How China Suffered from Humiliation Two Centuries Ago - Essay Example

cHINA IN 19TH CENTURY Introduction China is politically a communist economically she practices social capitalism and embraces both modern and pre modern Confucius teachings. In spite of this China has emerged as one of the leading economic superpowers of the world and is projected to surpass the United States of America by the year 2050 in economic growth, this being an effect of the global financial crises causing the economic centre’s gravity to shift towards China. There are two major policy documents describing China’s growth, the Washington consensus which states that liberal economics goes hand in hand with liberal politics; and Beijing consensus which ties growth to authoritarian political dispensation (Huang 2010, P.40). The anticipated growth for the world economy is expected to average at over 3 per cent per annum up to the year 2032 according to pricewaterhouse coopers. China has today surpassed any other country or region including U.S.A in GDP growth (Yao and Zhou 2011, P.2084).Today the world is drastically changing economically with power shifting to the “dynamic East” from the “anemic west” which is irreversibly the consequence of 21st century’s development (Hadziahmetovic and Zaimovic 2012, P.63). The people’s republic of China has come a long way since the days of the Qing Dynasty in 1644 which succeeded the Ming Dynasty and was succeeded in 1912 by the Republic of China. China has grown from a poor country with closed economy into a superpower with economic muscle that has lifted millions of her citizenry from poverty becoming a power to reckon with in international matters (Hadziahmetovic and Zaimovic 2012, P.67). This is a remarkable turnaround when compared to the past couple of centuries when the West and especially Europe ruled supreme starting in the 16th century when Spain was the leading economy, followed by Netherlands in the 17th, France in the 18th, Britain in the 19th and United States of America in the 20th century(Nguyen n.d., P. 353). The paper evaluates China as a client state during the economic reign of Britain in the 19th century. This paper will address Chinas International economy factoring on her relationship with the western economies during the period of 19th century. The paper will also look at China’s scope in foreign trade and the changing trends occasioned by a variety of trading empires from the west and in particular the period of treaty port which opened up china’s ports to the world. On focus is china’s conflict with a growing west of the 19th century especially England which was confrontational. Another consideration is the crises being experienced then in China due to rebellion and other natural and social issues that opened her market to the west. China in the 19th century Just as the emergence of China in the 21st century has had a drastic effect on the Western economies today, the same can be said, but in reverse, of China two centuries ago when European countries took over as the world economic power houses rendering China as a client state. China’s volume of foreign exchange continued to be low and restricted but later a remarkable increase was witnessed as product from different corners especially Europe and neighboring Far East countries started flowing into the Chinese market (Keller, Li and Shiue 2010, P.1). Below is a graphical illustration showing China’s foreign trade with the leading economies between 1865 and 1900. Source: Keller, Li and Shiue (2010, P.42). Chinese ports became the conduit by which foreign goods were transited through. During this period China was still prosperous with a great endowment of natural resources; a colossal though contented populace that boasted of a prestigious royal dynasty domestically and overseas (Asia for Educators 2004, P. 1). China’s dynastic empire was the leading economy in the world at the start of 19th century and her Gross Domestic Product (GDP) surpassed the combined GDPs of Western Europe, the North America, Japan and Russia (Degen 2011, P.2). China through her powerful dynastic leadership, considered herself superiorly in regard to moral, culture and intellectual status thus the eventual take over by the West who were then busy laying down the foundation of a European revolution in industrialization. It is speculated that the Chinese may have preceded Columbus in discovering America and also the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci may have been a byproduct of Chinese ingenuity which they never capitalized on. China’s Confucian culture closed the doors of economic advancement that was being witnessed in Europe as a result of industrial revolution due to her possessive centralized governance that included participation of anyone in disregard of their social class and experience and training. This culminated into a society where competition and innovation was diminished and education was regarded only as relevant for civil service and not a ladder to scientific advancement. The bright students were tapped into the civil service where bureaucracy was rated high than economic activities like farming and merchandising and artisanship which was frowned upon. All this time, in the West entrepreneurship was being encouraged and supported in Europe as a means of opening up avenues for acquiring wealth and creativity and innovation was the apparatus for gauging success (Degen 2011, P.2). Prior to the Opium wars, the relationship between china and the West was unequal and only involved trade but the humiliating defeat of Qing compelled China to discover new internal laws and how to relate internationally (Zewei 2011, P.296) Century of Humiliation. The West invaded China in this century and instigated the opium wars which forced China to reluctantly open her borders though this can today be attributed to having laid the foundation of the economic dominance of China in the 21st century. China, like West Indies and other Far East countries suffered the aggression of the Europeans especially the Spanish, Portuguese, French and the British who mostly engaged in the maritime business through exploration and conquering and eventually occupied every port that had a commercial significance either by trading treaties or by conquest. (Nguyen n.d., P. 353). The Chinese tea, silk and porcelain was much in demand in Europe and so the Europeans emphasized more on laying a foothold with a lot of resistance from the natives and their rulers who were in a way less gaining profitably from the trade. Europe was industrializing and raw materials were plenty in the Far East and to acquire these raw materials required seducing these countries. China was not amused by this development arguing there was little to be gained by trading with the West and so she tried to rebuff the European advancement but this led to more loss since the Europeans were better equipped militarily compared to that of the Chinese. China was routinely defeated during the many military altercations; a good example is the first opium war of 1839 to 1842 which led to forced treaties which favored the West whereby Chinese ports known as the treaty ports were freely accessible to the West and even to their bitter and predominant rivals, the neighboring Japan. Further humiliation was meted on them when they were forced to relinquish their right over sections of port cities and all resident foreigners in China. Furthermore they were restricted from stepping into any facility or locale controlled by the foreigners. (Asia for Educators 2004, P. 2). This century also saw the torching of the summer palace, which was official residence of the emperor by the British army, and this was a major humiliation since it was the seat of governance (Barr 2012, P.46) Internal Factors The vibrant Chinese economy of early 19th century was to suffer from within by self destructing tendencies and of more concern was the exploding population. China’s population has been dormant at a hundred million people but during the cohesive reign of Qing her population grew from 150 million in the year 1650 to over 400 million in the 19th century. This brought forth a constraining factor to her economic growth since land became scarce especially in the central and southern jurisdictions limiting migration. The New world or American Crops in particular tobacco, peanuts and sweet potatoes were introduced and utilized the previously unused land where wheat and rice could not grow (Asia for Educators 2004, P. 2). Only a tenth of China’s land was arable and this put limit to the average acreage a farmer could possess or cultivate to only an acre leading to reduced productivity in agriculture paving way for the West to bring their products. Furthermore, the state was losing significant control over the citizens due to the enlarging population whilst the bureaucratic size failed to change numerically forcing single personnel to be in charge of a large section of the populace. Thus the control and power of governance was progressively handed to the local leadership whose commitment was biased towards the family and community and this gave opportunity to the West to manipulate their way into China’s commerce. Corruption and smuggling became uncontrollable since state policy was disregarded in favor of local power. Enacted laws that regulated trade and in particular the prohibition imposed on importation of opium were trampled upon by smugglers in collaboration with state officials. Through corruption the state was denied crucial revenue since the set customs system could not efficiently collect substantial amount that would have gone to finance public affairs (Keller, Li and Shiue 2010, P.3). A biased trade The entry into China by the Europeans and the subsequent forced opening of Chinese port and eventual setting up of treaty ports that favored the West over the Chinese culminated into an influx of a variety of products range and goods as well, as we saw above the smuggling of opium an item that led to the opium wars. This resulted into China increasingly turning to a client state during the period of 19th century as imported rate of imported new goods grew yearly by a percentage of six (6) (Keller, Li and Shiue 2010, P.3). The Europeans expanded the ports to increase the volume of their trade and this had a geographically effect since now China and to mention particularly the port of Hong Kong which acted as an intermediary of all maritime trade and facilitated an increase in the volume of imported goods. A graphical figure is presented below indicating the level of trade in Hong Kong. Source: Keller, Li and Shiue (2010, P.42). Smaller countries managed to transact more business through the port of Hong Kong importing more that they sipped out of China. Latin America, most of which was under the Spanish colonial system enjoyed a beneficial trade and economic relations with China. The Chinese were producing tea, silk and other products and this were shipped through the Pacific Ocean through Mexico. This transit route was referred to as the “silk road of the sea”. In exchange the Spanish exported into China silver which was in high production in Latin America. This silver was used in China as hard currency and boosted the Chinese economy (Zhu 2012, P.116). Towards the end of nineteenth century there was a notable distribution of European industries mostly in coastal regions. There was demand for Chinese workers in territories where the Europeans had colonial jurisdiction causing a mass emigration of Chinese people (Seiranov 2009, P.16). Why Europe prospered ahead of China in the 19th century During the period of 18th and 19th centuries, Europe was exploring the world, discovering and conquering new territories especially in the two continents of Africa and Asia. This contributed hugely to emergence of European nations as economic superpowers ahead of China. Their trade, especially the British, benefitted from enormous profit increases and this was mostly attributed to the aggressiveness and triumph in colonizing conquered territories where they established territorial colonies around the globe and created empires subject to European jurisdiction (Nguyen n.d. P. 356). There is a debate in regard to Western power’s forced entry into the Chinese market through conquest with one side arguing that it put limits to China’s growth while others opine that had it (trade) not been introduced through gunboats, China would have benefited from the increased trade by the Europeans (Keller, Li and Shiue 2010, P.2). One would say that the extent of commerce engagement was minimal to make any difference but a focused attention to what was transpiring then indicates that the impact the West had on China was enormous. As we saw earlier in this paper, 19th century China’s internal factors like exploding population and corruption reduced China to wanton state such that the governing Qing establishments continually lost control to effectually govern the entire empire. The Era of treaty port saw the Europeans setting up the Chinese Maritime Customs (CMC), an organization the West run to administer china’s trade with other nations. The CMC was able to transform and reform china’s foreign trade system by instituting strict regulations. By doing so the CMC created a reliable data detailing relevant information about all of China’s trade as well as for every major port of trade transit within China. China’s social economic system was structured such that the community bond was the denominator of economic growth whereas the West had a self-interest drive in their aggressiveness trading conduct thus profiting more (Freeman 2012, P.9). During this period the world was at relative peace which created room for international economy to grow, the west, without being distracted by war, increased economically greatly in contrast to China and Asia in general (Leeman 1992, P.33). The defeat of Qing by Britain and the introduction of unequal treaties, hence the waiver of internal transit duty on foreign imports caused great revenue losses to the Chinese establishment (Barr 2012, P.46). Europeans married late and had a fertility check and this helped to slow population growth thus increasing her capita compared to China (Pomeranz 2000, P.10) Conclusion Two centuries ago China suffered humiliation from the west when her territory was defiled and their culture trampled upon. From the rich history of China it is evident that though the West forcefully entered China and imposed its agenda selfishly by compelling the Chinese leadership to enter into biased treaties, a thing the Chinese detested, in the long run it is the Chinese who have benefited. Today China has reversed these economic disparities and is threatening to overrun the West in product exportation. Conclusively, it is agreeable that the West’s intrusion into China tilted favorably to the West to exploit the Chinese and caused a slowdown of her economic growth which was vibrant prior to 19th century’s European conquest. References Asia for Educators 2004, ‘Modern History: Introduction to Chinas modern history. Columbia University. Viewed 23 May 2013 Barr, M 2012, How Chinese Identity Politics Shapes Its Depictions of Europe, Review Of European Studies, 4, 3, pp. 45-53, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 21 May 2013. 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