Lesson 1: China and the World through the Modern Era
The tribute system reached its apogee during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) when hundreds of missions came to China; even Japan participated for the first time, although only until 1549. Western trading countries, Portugal, Holland, and finally England, were all initially fit into the tributary system. Trade contacts were eventually institutionalized through the Canton System (1760–1842), set up in southern China. For both China and Japan, the failure of early contacts with the West to integrate the two regions with the other side of the world cut East Asia off from technological developments that were transforming the European political landscape. When newly empowered representatives of the European imperialist expansion returned to East Asia, Chinese leaders were largely unprepared to confront the new challenges.
Early relations with the West were defined by the absence of external threats to China. For 300 years, since the Portuguese first made contact, the Chinese successfully maintained trade on their terms. In 1540 when Portuguese reached China, the lead ship fired a cannon as a salute to the Chinese authorities, an action for which they were immediately required to apologize to the horrified Chinese. In the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689), the first Chinese treaty with a foreign power (the Czarist Russians), missionaries represented Chinese interests. Under this treaty, the Russians were expelled from Amur Valley, and the Chinese court came out ahead. The Treaty of Kahkta (1727) still recognized Chinese as an equal partner. By 1800, however, the Qing's weakening central power gave the British the opportunity to renegotiate or break the initial agreements.
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Source: Spence, The Search for Modern China |
| The Canton Factories |
During the 18th century, the British trading regime had expanded from China to the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia (including modern-day Singapore ). Major changes occurred when the British entered into Chinese territory, via the British East Indian Company, and received permission from the Kangxi emperor to establish a "factory (or trading warehouse)" in Canton (Guangzhou) in 1685. The Canton System followed certain set rules, prohibiting foreign merchants from carrying weapons and bringing their families and allowing visits every ten days to an island in the Canton harbor where trade was being conducted between the merchants and Chinese official go-betweens (the Cohong merchants). Some of these Chinese merchants became extremely wealthy, although they were expected to make very large donations to the court to ensure imperial favor.
VIDEO: "TWO COASTS OF CHINA" Lives of Foreign Merchants in Canton
The British were the most adamant among foreign merchants in their efforts to change the existing trade relationship with the Qing court. British traders had first attempted to trade their manufactured goods (primarily wool!) with China, but found few takers. In Beijing there was some confusion over increasing demand for trade with foreign merchants. The court had not demanded that trade links be made because, officially, these exchanges were conducted with a vassal state seeking to participate in the tribute system. Moreover, the Westerners had nothing to offer, besides gold and silver, in return for the silk, tea, and other luxury items that they desired.
In June 1793 Lord George Macartney sailed up the China coast on a ship designated as bearing tribute. Chinese authorities saw his mission as desire to honor the Qianlong emperor on his 80th birthday. In fact, Macartney intended to request regular tariff rates, a diplomatic residence in Beijing, and other concessions. For that reason he refused to kowtow to the Qing emperor. Macartney's refusal to kowtow at court was tolerated, but nothing came of his negotiations with Qing authorities. Macartney saw his mission as a failure, although he personally turned a profit of over 20,000 pounds. He called the Chinese emperor "an old, crazy, first-rate man-of-war" in his personal journal, and predicted China's downfall. 1
By 1800 tea had become the "national drink" in Great Britain, and the search for a counterweight to address the growth this trade imbalance contributed to British traders' reliance on opium. Opium was finally settled upon, because this product created its own market and was produced in Great Britain's Indian colony. However, in 1834 the British East India Company lost its monopoly on the China trade and other traders arrived to fill the gap. The British superintendent of trade in China, Lord Charles James Napier, demanded that the British be allowed to bypass the Cohong intermediaries and deal with the emperor directly. His fleet even entered Chinese waters, but Napier himself died suddenly of malaria and fighting was avoided at this time.
However, the rapid rise in the amount of opium going into China had increased the outflow of silver from the Qing treasury to crisis levels. The court responded by appointing Lin Zexu (1785–1850) imperial commissioner, and conferring on Lin the duty of ending the opium trade. In early March 1839 Lin Zexu arrived in Canton . When efforts to persuade the foreigner merchants to engage in only legitimate trade eventually failed, Lin ordered his troops to barricade the foreigners in their factories, and he confiscated their stores of opium. Chinese addicts were rounded up in groups of five men, each groups pledging to prevent its members from smoking.2 Instead of burning the opium, which Lin felt would be dangerous for the surrounding populace, he ordered that the opium balls be dissolved in large canals and released into the sea, offering a special prayer for the Goddess of the Sea on this occasion. This event led to an explosive outcome. The merchants sent word to Great Britain, and British crown took responsibility for the lost opium, which soon became the basis for claiming an indemnity from China after the opium wars.
The First Opium War (1839–42) began in June 1840 when a fleet of sixteen British warships, four armed steamers, and twenty-seven transports, carrying 4,000 men confronted and quickly overwhelmed Qing defenses. The British fleet blockaded the harbor at Canton with four ships, while the rest of the fleet continued up the coast. More coastal ports were blockaded, and the fleet eventually advanced up the Yangzi River. Qing authorities had already begun to borrow Western military technology (paddle boats with gun mounts and a two-deck man-of-war were discovered by the British), but no weapons were completed in time for this conflict.3 The fighting ended with the attack on former Ming capital of Nanjing on August 5, 1842.
VIDEO: "TWO COASTS OF CHINA " The First Opium War
Following the terms of the Treaty of Nanking (signed on August 29, 1842, while final form came in October 1843) five ports were opened to western trade: Canton, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai. The island of Hong Kong was turned over "in perpetuity" (in 1898, the New Territories were "leased" to the British for 99 years). The treaty port system now replaced the Canton System and a uniform customs system was set up. Diplomatic language would replace the language of the tribute system. Tariffs were set at an average rate of 5%. Under an 1843 supplement to the treaty, the "most favored nation" clause, China could not bargain different deals with different nations. All nations shared in the benefits that particular nations negotiated from China (including the United States).
The Qing court was forced to make payments of 18 million taels (ounces or Spanish dollars) of silver in war indemnities. The amount was to be paid by 1845, with 5% interest tacked onto late payments. However, there was no mention of opium trade! ( America had become involved in its own opium trade via Turkey . . . Opium profits were poured back into the East Coast economies, and even helped to fund the construction of the Trans-continental railway!) Opium imports went from 30,000 chests before the war to 87,000 chests in 1879. British involvement in the trade fell off by the early 20th century, but opium remained a problem in China until the CCP takeover, and has seen a re-emergence since the mid-1980s.
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Source: Spence, The Search for Modern China |
| Ruins of the Yuan Ming Yuan Summer Palace |
The Second Opium War (1856–1858) erupted from a skirmish over alleged piracy aboard the English-registered Arrow. The British were eventually joined by French forces, which desired to control southwestern China and Indochina. A new treaty was negotiated in 1858, however, the emperor refused to sign it. Western forces entered Peking in 1860 and burned the emperor's Summer Palace as a show of force. Then the Convention of Beijing in 1860 opened China with several new treaty ports and unrestricted foreigner travel. Missionaries were given the right to buy land and build nearly anywhere in China. Certain Chinese enterprises flourished under these conditions, but the public reaction was mostly negative. The Qing court made its own attempts at reform through what was termed the Self-Strengthening Movement. However the majority of these reform efforts were judged to be failures, due to bureaucratic neglect and widespread corruption.
1Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China. Second Edition. (New York: Norton, 1999), p. 123.
2Spence, The Search for Modern China, p. 154.
3Spence, The Search for Modern China, p. 160.
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