trade with imperial China. The old Chinese imperial government had been wary of Western contacts and had imposed certain controls to minimize these contacts and hoped to avoid any undue or unfavorable Western influence on its people. As the world's oldest existing civilization, it had diverged and developed its unique culture (Murphey, 2008, p. 4). Despite its best efforts, the imperial government could not stop the flow of trade and the exchange of cultural influences stemming from all those prohibited contacts. One could say that history cannot be stopped, because the world at that time was going full blast for increased trade. The mad scramble for trade in Asian countries inevitably led to conflicts of national interest and China being considered a major prize could not avoid any entanglement with Western powers. It was only a matter of when and where a good pretext could be found to engage this giant country militarily and also politically, to force it to open up to European contacts in its territories. Historians, politicians, geographers and traders had always considered Asia as a region of greatest potential, with its vast populations and almost unlimited natural resources. China as a big country is in the middle of this Asian landmass and within this context, this paper discusses and argues how the Opium Wars affected China and hastened its decline as an imperial power. Discussion It is within the context of a fierce competition for trade with China that the Opium Wars erupted between China and Great Britain (with Ireland included on the side of the British forces). The huge demand for Chinese-made products had created a trade imbalance in favor of China. The British were paying huge amounts of silver for the privilege of buying and importing into its country, with silk, tea and porcelain the primary items. China had created the Canton System in an effort to impose control on this burgeoning trade (Edwards, 1977, p. 360). This system did not allow a direct trade with Chinese citizens; instead the British merchants and traders had to pass through the Chinese middlemen via compulsory deals with a Chinese trade group or association. Further, this system limited all British and other European traders, including all foreigners, to the territory of Macau. Needless to say, Europeans found this condition very restrictive, especially if they were allowed in Macau only during trading season. Foreign residency was prohibited during off seasons. A compelling reason to correct this trade imbalance soon found a solution: opium. The trade in tea was particularly lucrative for the British trading firms but importing it was such a huge financial drain on their silver holdings, as that was the only currency allowed. A good way to correct the trade distortion was found in opium, with the British introducing it into China from its plantations in India (and including today's modern-day Bangladesh). This trade in opium was of course illegal but it was somehow tolerated initially until it became a huge social and political problem, with many Chinese citizens becoming addicted to it. These two countries actually fought two opium wars, the first between 1839 to 1842 and a second opium war during the period 1856 up to 1860; these resulted from trade frictions between the two countries. Origin of the opium wars, from a narrow perspective, can be traced to the trade conflicts but a wider viewpoint indicated that the two particular wars, sometimes referred to as the Anglo-Chinese Wars, has a much deeper reason. This reason points to the centuries of self-imposed and wrong-headed policy of the country's isolation from the outside world. New developments and a changed global environment due to colonialism and altered political realities made China a weak country and ripe for the picking. The Opium Wars were in reality a colossal failure on the grand scale of mismanagement by the Chinese imperial government to safely and wisely manage all its external relations in this new political environment. Instead of embracing change and new ideas, the Qing Dynasty stubbornly refused to modernize itself and mostly relied on its faded glory as a quintessential Middle Kingdom. Resistance to change doomed it to become a paper dragon as the Western powers utilized more advanced technologies and weaponry in warfare. The two Opium Wars were only a manifestation of a more serious malaise within the old imperial government. A China that was once an Asian regional power for several centuries could not cope. Most Western powers saw China as weak and so European imperialist nations took advantage of this. An incoherent Chinese imperial policy with regards to dealing with the foreigners and in particular, with the continued importation of opium into the country, precipitated the wars. Its advisers were divided on the issue of opium, with one faction favoring to tax it and somehow get to gain a measure of control on the illegal trade by legalizing it and raise much needed revenues, while another faction of imperial advisers and more strident nationalists in the government opted for confrontation by seizing the stored opium in British hands. These actions in suppression by also arresting and executing the Chinese opium smugglers had sparked the Opium Wars. With the benefit of historical hindsight, provoking the British Empire by forcing opium dealers to surrender their stocks was a challenge to the political and military might of the British. The old Chinese imperial government had committed a strategic mistake in this regard although it can be said it has few options available to it. Their old empire was fast becoming an empire of addicts with adverse effects on society as a whole. The Imperial government of China had also to a certain extent become unmanageable due to its sheer size and gross incompetence. Its emperor at that time refused to deal with important matters of the state and left most of its affairs to a host of mandarins and eunuchs, government bureaucrats who very often had conflicting interests. The emperor himself was an alcoholic and opium addict who was more interested in his harem and he left his younger brother to attend to the more pressing concerns of the country (Hanes & Sanello, 2002, p. 10) which led to a corrupt and chaotic administration from all these intrigues. Why the Opium Wars happened was only a matter of time, for the British saw it as good alibi or pretext to impose their will on the Chinese people and force the country to open itself up. The ostensible reason was the unwarranted seizure of the opium but a deeper examination of the events will indicate it was actually a war of two cultures, one an ancient civilization of some two thousand years in existence while the other a newly-ascendant naval-based colonial power which believed it is the rightful heir to the pinnacle of world civilization (ibid. p. 12). This clash of both cultures was inevitable, as Great Britain was determined to force China into the global economy spawned by the Industrial Revolution which started in England. The British coveted Chinese silk and tea so much that they used opium as lever to force open the Heavenly Empire against its will and thereby gain a foothold against other Western powers in the great geopolitical game then. How the Opium Wars turned out to be a disaster for the imperial government of China is a lesson in geopolitics. It can be said these two wars were a major turning point in the modern Chinese history as it was reduced to accept unfavorable terms and conditions in its aftermath. It started the decline of the Chinese nation for over a century after that, in what they called as the century of humiliation, the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and China becoming a republic under the Nationalists of the Kuomintang, and later when they were defeated, by the communists. The first opium war started as an effort to eradicate the opium trade but backfired which started the Chinese empire on its downward descent and eventually into oblivion (Beeching, 1977, p. 5). The opium trade was so profitable one cannot realistically expect the British traders to just give it up that easily, even if ordered to do so by imperial edict. Those merchants holding the opium inventories initially refused to surrender their opium stocks but were eventuality forced to give them up because they were placed under virtual siege (an undeclared blockade) by Chinese imperial authorities. The British responded by sending its soldiers stationed in India to China and included some Indian troops as well, some of whom were captured by the Chinese and suffered a worse fate due to the inhuman treatment and torture with Hindu Indian soldiers forced to eat beef while Muslim Indian soldiers were made to eat pork, in violation of their religious faiths. The Chinese got defeated with British superior firepower and sued for peace with the signing of the Treaty of Nanking. This was a very one-sided and onerous treaty as it obliged the Chinese imperial government to concede to a number of unfavorable terms, among them to cede the territory of Hong Kong in perpetuity, pay a war indemnity to Great Britain, reimburse traders for their lost opium stocks and grant extra-territorial status to British nationals in China. The first opium war ended in a general peace treaty, with many questions unresolved. It was inadequate and caused further irritants, especially on the issue of continued trade in opium. The old Canton System of trading was abolished and replaced with a more open system of trade, a quaint diplomatic concept of extra-territoriality was introduced, import tariffs for British items and goods into China were lowered and fixed at only 5% and the granting of equal nation status to Great Britain in terms of trade and commerce (no longer based on the old vassal and lord kind of relationship but based on terms of equal reciprocity or most-favored nation status). Christian (both Protestant and Catholic) missionaries were free to travel to the interior of the mainland to win converts. Other countries, notably the United States, France and Russia, also demanded the same concessions and privileges granted to the British. A weakened China started mad scrambles among the Europeans as to who gets the best terms. The second opium war ended with the treaty of Tientsin, with the opium trade now firmly established as legal but to be highly regulated. China agreed to all the demands of the foreign powers after it was soundly defeated the second time around in the opium wars. Of all the concessions it gave, it was extra-territoriality that had grated the most to Chinese nationalist sentiments because it allowed all foreigners to be exempt from Chinese laws and instead be subject only to their consuls (Dikotter, 2002, p. 41). It was an incredible surrender of Chinese sovereignty on its own soil. This bad diplomatic principle made a mockery of the acclaimed Chinese superiority and showed how weak China had become. In essence, the foreign powers had extended their laws and rules into all Chinese territories under their jurisdiction and free to do whatever they want without any interference from the Chinese. A careful reading of the results of the opium wars indicated this was the greatest humiliation ever. Conclusion The Opium Wars were only the proximate cause of the decline of imperial China to that of a second-rate country. But a more thoughtful re-reading of the grand sweep of Chinese history shows the fall of the Chinese empire started much earlier, to the previous dynasties which had in error resisted efforts to modernize China. Its rulers had become complacent and China stagnated, impervious to new developments and technologies around the world, especially to the inventions from the Industrial Revolution which gave other countries a superiority in weaponry and also in other fields of human endeavor, such as deep ocean voyages using steamships and the modern form of communications using the telegraph. China had become antiquated and worse, a victim of its own imperial glory and got left behind in the march of progress. It had become a nineteenth century anachronism, unable to deal with fast-paced changes developing elsewhere. In other words, the illegal trade in opium and the two wars resulting were just incidental to the much larger issue of the pretensions of the Chinese emperors to being the rulers of Earth with a clear mandate from Heaven. The Europeans found the concept of kow-tow as an insulting practice, a carryover or relic from ancient Chinese civilization and a cultural practice that hinted at superiority over another person. Kowtow was once prevalent in China when it was at its peak, such that previous Chinese emperors had demanded absolute obedience, with the imperial edicts issued ending with the forbidding phrase, “tremble and obey.” (McGregor, 2005, p. 128). Failure to embrace modern and progressive ideas contributed greatly to its rapid decline, when in the last twenty centuries, 18 of those had belonged to China as the regional power (Pieterse, 1994, p. 4). Ironically, an outcome of the opium wars was it facilitated China's entry into the world economy. Reference List Beeching, J. (1977). The Chinese opium wars. San Diego, CA, USA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Dikotter, F. (2002). Crime, punishment and the prison in modern China. Hong Kong, China: Hong Kong University Press. Edwards, R. (1977). The old canton system of foreign trade. In V. H. Li (Ed.), Law and politics in China's foreign trade (pp. 360-378). Seattle, WA, USA: University of Washington Press. Hanes, W. T. & Sanello, F. (2002). The opium wars: the addiction of one empire and the corruption of another. Naperville, IL, USA: Sourcebooks, Inc. McGregor, J. (2005). One billion customers: lessons from the front lines of doing business in China. New York, NY, USA: Free Press. Murphey, R. (2008). A history of Asia (6th ed.). White Plains, NY, USA: Longman Pieterse, J. N. (1994). Global Re-balancing: Crisis and the East-South Turn. Focus, 1-27. Read More