The Opium Trade

The Opium Trade:  The British, followed by other Europeans, found a clever, if unethical, way to break into Chinese markets: opium.  This drug had been known in China since the early 1700s, but it was not yet available enough for its use to have become widespread.  The British changed all this.  A prime source of opium was northeast India, part of Britain’s empire.  In the 1820s and 1830s, the British began to flood China with opium.  With lightning speed, it became the drug of choice among Chinese of all classes, and addiction became widespread.  The British made fantastic profits from the opium trade, and the balance of trade, previously so heavily advantageous to China, swung suddenly in Britain’s favor.  Over time, other countries – such as France, Portugal, and the United States – also sold the drug to China, but Britain dominated the business, controlling 80 percent of the opium trade.  The Chinese government was outraged.  The trade was illegal.  It reversed the balance of trade, meaning that silver bullion, instead of flowing into China, was flowing out, and at an alarming rate.  Moreover, addiction to opium was so widespread that it affected the economic productivity of the Chinese population: on any given day, millions of Chinese farmers and workers would be so incapacitated by the drug that they could not work.  The Chinese protested to the west.  As one official wrote, “The foreigners have brought us a disease which will dry up our bones, a worm that gnaws at our hearts, a ruin to our families and persons. It means the destruction of the soul of our nation.” The Opium Wars and Foreign Domination of Qin China:  The Qing government tried to strike back by arresting dealers, seizing opium supplies, and intercepting boats carrying the drug.  The problem for the Chinese was that any aggressive action might give the foreigners an excuse for war.  This is what happened in 1839, when the Chinese navy blockaded Canton, one of the few ports to where foreigners were allowed to trade.  This action sparked the first Opium War (1839 – 1842), between Britain and China.  The British won easily, then forced the humiliating Treaty of Nanking on the Chinese.  The Qing government was required to open five more ports to foreign trade, lower tariffs on British goods, and grant extraterritorial rights to areas in China where the British lived and worked (this meant that British, not Chinese, law prevailed in these areas).  In addition, China had to surrender Hong Kong to Britain.  The conflicts over opium and trade in general did not end in 1842.  More fighting, including a second Opium war, the so-called Arrow War, and a Franco-British expedition to Beijing, took place between 1856 and 1860.  Treaties arrived at from 1858 to 1860 made the opium trade legal, opened more ports to foreign trade, and granted greater powers to the Portuguese, French, British, Americans, and Russians who set up economic concessions on Chinese territory.  During the last decades of the 1800s, China grew increasingly weaker and was steadily forced to give more and more privileges to foreign traders.  Late in the century, Japan, Germany, and Italy gained concessions as well.  Substantial pieces of territory along the Chinese coast were extraterritorial, meaning that they were legally under foreign, not Chinese, control.  By 1898, foreign vessels were allowed unrestricted travel up the rivers of China. The Taiping Rebellion:  Serious internal problems dogged the Qing at the same time foreign pressure increased.  The worst was the Taiping Rebellion (1850 – 1864), the costliest and most devastating civil war in world history.  The Taiping Rebellion lasted almost a decade and a half.  It claimed somewhere between 20 million and 30 million lives, making it the second deadliest war in history, next to World War II.  The uprising was started by Hong Xiuquan, a Cantonese clerk educated partly by Protestant missionaries.  An aspiring government official, Hong failed his civil-service examination.  The shock seems to have caused him to have visions, in which he became convinced that he was Jesus Christ’s younger brother, destined to establish a “Heavenly Kingdom of Supreme Peace” – the meaning of the word taiping – in China.  Hong’s rebellion began in 1850.  An extraordinarily magnetic leader, Hong attracted many followers who were able to organize an effective, modern army.  Hong’s vision of a new China also proved appealing to millions of ordinary Chinese who resented the Qing’s high taxes, arbitrary and oppressive rule, and the fact that the Manchu emperors were, essentially, foreign rulers dominating their Chinese subjects.  In 1853, the Taiping rebels captured the major city of Nanjing; in 1860, they came close to taking the great port of Shanghai.  At their peak, Hong and the Taiping leaders controlled one third of China.  The Taiping Rebellion began to wane after 1860.  Competent generals took over the Qing war effort, and the government was assisted by a foreign force – the Ever-Victorious Army – commanded by an American soldier of fortune, Frederick Townsend Ward, then the English general Charles “Chinese” Gordon.  Quarrels among the Taiping leadership hurt the movement as well.  By the early 1860s, Taiping forces were in retreat; Hong committed suicide. After Passing the Examination By Bai Juyi

For ten years I never left my books; I went up ... and won unmerited praise. My high place I do not much prize; The joy of my parents will first make me proud. Fellow students, six or seven men, See me off as I leave the City gate. My covered couch is ready to drive away; Flutes and strings blend their parting tune. Hopes achieved dull the pains of parting; Fumes of wine shorten the long road ... Shod with wings is the horse of him who rides On a Spring day the road that leads to home.