CHINA AND THE WEST MID-CENTURY CRISIS 1850’s

1. CHINA AND THE WEST • MID-CENTURY CRISIS 1850’s • Opium trade and epidemic addiction in China – England needs export to China for tea, porcelain and silk imports • Opium War and Treaty of Nanjing - 1842 • Taiping Rebellion & Christian missionaries • decline of Qing dynasty – weak emperors • industrial revolution – China falls behind the West • population doubles to 400,000,000 causing breakdown of government services

2. You, O King, from afar have yearned after the blessings of our civilisation, and in your eagerness to come into touch with our converting influence have sent an Embassy across the sea bearing a memorial. I have already taken note of your respectful spirit of submission, have treated your mission with extreme favour and loaded it with gifts, besides issuing a mandate to you, O King, and honouring you with the bestowal of valuable presents. Thus has my indulgence been manifested. As your Ambassador can see for himself, we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country's manufactures It behoves you, O King, to respect my sentiments and to display even greater devotion and loyalty in future, so that, by perpetual submission to our Throne, you may secure peace and prosperity for your country hereafter. Besides making gifts (of which I enclose an inventory) to each member of your Mission, I confer upon you, O King, valuable presents in excess of the number usually bestowed on such occasions, including silks and curios-a list of which is likewise enclosed. Do you reverently receive them and take note of my tender goodwill towards you! A special mandate letter from Emperor Qianlong to King George III 1793

5. BRITISH SALES OF OPIUM TO CHINA Year Number of chests 1729 200 1750 600 (est.) 1773 1,000 1790 4,054 1800 4,570 1810 4,968 1816 5,106 1823 7,082 1828 13,131 1832 23,570

6. Even though the barbarians may not necessarily intend to do us harm, yet in coveting profit to an extreme, they have no regard for injuring others. Let us ask, where is your conscience? I have heard that the smoking of opium is very strictly forbidden by your country; that is because the harm caused by opium is clearly understood. Since it is not permitted to do harm to your own country, then even less should you let it be passed on to the harm of other countries . . . Of all that China Commissioner Lin Zexu letter to Queen Victoria 1839

7. You must then fear the laws, and in seeking profit for yourselves, must not do hurt to others. Why do you bring to our land the opium, which in your lands is not made use of, by it defrauding men of their proper ty, and causing injury to their lives? I find that with this thing you have seduced and deluded the people of China for tens of years past… Such conduct rouses indignation in every human heart, and it is utterly inexcusable in the eye of celestial reason. I proceed to issue my commands… let them deliver up to the Government every particle of the opium on board their store-ships. . . . that it may be burnt and destroyed, and that thus the evil may be entirely extirpated. There must not be the smallest atom concealed or withheld. Commissioner Lin Zexu, edict to foreign merchants 1839

8. Commissioner LinZexu attacks opium in Guangzhou • opium destroyed 1839 • rehab clinics opened • public posters and education against opium • rewards for merchants who cooperate • threats against Western merchants who keep trading • wrote letter to England’s Queen Victoria appealing to her conscience • when war begins he was blamed and exiled

9. Behold that vile English nation! Its ruler is at one time a woman, then a man, and then perhaps a woman again; its people are at one time like vultures, and then they are like wild beasts, with dispositions more fierce and furious than the tiger or wolf, and natures more greedy than anacondas or swine. Verily, the English barbarians murder all of us that they can. They are dogs, whose desires can never be satisfied. Therefore we need not inquire whether the peace they have now made be real or pretended. Let us all rise, arm, unite, and go against them. People of Canton, Declaration Against England, 1842

11. Treaty of Nanjing • Britain takes Hong Kong as a colony • indemnity (money) paid by China to Britain • extraterritoriality • standard 5% tariff (no corruption) • no monopolies (hongs) • five treaty ports from Hong Kong to Shanghai

13. Junks in Canton harbor – 1860’s

14. Hong Kong harbor – 1870’s

15. 1850-1864 Taiping Rebellion Hong Xiuquan

17. TAIPING REFORMS • communal land-holding • equality of sexes • equality of all classes • prohibit foot-binding, gambling, opium, alcohol, prostitution • government examinations based on Christian Bible • solar calendar replaced with lunar calendar • every family required to provide a soldier for Taiping army

18. Li Hongzhang Leading Self-Strengthener

22. Central street in Beijing – 1870’s

23. Manchu soldiers – 1870’s

24. Empress Dowager Cixi

26. Marble ferry-boat at Summer Palace Built for Empress Dowager Cixi

28. Russell & Company American concession at original Canton factory site

29. Boxer soldier in Beijing 1899