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What is history? A simple fable that we have all accepted (Napoleon
Modern China and the legacy of the Opium Wars
Updated 3 Sep 2018
The Opium Wars were a pivotal — and humiliating — juncture in China's
history.
The two armed conflicts, waged over sovereignty, trade and opium almost
180 years ago, pit the richest empire on the planet against Britain.
The result for China was catastrophic.
It lost its standing as the most powerful force in Asia, and its
economic wealth. It was opened to Western influence, and all but carved up by
foreign powers.
"That page of Chinese history was one of humiliation and
sorrow," China's president Xi Jinping said in 2017.
Experts say the legacy of the wars continues to influence China's
foreign policies, and its desire to reunite all former Chinese territories,
including Taiwan.
So to really understand modern China, you have to start with the Opium
Wars.
A tea-fuelled trade imbalance
At the time of the wars, which unfolded between 1839 and 1860, China was
ruled by the Qing Dynasty.
Yang-Wen Zheng, a professor of Chinese history at the University of
Manchester, says the empire had amassed large amounts of territory and wealth.
"Qing China was rather powerful because it had a large population,
it had sucked in a lot of silver from international trade, hence [it was] very
wealthy," she says.
China mainly traded porcelain, silk and spices like tea — the daily drug
of choice for the English.
But it wasn't really interested in what Britain had to offer in return,
mostly furs and textiles.
"That caused a huge trade imbalance and trade deficit,"
Professor Zheng says.
The imbalance grew until the later 18th century, when Britain found
something the Chinese people did want: opium.
The illegal drug being used by China's elite suddenly became accessible
to the masses.
"What the British did is they fuelled the consumption by supplying
more, by making it possible for the middle classes to join in," Professor
Zheng says.
"You could say that opium smoking in the 1780s, 1790s, was like a
spark. By the 1830s it was a fire, it was a wild fire."
From the early 1820s onwards, the balance of trade started to shift into
Britain's favour.
The Qing tried to stop the opium trade, worried about the social impact
of the drug — and also about the outflow of silver.
"Silver is pouring out of China, that's when the state gets very
alarmed about what is happening," explains Robert Bickers, a professor of
history at the University of Bristol.
Smuggling crackdown sparks a war
In 1839, China appointed an official to crack down on the smuggling
trade in southern Guangzhou.
"He first orders all the drug supplies held by foreigners in
Guangzhou to be handed over to him," Professor Bickers says.
"And until the drug is handed over to him, he holds all the British
traders hostage.
"And from that perfectly legitimate act on his part unfolds a
series of moves which lead to the dispatch of the British ships and soldiers to
fight what we call the first Opium War."
Even though the Qing Empire had a larger army, it was defeated in 1842.
The British argued that the war was not about the right to trade opium, but
rather the right to free trade across China.
The defeat of the Chinese led to the Treaty of Nanjing, the first of a
series of treaties imposed on the Qing Dynasty.
"[It] opened five further ports to British trade and residents, and
ceded the island of Hong Kong in perpetuity to the British as an island
enclave," Professor Bickers says.
Once Britain had opened the door, France and America also came knocking.
"What the treaty did is it opened China for grabs," Professor
Zheng says.
With that came foreigners with new ideas — and that turned out to be a
big problem for the Qing.
In the 1840s, there was a massive rebellion in the south-west, led by a
man who styled himself as the younger brother of Jesus Christ.
"These were indigenous Chinese Protestant Christians who went into
battle chanting the 10 Commandments, who had their own translation of the
Bible," Professor Bickers says.
"[They] rolled up from the south-west, conquered central China, set
up a capital in Nanjing, and almost dislodged the Qing Dynasty."
The rebellion lasted for 14 years.
"It's probably the bloodiest civil war in recorded human
history," Professor Bickers says.
"Tens of millions of people died as a result of displacement,
famine, conflict, and most people overseas had never heard of it
"It has a direct link to the arrival of foreign ideas and
foreigners on the China coast."
A second conflict erupts
All the while, despite remaining illegal, the opium trade in China
flourished; none of the treaties even mentioned the drug.
"I would say from the 1850s, opium consumption was destroying the
fabric of society," Professor Zheng says.
"Now almost all the classes, top to middle, lower middle classes
even, are consuming and some are becoming addicts."
In 1856, the second Opium War began.
"[If unfolded] because of the continued frustrations of some
British officials and British traders at their failure to ... penetrate the
China market," Professor Bickers says.
"They felt that they were not respected by Qing officials. They
felt that the real market was always a bit further away from them."
When Chinese authorities seized a ship suspected of smuggling, the
British consul took the opportunity to effectively begin a war.
It was bloodier and far more damaging for the Qing than the first, and
eventually saw British and French forces march on China's capital in late 1860.
The Summer Palace was looted and burned down.
"The Chinese have quite deliberately left ruins there, a wasteland,
to educate their young people: this is what happens if you don't love the
motherland," says John Wong, an emeritus professor of History at the
University of Sydney.
"They used that as a patriotic education campaign."
Dividing up China
After China's defeat, new treaties were signed, opening more ports to
foreign trade.
And the pain for China didn't end there.
"All the powers wanted to have a share. This was historically
called the scramble for concessions," Professor Wong says.
"Britain would say 'because of Hong Kong, the Pearl River Basin is
my sphere of influence'. Further to the west, the French say, 'well, we've got
Vietnam, and therefore the Red River Basin of south China is our sphere of
influence'.
"The British say 'Shanghai is a very important commercial centre of
ours, so we claim the whole of the Yangtze River Basin to be our sphere of
influence'.
"Germany got Shandong province and tried to extend it along the
Yellow River. Russia claimed Manchuria and what is now Chinese Turkestan."
The existing Chinese governments continued to operate in those regions,
but under the watch of the foreign powers.
An enduring legacy
The defeat of the Qing Empire in the Opium Wars was a key factor in
their downfall, and the rise of the Communist Party.
Professor Zheng says a "sense of injury" remains, and
influences China's actions to this day.
"The Chinese regime have used this period of humiliation [and]
defeat in the hands of foreigners ... as some kind of legitimacy," she
says.
"I think this sense of injury is prompting China to do a lot of
things today on the world stage, because it's still angry with the West —
because the West never apologised for what it did to China.
"It's an ammunition for the Chinese Government."
Professor Bicker agrees, but points out there are also other factors at
play.
"China's actions today do speak to that legacy, but they are also
motivated by its own savvy understanding of geostrategic shifts and
geopolitical shifts in the global economy," he says.
"It would be foolish to say that every Chinese leader,
administrator, walks around thinking all the time, 'oh, I must extract revenge
for the Battle of the Taku Forts in 1860'.
"But at the heart of the way the state articulates itself,
especially in the way that younger Chinese people respond to events, China's
formerly degraded position is constantly a reference point.
"China can say 'no, China will never be weak again, the Qing was
weak, and the Qing threw away China's sovereignty. We won't, we have strength,
we will assert ourselves'.
"So it is absolutely bound up into the way Chinese people see the
world.
"History is important in China."
With affection,
Ruben
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