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Opium Wars
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The Opium Wars , also known as the Anglo-Chinese Wars, lasted from 1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860, the climax of a trade dispute between China under the Qing Dynasty and the British Empire. British smuggling of opium from British India into China in defiance of China's drug laws erupted into open warfare between Britain and China.
China's defeat in both wars left its government having to tolerate the opium trade.
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The Opium Wars , also known as the Anglo-Chinese Wars, lasted from 1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860, the climax of a trade dispute between China under the Qing Dynasty and the British Empire. British smuggling of opium from British India into China in defiance of China's drug laws erupted into open warfare between Britain and China.
China's defeat in both wars left its government having to tolerate the opium trade. Britain forced the Chinese government into signing the Treaty of Nanjing and the Treaty of Tianjin, also known as the Unequal Treaties, which included provisions for the opening of additional ports to foreign trade, for fixed tariffs; for the recognition of both countries as equal in correspondence; and for the annexation of Hong Kong by Britain. The British also gained extraterritorial rights. Several countries followed Britain and sought similar agreements with China. Many Chinese found these agreements humiliating and these sentiments are considered to have contributed to the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901), and the downfall of Qing in 1912. The Opium Wars forcefully and suddenly opened China to the world.
Background
Direct maritime trade between Europe and China started in the 16th century, after the Portuguese conquered the Indian settlement of Goa in the mid 16th century, and in 1557 settled Macau in southern China. After Spanish acquisition of the Philippines, exchange of goods between China and the West accelerated dramatically. The Manila Galleon brought in far more silver direct from South American mines to China than the overland Silk Road, or even Portuguese trade routes in the Indian and Pacific oceans could. Faced with a flood of trade, the Qing government attempted to limit contact with the outside world, only authorizing trade through the port of Canton (now Guangzhou). Severe red-tape and licensed monopolies were set up to restrict the flow of trade, resulting in high retail prices for imported goods and limited demand. Spain began to sell opium, along with New World products such as tobacco and corn, to the Chinese in order to prevent a trade deficit.
A combination of the Qing trade restrictions and imperial monopolies, low Chinese demand for European goods, and high European demand for Chinese goods, including tea, silk, and porcelain, forced European merchants to purchase these goods with silver, the only commodity the Chinese would accept. From the mid-17th century around 28 million kilograms of silver was imported to China. This was not a viable long term trading dynamic. Britain had been using the gold standard from the mid 18th Century and therefore had to purchase silver from other European countries.
In the 18th century, despite ardent protest from the Qing government, British traders began importing opium from India. Because of its strong mass appeal and addictive nature, opium was an effective solution to the trade problem. An instant consumer market for the drug was secured, and the flow of silver into China that had threatened to cripple British and other European economies was reversed. Recognizing the growing number of addicts, the Yongzheng Emperor prohibited the sale and smoking of opium in 1729, and only allowed a small amount of opium imports for medicinal purposes.
Growth of the opium trade
Following the Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which Britain annexed Bengal to its empire, the British East India Company pursued a monopoly on production and export of Indian opium. Monopoly began in earnest in 1773, as the British Governor-General of Bengal abolished the opium syndicate at Patna. For the next fifty years opium trade would be the key to the East India Company's hold on the subcontinent.
Considering that importation of opium into China had been virtually banned by Chinese law, the East India Company established an elaborate trading scheme partially relying on legal markets, and partially leveraging illicit ones. British merchants carrying no opium would buy tea in Canton on credit, and would balance their debts by selling opium at auction in Calcutta. From there, the opium would reach the Chinese coast hidden aboard British ships then smuggled into China by native merchants. In 1797 the company further tightened its grip on the opium trade by enforcing direct trade between opium farmers and the British, and ending the role of Bengali purchasing agents.
British exports of opium to China grew from an estimated fifteen tons in 1730 to 75 tons in 1773. The product was shipped in over two thousand chests, each containing 140 pounds (64 kg) of opium.
Meanwhile, negotiations with the Qianlong Emperor to ease the trading ban carried on, coming to a head in 1793 under Earl George Macartney. Such discussions were unsuccessful.
In 1799 the Chinese Empire reinstated their ban on opium imports. The Empire issued the following decree in 1810:
- Opium has a harm. Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality. Its use is prohibited by law. Now the commoner, Yang, dares to bring it into the Forbidden City. Indeed, he flouts the law!
- However, recently the purchases, eaters, and consumers of opium have become numerous. Deceitful merchants buy and sell it to gain profit. The customs house at the Ch'ung-wen Gate was originally set up to supervise the collection of imports (it had no responsibility with regard to opium smuggling). If we confine our search for opium to the seaports, we fear the search will not be sufficiently thorough. We should also order the general commandant of the police and police- censors at the five gates to prohibit opium and to search for it at all gates. If they capture any violators, they should immediately punish them and should destroy the opium at once. As to Kwangtung and Fukien, the provinces from which opium comes, we order their viceroys, governors, and superintendents of the maritime customs to conduct a thorough search for opium, and cut off its supply. They should in no ways consider this order a dead letter and allow opium to be smuggled out!
The decree had little effect. The Qing government, seated in Beijing in the north of China, was unable to halt opium smuggling in the southern provinces. A porous Chinese border and rampant local demand only encouraged the all-too eager East India Company, which had its monopoly on opium trade recognized by the British government, which itself wanted silver (see gold standard). By the 1820s China was importing 900 tons of Bengali opium annually.
Napier Affair to the First Opium War (1839–1842)
In 1834 to accommodate the revocation of the East India Company's monopoly, the British sent Lord William John Napier to Macau. He tried to circumvent the restrictive Canton Trade laws which forbade direct contact with Chinese officials by attempting to send a letter directly to the Viceroy of Canton but the Viceroy never accepted the letter and closed trade starting on 2 September of that year. Lord Napier had to return to Macau (where he died a few days later) and, unable to force the matter, the British agreed to resume trade under the old restrictions.
Within the Chinese mandarinate there was an ongoing debate over legalizing the opium trade itself. However, this idea was repeatedly rejected and instead, in 1838 the government sentenced native drug traffickers to death. Around this time, the British were selling roughly 1,400 tons per year to China. In March 1839 the Emperor appointed a new strict Confucianist commissioner, Lin Zexu, to control the opium trade at the port of Canton. His first course of action was to enforce the imperial demand that there be a permanent halt to drug shipments into China. When the British refused to end the trade, Lin imposed a trade embargo on the British. On 27 March 1839 Charles Elliot, British Superintendent of Trade, demanded that all British subjects turn over their opium to him, to be confiscated by Commissioner Lin Zexu, amounting to nearly a year's supply of the drug. In a departure from his brief, he promised that the crown would compensate them for the lost opium. While this amounted to a tacit acknowledgment that the British government did not disapprove of the trade, it also forced a huge liability on the exchequer. Unable to allocate funds for an illegal drug but pressed for compensation by the merchants, this liability is cited as one reason for the decision to force a war. After the opium was surrendered, trade was restarted on the strict condition that no more drugs would be smuggled into China. Lin demanded that British merchants had to sign a bond promising not to deal in opium under penalty of death. The British officially opposed signing of the bond, but some British merchants that did not deal in opium were willing to sign. Lin had the opium disposed of by dissolving it in water, salt, and lime, and dumping it into the ocean.
In 1839 Lin took the extraordinary step of presenting a letter directly to Queen Victoria questioning the moral reasoning of the British government. Citing what he understood to be a strict prohibition of the trade within Great Britain, Lin questioned how it could then profit from the drug in China. He wrote: "Your Majesty has not before been thus officially notified, and you may plead ignorance of the severity of our laws, but I now give my assurance that we mean to cut this harmful drug forever." Opium was not illegal in England at the time, however, where comparably smaller quantities were imported to be smoked.
It is believed that the queen never received Lin's letter. The British government and merchants offered no response to Lin, accusing him instead of destroying their property. Lin had had a large quantity of opium destroyed; it had been confiscated mainly from British traders, put into a specially-dug canal, treated with lye and washed out to sea. When the British learned of what was taking place in Canton, as communications between these two parts of the world took months at this time, they sent a large British Indian army, which arrived in June 1840.
British military superiority was clearly evident during the armed conflict. British warships, constructed using such innovations as steam power combined with sail and the use of iron in shipbuilding, wreaked havoc on coastal towns; such ships (like the Nemesis) were not only virtually indestructible but also highly mobile and able to support a gun platform with very heavy guns. In addition, the British troops were armed with modern muskets and cannons, unlike the Qing forces. After the British took Canton, they sailed up the Yangtze and took the tax barges, a devastating blow to the Empire as it slashed the revenue of the imperial court in Beijing to just a small fraction of what it had been.
In 1842 the Qing authorities sued for peace, which concluded with the Treaty of Nanjing negotiated in August of that year and ratified in 1843. In the treaty, China was forced to pay an indemnity to Britain, open four ports to Britain, and cede Hong Kong to Queen Victoria. In the supplementary Treaty of the Bogue, the Qing empire also recognized Britain as an equal to China and gave British subjects extraterritorial privileges in treaty ports. In 1844, the United States and France concluded similar treaties with China, the Treaty of Wanghia and Treaty of Whampoa respectively.
Second Opium War (1856-1860)
British antagonization of Chinese officials within treaty ports continued to escalate in the years following the end of the first Opium War throughout the late 1840’s. During the height of the Taiping Uprising, (Taiping Rebellion) the British chose to make the legalistic decision to incorporate the most-favored-nation clause within the American treaty of 1844; the clause demanded that the treaty be negotiated after 12 years of implementation.
Conflict was eventually re-sparked after the Qing government conducted an illegal search of a British ship, previously registered in Hong Kong dubbed, the Arrow. The unlawful search enabled the British to resume siege upon the treaty port of Canton in late 1856. By December 1857, the British Navy had seized Canton and continued to sail north to capture the Dagu forts by May 1858.
British Naval conquest continued to push further along the Chinese coast until finally reaching Peking. The exposure of Peking to British forces goaded the Qing Dynasty to sign a newly drafted treaty; the new treaty contained the most-favored-nation clause which asserted that all British benefits gained through the War would be communal between all major foreign powers. The Treaty of Tianjin, enacted in 1858, placed stern stipulations upon the Chinese state and forced the creation of a British embassy within Beijing.
Fighting erupted both in Hong Kong as well as Beijing, where the British set out to destroy the Summer Palace and the Old Summer Palace. China ratified the Treaty of Tianjin at the Convention of Peking in 1860, ending the war. The treaty provided for the creation of ten new port cities, permission for foreigners (including Protestant and Catholic missionaries) to travel throughout the country, and indemnities of three million ounces of silver to Great Britain and two million to France.
Lin Zexu and the war against opium
Lin Zexu, Governor-General of Hunan and Hubei, recognizing the consequences of opium abuse, embarked on an anti-opium campaign in which 1,700 opium dealers were arrested and 2.6 million pounds of opium were confiscated and destroyed.
Although Lin Zexu was popularly considered a man of superlative conduct and high morals, his war against the illicit drug ultimately failed. He was made a scapegoat by the emperor, under heavy pressure from the Western powers, for having provoked British military retaliation in the First Opium War. Lin Zexu is now viewed as a hero of 19th century China who stood against European imperialism. His likeness has been immortalized at various locations around the world.
See also
Further reading
- Diana L. Ahmad, The Opium Debate and Chinese Exclusion Laws in the Nineteenth-century American West (University of Nevada Press, 2007). Drugs and Racism in the Old West.
- Jack Beeching, The Chinese Opium Wars (1975), ISBN 0-15-617094-9
- Timothy Brook and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, editors, Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839-1952 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Collection of well-informed articles.*Chesneaux, J. and others. China from the Opium Wars to the 1911 Revolution (Harvester Press, Sussex, 1977).
- Maurice Collis, Foreign Mud, An account of the Opium War (1946), ISBN 0-571-19301-3
- Brian Inglis, The Opium War (Coronet, 1976), ISBN 0-340-23468-7
- Carl A. Trocki, Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy: A Study of the Asian Opium Trade, 1750-1950 (London: Routledge, 1999).
- Waley, A. The Opium War through Chinese Eyes (George Allen & Unwin, 1958)
- Wolseley, GJ., Narrative of the War with China in 1860 (Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, 1862)
- Yangwen Zheng, The Social Life of Opium in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Outstanding comprehensive social history.
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