Opium War Devika Bahadur

THE OPIUM WAR Devika Bahadur History III The Opium Wars, which occurred in 1839-1842 and 1856-1860, can be said to mark the beginning of modern Chinese history, its first contact with the Western world. They were fought primarily to determine the relations between China and the West. The natures of the conflict, its causes, and implications have been the subject of a great deal of debate and the variety of positions on various subjects is reflective of ideological differences and divergences among scholars of the subject. The scholarship of the Opium War is made particularly interesting in the context of Chinese self-perception and later Communist influences on its study. The Western standpoint in some ways also comes across as a justification for its imperialist policies of the 18th and 19th centuries. In order to understand the background to the Opium War and to some extent China’s reactions to this first Sino-Western conflict, it is imperative to understand the traditional Chinese value system, Confucianism and in that context, notions of Sino-centrism and the attitude of China towards foreigners. The traditional political system was founded on a set of highly coherent philosophical and moral concepts formulated gradually over the centuries, commonly referred to as Confucianism. Confucianism was the official state philosophy and a way of life for a large number of Chinese people, giving them a pragmatic and practical code of ethics and values by which to lead their lives. The continuity of Chinese culture and the conservatism that both caused it and followed from it rested on a firm base of tradition, one of the most fully formed, fixed, and binding the world has known. The Chinese saw themselves as a distinct and superior cultural identity. This belief and its allied attitudes have come to be loosely described as Sino-centrism. It should of course be noted that Sino-centrism was rarely aggressive or expansionist. Central to the conception of itself and the outside world was the age-old notion of Chung Kuo. The Chinese believed that the world is square, that heaven is round, and that heaven projects its circular shadow onto the centre of the earth. This circle is the Chinese empire itself or the Chung Kuo (literally Middle Earth). The outer pieces formed by the four angles of the square do not receive the celestial emanations, and therefore become the domain of foreign barbarians. China’s superiority was ascribed to her success in appropriating, more closely than barbarian lands, the natural order of the cosmos. It is interesting to note that even when China did acquire modern scientific and geographical knowledge, which would negate the validity of a notion like Chung Kuo it persisted in the minds of the people as a strong physiological belief. The basis for this can of course be found in the economic structure of China. The Chinese economy around 1800 was not only at a different stage of development than the European economy but it was also differently constructed and was thought of in entirely different terms. China regarded herself as a self-sufficient economic entity. This self-sufficiency and sense of cultural superiority gave rise to an attitude, which was inward looking and consequently contact with the outside world was seen as neither

necessary nor desirable. It was felt that contact with the ‘barbarians’ outside could harm the social harmony and political stability. The 19th century was obviously a crude shock to the Chinese, when the Westerners forced their way in. The very idea of foreign relations in the Chinese context was meaningless. In fact there was no Ministry of Foreign Affairs in China till the 1860s. Thus as a matter of principle China had no foreign ministry, and ‘barbarian affairs’ were handled by local officials. The relations, which grew between China and its neighbours were essentially relations of inequality Reluctance for interaction with outsiders included trade and economic activity and in the traditional Confucian social hierarchy, trading classes were at the bottom of the ladder, since commerce was not seen as the primary form of economic activity. This did not imply that China did not have any trading relations with the outside world, but just that it wasn’t looked upon with a great deal of respect. With growth of commerce trade began to be seen as a major source of revenue, but due to the traditional conception of trade in their minds, the imperial authorities reacted by bringing trade under stricter control. In the years before 1830 the Chinese imperial authorities practiced a strict closed-door policy towards the west, especially with regard to trade and religion. This policy arose mainly from the anxiety to protect the political and social regime. It can also be traced to a deep seated conviction that China had nothing to gain or lose by opening its door to the west. It is also believed that the closed-door policy was the expression of a defensive reaction rather than a systematic and xenophobic hostility towards everything foreign. In a country where social harmony and political stability were paramount, political stability had been ensured in spite of dynastic changes, through its philosophy. Legitimation for political change and continuity came in the form of the theory of the Mandate of Heaven, a concept developed by Mencius, a Confucian scholar of the 4 th and 3rd centuries BC. Dynastic change was perceived as a cyclical phenomenon in which there was first a period of high development and strength; and from there to decline and break-up, a period of chaos and confusion, and a new crisis from which eventually a new dynasty would emerge. The position of the Emperor was hereditary within the ruling family of each dynasty. The emperor, the Son of Heaven, was seen as the mediator between nature and human society through the authority given to him by the Mandate of Heaven (tianming). This Mandate was not irrevocable and various omens would indicate its withdrawal and were seen as “signs preceding the fall of dynasties”. According to this belief, the heavenly mandate lasted only as long as the dynasty retained its moral qualification to rule. The various omen usually belonged simultaneously to natural and social orders. They included droughts and floods, social agitation in the hinterlands, incompetence on the part of the mandarins, and corruption. These were taken as signs that the heavenly mandate was exhausted and that the people could exercise their traditional right of rebellion Thus at a certain point, revolt was legitimate and beneficial to society. Geming or “discontinuance of the Mandate” was a traditional Confucian term adopted by modern political movements to mean ‘revolution’. Geming aimed at restoring social order and

reintegrating it with the cosmic order. The leader of the rebellion often renewed the Mandate of Heaven in his own name thereby becoming the head of a new dynasty. As a result Chinese popular tradition was able to accommodate popular revolts. It incorporated them into the Confucian ideological system so that, paradoxically they contributed to the long-term stability of the established order. It is therefore interesting to note how a number of scholars have seen the entire Opium War in terms of this Dynastic Cycle theory. Before we analyse the specific conditions before the Opium War, we need to outline certain basic principles, which characterized Chinese foreign relations. This can be termed the Tributary mentality. Gifts and presented received by the Chinese emperor from foreign delegations were regarded only as a tribute. This was based on a deep seated belief that China did not need anything from the West. It was only the West which needed to come to China. This understanding naturally created a notion of superiority and inferiority hindering the development of diplomatic relations based on equality. The manifestation of this was the practice of kotow, which was the ceremonial prostration before the king. This was seen as a symbol of Chinese superiority, but caused a great deal of humiliation to foreign delegates. The outbreak of the Opium War needs to be seen in the context of a severe internal crisis which has been seen by several people as a dynastic crisis. In this context when China felt the external pressures of Western presence, the traditional order and value system also came under threat. Hence, we cannot find the causes for the Opium war simply in the context of cultural differences or trade relations. We also need to consider the internal crises. All the signs associated by the ancient chroniclers with the fall of dynasties and the ‘withdrawal of the mandate’ now seemed to have reappeared. There was a breakdown of the central control over the administration and gentry. The mandarins became corrupt, and public services declined. District officials and clerks became greedier and corruption not only worsened the condition of the peasants, thereby fostering agitation in the countryside, but also reduced imperial revenue. The deterioration of the state machinery was also apparent at the highest levels and on the eve of the crisis of 1839, the leadership at Peking was neither united nor strong enough to face it. The breakdown of administration had its most fatal result in the decline of the central government’s military forces. This encouraged disregard of the central authority and the growth of local corruption and autonomy. As a result, a new type of military development occurred – the formation of local village corps. The beginning of the nineteenth century was also a period of monetary crisis. Supplies of metal for minting dwindled, mostly because the Yunnan copper production was falling and government control of mining was inadequate. This, combined with the government’s poor management of financial services and of the mints, caused a deterioration in the quality of coins. The government’s rigid monetary policy prohibited the ever-downward fluctuations of copper. The maintenance of a completely artificial rate of exchange also worsened the crisis.

Demographic pressure aggravated China’s political and social crises. The population in China had been growing steadily since the eighteenth century. The prosperity under the first Manchu emperors had caused a great population increase, while the amount of land under cultivation did not increase much. The extension of farming activity within China also caused large peasant migrations within China, particularly towards the Han basin and towards the hills surrounding the middle Yangzi basin. Secret societies, which in imperial China were the classic from of opposition to the established order, also became extremely active during this period. They were basically organizations of political opposition to the Manchu dynasty, which was a foreign dynasty. They swore loyalty to the preceding Ming dynasty and their popular slogan was Fan Qing fu Ming (Overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming). As no political opposition was permitted in the Chinese state, such opposition was illegal and therefore secret and underground. In the light of prevalent trade relations, we can understand China’s state of mind and actions to an extent. The early comparison between the east and west with regard to trade was one in which the Chinese were clearly superior, and the Chinese too became conscious of this. Later when they were to manifest airs of superiority to the West, manifest them openly and even with contempt, it was not only out of conceit and arrogance. The earliest experiences of China’s contact with the West were at three levels – trade, diplomatic, and religious. In all three cases the Chinese experience had been unpleasant. The Portuguese were the first European power to try and establish trade relations with China, but increasing anti-social activities by the Portuguese traders confirmed China’s suspicion of the west. Religious contact came in the form of the early Jesuit priests, whose large-scale conversions once again led to unpleasantness. Trade between China and the West had been going on for several centuries before the nineteenth century, but it was only in the nineteenth century that the West was able to register its power and influence in eastern Asia to such an extent as to generate explosive international rivalries in the West or to affect the life of Eastern Asia under the surface. The earliest trade between Eastern Asia and Europe was primarily in silk. This trade was carried out through land, by what is known today as the Silk Route and by ship, across the coast of Asia through the South China Sea, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, from where it would be taken to Rome. The other prominent item of trade was tea, which was increasingly becoming a popular beverage in the West. Other items included raw silk, chinaware, rhubarb, lacquered ware, and cassia. The lure of the luxuries and riches of the East began to exercise its pull early in European history, and its attraction only grew over the centuries. Imports from England included woolens, lead, tin, iron, copper, furs, linen and various knickknacks. Exports to India consisted of nankeen cloth, alum, camphor, pepper, vermilion, sugar, sugar candy, and drugs; while the imports included raw cotton, ivory, sandalwood, silver and opium.

The expansion of Europe in the 19th century was however a new phenomenon, different in character from the mercantilist expansion of the preceding centuries. It was happening against the backdrop of an industrial revolution and increasingly capitalist commercial interests. Britain was a developing country when she launched the Opium war on China. Her industries were still in infancy, still heavily dependent on commerce and trade to supply the much needed investment income. In the 18 th and 19th centuries Britain could not mobilize the capital needed for her ambitious industrialization program from internal sources and had to rely on external sources. This appropriation of external resources took three forms – piracy, trade and colonization. Colonies provided the most permanent form of looting. Initial unpleasant experiences led the Chinese government to adopt highly controlled trade relations with the West, which ultimately culminated in the emergence of the Canton System of Trade. This was called the Canton system of Trade because now Canton was the only port made open to the Westerners. The English concentrated all their business at Canton, the largest and the oldest of southern ports. The Canton System is also known as the Cohong system of trade. In order to keep trade and the foreigners engaged in it under strict control, the Chinese government created a monopoly through a kind of franchise to certain Cantonese merchants called the hong for the conduct of the trade. Only they (at first twelve and then thirteen) could deal with the foreign traders. The Cohong fixed the prices and volume of trade. This foreign trade guild served as a kind of intermediary between the Chinese government and the Western World. They were called the Cohong merchants and bought everything the western ships brought, and sold everything the Western traders wanted to take back with them. The Cohong was responsible to the hoppo, the Canton Customs Superintendent. The basic essence of this system i.e. monopoly coupled with responsibility, left little room for free private enterprise. The foreign traders were being bilked by exactions of all kinds – tariff duties, other taxes, imposts of all kinds. They were completely in the hands of the Cohong merchants, who in turn were responsible to the Chinese government for the good conduct of the foreigners and had to transmit to Peking a certain amount of revenue on the trade. The foreign merchants were restricted by numerous regulations. They were initially obliged to spend the off season in Macao and always kept out of the city walls of Canton, and confined to the riverbank area known as ‘Thirteen Factories ‘. They were not even allowed to communicate with any Chinese officials except through the Cohong. Their trading activities were confined to the Cohong merchants, and they were under the jurisdiction of Chinese law. Foreign ships were also not allowed to anchor anywhere but Whampoa. This system was a kind of compromise, an arrangement satisfactory to neither party, but accepted as the best that could be got at the time. This was the situation for almost a hundred years, until well into the nineteenth century. But this was the time when the industrial revolution in England was getting its impetus. The situation was therefore untenable and it had to break and by one means or another. And given the conditions and psychology of both China and Europe, a peaceful

resolution could not be expected. Both the institutional inertia of the traditional economy and administration and the worsening circumstances of corruption and rebellion kept the Manchu government’s attention focused on its internal problems. When the crisis with Britain arose at Canton in the 1830s, it found China intellectually unprepared and practically unequipped to meet the situation. But this did not keep the foreign merchants from waging a constant battle to maintain and improve their bargaining position. The first effort was made by a young Englishman, James Flint, who was in China between 1736 and 1762. He tried to present a petition to the emperor in 1759, but he was imprisoned and later executed, resulting only in the tightening of the Canton system. A number of formal diplomatic missions were sent from London to China. The first mission was sent in 1793 under Lord McCartney. The Embassy brought magnificent presents to Peking. The Chinese officials labeled these ‘tribute presents’. Mccartney was asked to perform kotow. Kotow became a point of honour to both sides. The British rigidly refused on the grounds that it was insulting to a representative of the British Crown and the Chinese rigidly insisted on the ground that it was the emperor’s due from all men, whether foreign or Chinese and regardless of rank. The mission failed. A second mission was sent in 1816 under Lord Amherst. While he refused to perform the kotow, he was humiliated and sent out of Peking to Canton. The British tried to appoint Superintendents of Trade at Canton, who would have a quasi-diplomatic status. They too were frustrated and even the letters of Lord Napier were not accepted by the viceroy. The Mission sent under him in 1834 proved to be abortive. The flow of silver into China through foreign trade initially stimulated and made possible the growth of the modern money economy. Another effect was to provide an added demand for tea and for silk and cotton textiles. Until 1830s, however, China remained on the whole uninterested in Western goods and the west sold largely curios. Tea exports to England mounted to twenty million pounds a year in the late eighteenth century, and the East India Company finally monopolized it. Company trade was only one aspect of Anglo-Chinese trade. The other side consisted of private merchants in the country trade from India, which became the chief source of imports to pay for teas and silks. Private enterprise of the West took the form of what has been called the ‘country’ trade, that is, trade conducted by private individuals within the commercial domain of the various companies’ charters. The country trade grew up first within and around India. This trade began to move closer to Canton, where raw cotton from Bombay was also in great demand. Thus, England, India, and China were becoming joined in a triangular trade of growing importance and great potentiality. The value of all British goods imported into China from 1781 to 1793, amount ed to only 16,870,000 silver dollars, or one-sixth of the value of the teas China exported to Britain. So, to get teas and silks from China, the capitalists in Europe and America had to pay large sums in silver. Under the growing pressure for trade, the purchases made by the British and American firms in Canton were multiplying. The

Westerners were increasingly anxious to balance their trade with China. At the end of the 18th century, nearly 90% of the east India Company’s shipments consisted of gold. They did not want to go on paying for goods with bullion, but the Chinese showed almost no interest in Western products because their own output was so varied. Naturally, Britain began to search for a suitable commodity to balance out this trade. British traders first tried to pump into China woolen products which were manufactured in Britain. But this turned out to be a failure in the warm climate of China. Around the same time, the British began to face a problem of remittances in India. With the Charter Act of 1813, The East India Company’s monopoly over Indian trade was ended. This was followed by a rapid increase in private trade. At the same time, following the Battles of Plassey and Buxar, the East India Company acquired the revenue rights of the provinces of Bihar and Bengal. In the early years this remittance was done through cotton yarn from Bombay and Bengal opium was only second in value. Between 1786 and 1829, British capitalists came to China on eight occasions to sell cotton textiles. But they had very poor sales, and repeatedly lost money. For instance, in 1790 Britain got only 2000 silver taels for 100 pieces of cotton cloth from Manchester, which barely covered costs. Selling their imports at Canton, the private traders would pay the proceeds to the Company, buying its Bills of Exchange payable in London. Thus, the India-China country trade, handled by a growing number of private merchants, became the chief means of laying down funds in Canton to finance the valuable trade in tea. There was also a brief attempt at using Indian silver to pay for the Chinese imports, but the British soon realized that this was as good as spending their own silver, since India was now a British possession.

The British capitalists tried every possible means to change their unfavourable balance of trade with China. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, they discovered that opium was a highly profitable commodity, with a good sale in China, and would be the answer to their problems. Earlier historical writings on opium China resorted to oversimplification by presenting China as the innocent victim and England the villain in the illegal trade. The situation was more complex that just that. Opium had been known to the Chinese since the middle ages and had long been used for medicinal purposes. But as a habit-forming drug it was introduced into China by the Westerners. The smoking of opium began only after

tobacco-smoking had spread to China from America by way of Manila in the seventeenth century. The first opium in quantity was brought to China by the Portuguese from Goa. Early in the eighteenth century the habit had grown enough to be noticeable and in 1729, the first imperial edict was issued providing several penalties for opium smoking. The supply of Bengal opium was monopolized by the Company and exported mainly, at first to the Straits of Malacca and Indonesia. Soon the Chinese market for opium drew this trade more and more to Canton. During the late eighteenth century, about a thousand chests of opium a year were being imported from India to China. From 1800 to 1821, the average was about 4,500 chests a year, but the annual total grew by 1838 to some 40,000 chests. The chest usually contained 133 pounds. It had been calculated that in 1839 100 million taels were being spent each year by Chinese opium smokers, while the government’s entire annual revenue was approximately 40 million taels. Opium traffic brought huge profits to the East India Company, the government of British India and the opium dealers. After the Company got the monopoly of opium manufacture and sales in India in 1773, the proceeds of exports to China alone financed the purchase of large quantities of Chinese teas and silks. The colonial government benefited because opium tax became a major item in its revenue. To the opium dealers opium trade was fabulously profitable. Knowing the Chinese prohibition, the Company disengaged itself from the opium trade in an open manner. In fact opium smuggling was more lucrative than any legal trade with China. Opium trade also meant huge profits for the British government and for British capitalists doing business with the East. The leading British private firm, Jardine, Matheson and Company handled roughly on-third of the total Opium trade in China. The opium traffic was closely linked with the interests of the British govern ment and the British bourgeoisie as a whole, and this is the reason why they were prepared to go to such great lengths to continue it.

The effect of opium trade was a dual one. Britain’s commercial expansion become dependent on opium and the trade had become entrenched in China as a powerfully organized smuggling system, which corrupted the government increasingly as the number of addicts grew. It caused stagnation in the demand for other commodities with a consequent general sluggishness in the market. Opium merely increased the unofficial

revenue. British opium interest was a recent addition to the long-continued British desire for commercial expansion in China. Because of opium, business slowed down, the standard of living fell, and public services no longer worked smoothly. To this trend was added an outflow or drain of silver beginning sometime after 1821. Until then, China had been a consistent net recipient of silver in foreign trade. As opium imports increased after 1821 and especially in the 1830s, China for almost the first time began to suffer a net loss of silver. Meanwhile, the exchange rate began to rise between the copper cash used in everyday transactions and the silver bullion in the unit of weight and fineness known as the tael), which was chiefly used in remitting taxes and in government fiscal operations. Silver became dearer in terms of copper. Instead of 800 or 1000 cash to meet a statutory tax of one silver tael, which had been the usual rate for centuries, it began to take 1200, 1600 or even 2000 cash. This imposed hardship at all levels of the government’s financial activities – peasants had to pay more coppers to meet the taxes and official tax collectors meeting their quotas in silver had less copper cash left over as private squeeze. For a long time the opium was grown in India and the rest In Persia and Turkey, but the Chinese soon began to cultivate the poppy plant themselves in order to get the opium cheaper. Large areas which had always been given over to raising food crops were now being planted with poppy. By 1830 the trade was rampant and smuggling and its attendant bribery were in full course. Opium smuggling together with the activities of the foreign firms in Canton created a problem of authority that challenged the ability of the state to rule. Canton and other southeastern ports which were frequented illegally by foreign vessels were becoming centres of insubordination and corruption. Smuggling was carried out by means of Chinese networks of complicity. Many Chinese mandarins and merchants were eager to grow rich through trade with foreigners even if it meant defying imperial interdictions. All this was in addition to the harmful effects of the drug itself. The addicts early on were young men from rich families, but gradually the habit spread to other walks of life too: government officials, merchants, literati, women, servants, soldiers and even monks, nuns and priests. The addicts would have cravings for the drug and deprivation would cause severe effects. The workforce of the country was particularly affected by the addiction as it began to show directly on its efficiency and productive capacity. The pressure exerted by the British to open China, and the increase in opium smuggling between 1835 and 1838, raised issues that the Chinese tried to approach in a traditional way. Since the classic western distinction between domestic and foreign affairs did not exist in China, the imperial authorities still refused to treat the Westerners as foreign nationals. Therefore, negotiation was not an option. With increasing opium smuggling a ‘debate’ opened up among local mandarins and senior officials of the central government on the political problems raised by Canton, opium, and the outflow of silver. The debate lasted nearly two years, from 1836 to 1838. One group of scholar-administrators,

counseled a policy of compromise: to continue to oppose smoking by scholars, officials, and soldiers, but legalize the opium import trade under a tariff so as to discourage smuggling with all its disorderly evils and at the same time prevent the outflow of silver. Once legalized, opium imports would be purchased only by bartering Chinese goods, not silver. The chief proponent of this view, Hsu Nai-chi, a minister in charge of the Court of Sacrificial Worship, suggested to the Tao Kuang Emperor in June 1836 that the ban on opium should be lifted. In Peking, the hard line faction which was a minority argued that the drain of silver could not be stopped by requiring the barter of goods for opium, while on the other hand the spread of opium ought to be stopped within China. The hard line party won, and in 1839 an imperial statute in thirty-nine articles levied extremely heavy punishments (including death penalty) both for trading in and for consuming opium. According to the Foreign Language Press Publication, Hsu Nai-chi's proposal, ‘encouraging the spread of the drug and inducing the labouring people to grow the poppy and become addicts, would have brought greater harm to the country.’ In this context Fairbank pointed out that the Chinese government was attempting to do two things at once: suppress the opium evil and maintain the tribute system of foreign relations. The Chinese struggle against the opium trade went forward in the context of the equally determined British struggle against the tribute system. The man selected to exterminate the opium evil was Lin Tse Hsu (1785-1850). His program at Canton was to break up and wipe out the local network of Chinese opium importers and distributors, and this he practically accomplished. Lin forced the arriving foreign traders to surrender all their opium under threat of force and loss of all trade. He burned the opium which had been surrendered, amounting to about 6 million taels. In addition, he also requested from the foreign merchants the payment of a bond to guarantee against further smuggling. The Americans submitted to the Chinese demands. The British, however, refused and found themselves shut off from the Canton trade. The British now decided to use force to resolve the issues. Hostilities began gradually in small affrays intermixed with negotiations. There were soon a series of skirmishes and the conflict developed into what we know as the first Opium War. The war ended in complete defeat for China, and from then on China was in a downward spiral only to recover a century later. The Opium War was concluded with a series of treaties, the most important of which was the Treaty of Nanking, signed in 1842. Before we look at the treaty of Nanking and its effects, it is imperative to look into the causative factors behind this clash. Various historians and scholars right from the time of the war have tried to explain the origins of the war, and their interpretations are an interesting reflection of their ideological beliefs. Few would dispute the fact that opium provided the immediate background to the war, but debate continues on the extent to which opium was responsible. The debate essentially centres around two issues: whether or not war was inevitable even without the opium factor and whether the onus rested with the western or Chinese powers.

The Opium War’s causes can be viewed in many respects. Schurmann and Schell view the various positions on the debate in terms of the east and the west. While this view helps in understanding the debate within the framework of global differences in perception, it is a generalization, which does not do justice to the different forces at work at the time of the war. A clear and lucid classification of the various positions in the academic debate is provided by Tan Chung in his book, ‘China and the Brave New World. While all scholars might not adhere to such a classification, it is helpful in understanding the debate clearly. He has classified the various views into the Cultural War theory, the Trade War theory and the Opium War theory. The cultural war theory starts with the basic premise that war was fought on grounds of basic cultural differences, and that opium trade was not an issue, only a pretext. This was the earliest explanation put forward by the westerners just after the conflict. The first proponent of this view was John Quincy Adams, the American President. Adams seems to have in mind two types of international relations – one, as advocated by modern Western countries, conducted foreign trade on the principles of “equality” and “reciprocity”, and the other which the Chinese allegedly pursued treating foreigners with contempt. One of the first scholars to modify Adam’s vehemence into a rationalized argument was W.A.P. Martin, a US missionary-scholar. Martin views the opium war as “the result of a series of collisions between the conservatism of the extreme orient and the progressive spirit of the western world”. Leslie Merchant also saw the Opium Wars as a philosophical clash between two cultures and two notions of government and society. Li Chien-nung was a prominent advocate of the Cultural war theory. He wrote that, “The war between China and England, caused superficially by the problem of opium prohibition, may actually be viewed as a conflict of western and eastern cultures.” According to him the conflict can be viewed at three levels, i.e. international relations, commerce and foreign trade and jurisdiction. EH Pritchard also spoke about the cultural differences between the wets and China in terms of “the idea of equality” difference over the social status of mercantile class, and the different attitude towards justice. According to Hsin pao Chang the Opium War “awakened the (Chinese) Empire from centuries of lethargy”. This view came under a great deal of criticism especially from the Communist historians. Tan Chung pointed out that cultural grounds are insufficient for a war and there must surely have been strong material interests behind it as well. Moreover if there had to be a cultural clash, it should have occurred at the beginning of Sino-Western contact some 150 years ago. Another fact that weakens this theory is that even after the war, no cultural changes were witnessed in China, and economic interests appear paramount. The Cultural war theory fails to give the opium factor its due importance. The second thesis may be called the Trade War theory. Proponents of this view argue that with the expansion of industrialization, European countries in the 18th and 19th centuries started to look for markets and sources of raw materials in a worldwide context. In each country, the west had long-term trading ambitions. China’s resistance in this context made the clash inevitable. It should be noted that this theory carries within it an anti-

China overtone. Once again, like in the Cultural war theory the role of opium is underplayed and according to them, this commodity could have been anything from rice to molasses. It was mere coincidence that this commodity happened to be opium. According to the British professor, John L. Cranmer-Byng, foreign merchants were fighting to “enjoy freely” their “natural right” in trading with the Chinese. His observations on the Opium War are influenced by his view that China did not respond to the beneficial western cultural influence offered by Lord Macartney and others. He thinks that the outbreak of the Opium War was due to China’s “failure of conception” and “failure to respond to challenge”. Victor Purcell also enunciated similar views, though he did consider cultural differences as well. One of the fundamental causes of the Opium War according to Fairbank was “the expansion of trade beyond the limits of the ancient Canton system of regulation”. Michael Greenburg also expressed similar views. He also wrote that ‘to the Chinese the war was fought over the opium question; but for the British merchants the issue was wider.” He saw the primary issue as “the aspiration of the British merchants” in acquiring a favourable market in China for the British manufacturers. The Chinese economy, Greenburg reckons, was conditioned by its agrarian self-sufficiency, which could not generate an unlimited market for British products as desired by British manufacturers and traders. The Trade War theory also suffers from several shortcomings. Tan Chung rejects the idea that opium was a replaceable commodity as a meaningless ‘if’ of history. According to him, it also doesn’t take into account historical reality in which opium played a definitive if not exclusive role. The third was the Opium War theory. This view arose as a reaction to the shortcomings of the Trade War theory. It has been advocated by scholars such as Hu Sheng, Willoughby, SW Williams, Maurice Collis, and Hsin Pao Chang. According to this view the addictive drug opium made the Opium war inevitable, resulting in serious economic, social and political repercussions. Due to its grave effects, opium has been seen as solely responsible for the war. Attempt has been made by some writers to show that this war was not properly termed an opium war, but the evidence is overwhelming that it was with justice given that name. Unfortunately, Willoughby’s book and his other writings do not show any exhaustive study of the causes of the opium war. The two main points to which he particularly refers are: (1) the Chinese “seizure and destruction” of British opium ignited Sino-British hostility, and (2) China was asked to pay “an indemnity of six million dollars for the opium thus seized and destroyed according to the provision of the Treaty of Nanking. According to this view, the cheap and abundant growth of opium in India made the trade extremely lucrative for the British traders and this nature of the trade was a crucial factor. The fact that it was an addictive drug only added to its demand and importance. Proponents of this view do not see opium only as a vehicle of the western traders to enter China. In fact Tan Chung argues that the western traders did not need to do this since the

Canton system of trade was already on the verge of collapse. He also adds that the fact that opium was called for to balance Britain’s unfavourable trade vis-à-vis China was a myth created by the East India Company. Like cotton, opium was also instrumental in transmitting the Indian revenue to Britain. Tan Chung believes that there is evidence to prove that contrary to what has been implied by earlier scholars, the British traders never adopted a belligerent attitude towards the Chinese and it was in fact the opium question which drove them to war. The British had wished to establish satisfactory commercial and diplomatic relations with China since it had started regular contact with it. They had been extremely tolerant, prudent and cautious in dealing with the Chinese government. Britain was more interested in China as a supplier of goods rather than a market. The British government first made up its mind to fight China only in September-October of 1839. This is not to imply that Sino-Western relations had been peaceful prior to the war, but it shows that Britain had tried to peruse a policy of peaceful co-existence with China. The only war-like crisis that was created was due to the opium issue. The Opium War theory however is also an inadequate explanation for the conflict. As Fairbank points out, this theory fails to recognize the other important and decisive aspects of the conflict. According to him, British interest in opium was only a recent addition to a long desire for commercial expansion. He says that opium as a commodity just happened to be an accident of history. According to him the treaty of Nanking and other treaties are support the fact that opium wasn’t the important factor since they don’t even mention it. However, we do need to remember that the British government had also disassociated itself from opium trade. Also, the fact that the opium issue was not resolved, added to the tensions leading up to the second Opium War. Hence, we need to acknowledge that the trade war theory gives the most satisfactory explanation, but at the same time we cannot ignore the role played by opium or consider it a replaceable commodity. Cultural differences were a factor but not of critical importance. Following the Chinese defeat, a series of treaties were signed. The first of these was the Treaty of Nanking signed in 1842. This treaty was the first in a series of treaties which opened China to the Western world and which have been called by the Chinese as the “unequal treaties” because of the one-sided privileges that they contained. This treaty laid the basis for China’s relations with the west for almost a hundred years. The treaty provided for an indemnity of $21,000,000 which included $2,000,000 as compensation for the opium destroyed by the Commissioner Lin, $12,000,000 for war costs, and $3,000,000 for debts owed to British merchants. British troops were to occupy the Zhoushan Islands until the sum was handed over. The Treaty of Nanking provided for the opening of 5 Chinese ports – Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and Shanghai – to British traders to “reside and carry on trade”. It provided for the cession to England of the island of Hong Kong, which controlled the sea entrance to Canton. The Cohong monopoly was abolished, and China agreed to a uniform tariff fixed at 5 percent, which was 60-70 percent lower than the previous tariffs to be charged only by mutual agreement. Consuls were to be appointed at each of the 5 ports.

In each Treaty port the Westerners were granted the right of extraterritoriality, which meant that they were subject only to the legal jurisdiction of their consul. They could buy land and open schools – a privilege particularly advantageous to the missionaries. Owing to the so-called most-favoured-nation clause, the various advantages obtained by each power accumulated and formed the basis of the ‘unequal treaties system’ which gradually developed during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Three further treaties were necessary in 1843-44 to complete the first settlement: the British supplementary Treaty of the Bougue (October 8, 1843), amplified by the American treaty of Wang-hsia (July 3, 1844) and by the French treaty of Whampoa (October 24, 1844). Since China did most of the giving of the privileges, the system has been called ‘unequal’ and by some ‘semi-colonial’. The western powers were granted Concession areas or privileged zones, which, in some treaty ports, became real foreign enclaves exempt from Chinese authority. In 1845, a zone was determined in Shanghai where the British could lease and buy land. In 1849 France negotiated a similar agreement for a second district of the town, and later the United States followed suit. In the late 1840s another form of trade, the coolie trade which shipped male labourers under contract, mainly from Amoy but also from Macao and other ports, to meet the demand for cheap labour in newly developing areas overseas such as Cuba, Peru, Hawaii, Sumatra, or Malaya developed. The conditions in which these coolies were transported were barbarous. The relaxed laws in the ports also led to piracy, which troubled not only the Chinese but also the western powers. The Western influence at the new ports was felt most directly through the Cantonese who assisted their Western employers in their contact with Chinese life. The abolition of the Cohong monopoly at Canton, also led to the growth of new institutions. The hong merchants were now supplanted by a new type of Chinese merchant, the comprador, who was employed on contract to handle the Chinese side of a foreign firm’s activities. He conducted the foreign form’s business with the Chinese mercantile community. The political unrest of the 1850s also made it easier to bring the Shanghai Customs under foreign control. In the period 1852 to 1853 the British consul in Shanghai, Rutherford Alcock, demanded that foreign merchants be exempted from paying customs. With the Shanghai customs under, an important part of the Chinese machinery of state came under foreign control. In the first treaties opium trade was not legalized. Fairbank writes that British requests for legalization were refused by Peking, but the India-China opium trade continued and expanded along the coast as far north as Shanghai without being mentioned in the treaties as either legal or illegal. Opium addiction increased and in the 1850s the import rose to 50,000 and even 60,000 chests a year, double the figure of the early 1830s at Canton. Cultivation of poppy increased rapidly within China, foreshadowing the eventual supplanting of the Indian import.

All these conditions were building up towards another Sino-Western conflict. The Western countries were dissatisfied with what they had acquired through the treaties signed between 1842 and 1844. They had not achieved their aims in China, either locally in Canton or in China as a whole. In 1856, the Second Opium war broke out and once again the Chinese were defeated. Negotiations for a new series of unequal treaties began. The first of these was the Treaty of Tientsin, which was signed in 1858. Among other things, the new treaties provided for the opening of ten new ports and finally the legalization of opium trade. The first Sino-Western conflict not only profoundly changed the international circumstances of the Middle Kingdom, but also transformed the conceptions held by the Chinese themselves about their place in the world. This encounter gave a great blow to the traditional Confucian order. The Manchu dynasty was greatly weakened in the face of an internal crisis and severe external pressures. The Opium War marked the coming out of a country from centuries of isolation and complacency, with the Unequal Treaties paving the way for future western domination. BIBLIOGRAPHY  Immanuel Hsu: The Rise of Modern China  John K. Fairbank, Edwin O. Reichauer, Albert M. Craig: East Asia: The Modern Transformation  Jean Chesneaux, Marianne Bastid, and Marie-Claire Bergere: China from the Opium Wars to the 1911 Revolution  Tan Chung: China and the Brave New World  Tan Chung: Triton and Dragon  Franz H. Michael and George E. Taylor: The Far East in the Modern World  Nathaniel Peffer: The Far East: A Modern history  The Opium War - ‘History of Modern China’ Series - Foreign Language Press, Peking 1976.  Franz Schurmann and Orville Schell (ed.): Imperial China  Article - Leslie Merchant: The War of the Poppies