Asia 210 - Modern China

The British Empire Arrives

In 1792 Great Britain was concerned about the security of its tea trade with China.
It was determined to expand British commercial activity throughout Asia and into the Pacific.
It decided to send an embassy to China led by Lord Macartney.
McCartney had been instructed to negotiate a treaty of commerce.
He was also able to obtain permission for Great Britain to accredit a resident minister at the Qianlong emperor's court.
He was told to request the opening of ports additional to Guangzhou.
He was also to ask to be provided by a base for British merchant which were closer to the silk and tea producing areas than was Guangzhou.
Macartney took with him as gifts samples of British manufacturing.
These included:
a) a planetarium
b) chandeliers
c) two howitzers
d) three carriages
e) items of Wedgwood pottery
He did this in the hope of securing new markets in China for British products.
Macartney was granted an audience with the emperor.
He was refused to follow the protocol governing tribute mission and performed the kowtow.
In two edicts addressed to the King of England, Qianlong rejected all of Macartney's requests.
Macartney was told by Qianlong that to allow a British national to reside in Beijing to take care of trade was "contrary to all usage of my dynasty and cannot possibly be entertained."
The existing arrangements relating to trade were confirmed.
The emperor supposed that Macartney had requested freedom to propagate Christianity - which he had not done.
Such a concession was refused.
The emperor referred to gifts which Macartney had brought.
These , he said, would be accepted out of consideration for the spirit in which they had been sent but he added.
"As yourAmbassador 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."
There are reasons that have been brought forth as to why the mission returned empty-handed.
a) Macartney thought that the Chinese, having once been civilized, were now, when compared to Europeans, "a semi-barbarous people."
b) Why the Qing court held on so tenaciously to the performance of the kowtow was because it functioned to legitimize its rule.
c) The Qing court insisted on maintaining ceremonial supremacy because it could not adjust rationally to the demands of a new commercial age.
some rejected that as a Euro-centric view.
And in practice the Qing Dynasty did not insist on a fixed ritual.
Friction occurred because court officials failed to organize the ritual process properly.
Only later, was the Macartney embassy to be described as a failure.
That conclusion was used to justify Britain forcing China to accept foreign trade and foreign representation.
Some said that that the kowtow was not the issue.
The embassy was a failure because it achieved none of the principal objectives.
this is because Qianlong had refused all request relating to trade and diplomatic representation.

Trade Deficit & Consequinces

In the early 18th century British trade with China had been monopolized by the British East India Company.
It had compromised the exchange of Chinese tea for British woollen and metal goods.
In the 1760s the value of tea exports greatly exceeded that of the British imports and the balance had to be made up with silver.
In 1784 the British government passed the Commutation Act.
This cut tea duties sharply.
The demand for tea increased.
Tea duties continued to provide a large proportion of the British government revenue.
To offset the trading deficit, raw cotton was exported from India to China on board 'country ships' owned by private British merchants.
With this legal commerce there was a small but lucrative trade in opium.
The opium was grown on the Company's territory in Bengal and smuggled to China.
The Qing court had eventually allowed for the resumption of maritime trade.
It did remain suspicious of foreign interaction.
It was this reason that from 1760 foreign maritime trade was confined to Guangzhou.
Chinese participation in it was restricted to a group of merchants known to Westerners as the Cohong.
They were responsible for the debts of foreign merchants.
They protected themselves.
They did this by setting aside a share of the profits in what was then known as the Consoo fund.
Foreign traders were subject to the Eight Regulations.
They were only allowed to remain in Guangzhou for the trading period.

The Qing Begins to Decline

During the last 20 years, state affairs were coming under the control of his trusted official.
His name was Heshen.
Qianlong tolerated this official who came from a relatively undistinguished Manchu family.
Heshen was not liked in the court - he had led a corruption scheme.
The day after Qianlong died, the new emperor had Heshen
a) arrested.
b) removed all office wealth.
c) had him executed.
During the last years of Qianlong's reign there was serious social unrest.
This was in the form of the White Lotus Rebellion.
It took Qianlong's successor (Emperor Jailing) 10 years to stop the White Lotus Rebellion.

The Trade Industry

during the Ming period, luxury goods from China had been introduced to Europe.
These goods were
a) silk
b) porcelain
c) lacquerware
This in spite of the fact that trade between them had been periodically suppressed.
This was by Ming emperors who tried to impose stricter controls on trade.
These restrictions were never really effective.
For example, merchants from Fujian sailed to the high sea to trade illegally in porcelain.
It was with European merchants.
This is even though the Europeans were considered smugglers.
In 1553, the Portuguese were finally given permission to build storage sheds Macao.
In 1557, they were finally permitted to establish trade settlement there.

Chinoiserie

Demand in Europe for luxury goods stimulated the development of new Chinese designs.
This was especially in porcelain - so, chinoiserie porcelain was developed.
The most common motif in these designs would be
a) waterscapes
b) birds
c) floral designs
d) insects
e) human figures
f) architectural & geometric designs with crosshatched borders.

The Canton System

In 1684 Kangxi allowed four cities, including Canton to do business with the traders.
In 1757, he designated Canton as the only city where foreign merchants could trade.
The Canton system forbade foreigners from trading directly with their Chinese customer
The official Chinese merchant guild acted as a government agency.
It monopolized European imports.
This was like the East India Company.
They monopolized trade at the other end of the trade route.
The Canton system put a limit of only one trading period a year, during the winter.
Foreign traders were permitted to live only in quarters along the banks of the Pearl River.
This was outside Canton's city walls.
These quarters were known as the Thirteen Factories (shisanghang)
At that time the word "factory" meant a trading house.
The term Thirteen Factories came from the late Ming.
It did not represent any number of foreign companies that existed during the Ming period.
The Thirteen Factories remained the primary centre for Western trade.
This was until the Opium War in 1840.

Drinking Tea in Europe

Unlike silk and porcelain the export of tea to Europe did not exist until the 16th century.
The Portuguese was first to develop a taste for tea, followed by the Dutch and the French.
The drinking of tea among the upper class people in England came later.
This was afterKing Charles III of England married Catherine of Braganza of Portugal in 1662.
She brought her taste for tea with her and it quickly became a fashion.
It very expensive - so, it became a symbol of wealth.
After a direct route from Canton to Britain was created the price often fell,
Then it became more popular.
It eventually became cheaper than beer, replacing it as the national drink.
It soon replaced silk as China's primary export.
It had gained so much popularity among all the classes in England.
From five chests of tea in 1684, tea imports rose to 400,000 lbs by 1720.
It reached 23,000,000 lbs. in 1800.

Trade Deficits and Consequences

The East India Co. became frustrated with the trading deficit.
It re tested that King George II send a delegation China.
This was to negotiate more favourable trading conditions.
The delegation , led by Lord Mccartney, reached China by 1793.
Included were McCartney's father, his secretary and a 13 year old boy.
This boy was named Thomas Staunton.
He had been learning Chinese along the way.
The emperor was amazed, so he presented a silk purse and gave it to him.
This was the first of Staunton's encounter with China.
The Napoleonic Wars occupied Great Britain over the next few years.
In 1816, the government sent a new delegation.
It came with the same goal of negotiating better trading conditions.
This time the mission was led by Lord Amherst.
Thomas Staunton was appointed second commissioner.
This time they had to deal with Qianlong's son, Jailing.
China's image in Europe as an exotic and enlightened empire had weakened.
signs of Qing decline was evident.
The British did not want to compromise and the Chinese were even more recalcitrant.
The delegation left - they did not even get to meet with the emperor.
China monopolized the world tea market.
As late as 1871 China supplied 86% of the world's consumption
Tea was paid for in silver and Britain had incurred a massive trade deficit.
Its reserves of of silver had fallen dramatically
Britain was forced to buy silver from Europe to pay the Chinese.
There has to be a way to tip the balance of trade in their favour - the answer was opium.

The Arrival of Opium

Near the end of the 18th century the British trade deficit with China reached an alarming level.
In the 1760s Britain paid China 3 million taels of silver.
By the 1770s, this had reached 7.5 million
In 1780, it was 16 million.
The East India Co. began selling opium to China to reduce their deficit.
Opium, from the British colonies in, was the only other way of acceptable payment.
This was other than silver.
This went to the Chinese merchants.

The Sale of Opium

The Chinese government had banned opium as early as 1729.
It allowed only the importation of only 200 chests in 1828.
This was to be used as medicine.
In 1773, 1,000 chests were imported; this increased to 13,130.
By 1832, 23,570 chests were imported annually.
This could sustain the addiction of 2 million Chinese.
The sale of opium did reverse the trade deficit.
By 1820, 2 million taels of silver were flowing out of China.
By the 1830s, this had reached 9 million.

Crisis

Relations between Britain nd Chinese merchants were generally good.
In 1784, an unfortunate incident occurred which revealed quite clearly the disparities between Chinese and Western concepts of legal responsibility and of legal process.
A British merchant ship, The Lady Hughes, fired a salute.
It accidentally killed two Chinese officials.
Chinese law required that the person responsible should be surrendered to the authorities.
The unlucky gunner was handed over.
He was immediately strangled.
As time passed the confinement of trade to Guangzhou became increasingly irksome to the traders.
It was the traders who promoted the idea of sending a mission to China.
This resulted in the McCartney embassy.
Napier proceeded to Guangzhou.
He did this without waiting for permission.
Getting permission was a Chinese regulation.
So, he was refused a meeting.
He was only allowed to leave under humiliating circumstances.

William Jardine

The great defender of free trade was William Jardine.
He was the most successful trader in opium.
With the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, he believed that Chinas should be forced to open additional ports.
During this time debate was taking place.
This was between officials and degree-holders.
this was in Beijing.
The topic was on how to stop opium smuggling.
One group argued that it should be legal.
This was because the smuggling could not be stopped.
By making it legal, one could tax its importation.
This would allow the growth of opium poppy in China.
This proposal aroused the anger of a group of degree-holders.
They were known as the Spring Purification circle.
This group, formed in the 1830s was modelled on the Donglin Academy of the late Ming period.
It claimed that scholars had the right of qingyi, that is, of moral censure.
In 1836, the Spring Purification circle played a role in
a) persuading the Daoguang emperor to reject the proposal to legalize the opium trade.
b) to support a moral crusade against opium consumption.
This crusade would involve the gentry of Guangdong.
It would threaten addicts with the death penalty.
This would occur if they did not agree to give up the habit.

Stopping the Opium Trade: Lin Zexu

In Dec. 1838, Lin Zexu was appointed imperial commissioner.
He was the Governor-general of Hubei and Hunan.
He was also a supporter of the Spring Purification group.
He was instructed to go to Guangzhou
There he was to suppress the opium trade.
In Guangzhou he immediately enlisted the local gentry.
They would be used in a campaign against consumers.
They ordered the arrest of 60 notorious opium dealers.
He then turned to deal with foreign suppliers.
He wrote a letter to Queen Victoria (which was never delivered)
He pointed out that opium was prohibited in her country.
So she should use her power to prevent its production.
This would be in territories under her control.
On March 18, 1838 Lin ordered the Cohong merchants to call upon the foreign merchants to hand them over their stocks of opium.
This was to be done within three days.
They were also to require the foreigners to sign a declaration stating that they would either cease trading in opium or suffer death.
In the meantime foreign trade was suspended.
The foreign merchants were kept under house arrest in the trading area outside Guangzhou known as the Thirteen Factories.
Lin also tried to arrest Lancelot Dent.
His company was heavily involved in opium smuggling.

Charles Elliot

Charles Elliot was the new superintendent of British trade with China.
He advised the British merchants to
a) surrender their opium
b) sign the declaration.
Elliot also sent an urgent message to Lord Palmerston.
This was to inform him
a) that the foreign community was being kept under duress
b) that he had guaranteed that the merchants would be compensated for the loss of their opium stocks.
After having been in detention for 7 weeks the foreign community was allowed to go to Aomen.
In July some drunken British soldiers killed a Chinese farmer.
Elliot, recalling the Lady Hughes case, refused to hand over the culprits.
Lin Zexu responded by forcing the Portuguese authorities in Aomen to request that the British depart.
But they moved across the Pearl River estuary to Xianggang.
Palmerston learned of the detention of the British subjects.
He also learned of Elliot's guarantee on September 21, 1839.
This prompted by William Jardine to get permission to send an expeditionary force to China.
They were instructed to compel the Chinese to
a) give up the Cohong
b) cede an island base.
c) compensate British traders for the loss of opium.
He did this for the British merchants keen to sell textiles to China.
The war which ensued fell into two phases.

The Opium War

In the first phase the force was led by Charles Elliot.
His cousin Admiral George Elliot, blockaded Guagzhou.
It then moved north, seizing the island of Zhoushan and threatening Tianjin and Beijing.
At this point the emperor dismissed Lin Zexu.
He authorized Qishan, the Manchu governor-general of Zhili to negotiate with Elliot.

The Convention of Chuanbi

This accepted British demand.
This now included the cessation of the island of Xianggang.
This agreement was rejected by both sides because it conceded too little or too much.
Qishan was disgraced and Elliot was replaced by Sir Henry Pottinger.
A larger British. expeditionary force was being assembled.
At the same time a significant episode occurred near Guangzhou.
After the agreement collapsed, Elliot landed troops north of Guangzhou.
He knew he had not got enough men to occupy a city of half a million people.
So, he coerced the city authorities into promising the British a ransom of 6 million dollars for refraining from attack.
In the meantime local gentry leaders had raised a militia and were attacking the British troops.
On May 29, 1841 near the village of Sanyuanli, they ambushed a British patrol.
They killed one man and injured several others.
This came to represent the beginning of Chinese popular resistance to foreign invasion.
It was later to be contrasted with the Manchu court's self-interested willingness to compromise with the imperial power.

British Victory

In the second phase of the war Pottinger. moved up the coast.
He was able to capture Xiamen, Zhoushuan and Ningbo.
In May 1842, he captured Zhapu.
Next year, the British defeated the Chinese forces at Xiamen, Zhoushuan, and Nigbo.
The British also took over Zhenjiang on the Yangzi in July 21, 1842.
As the British entered the city they found the streets deserted & houses filled with corpses.
The 1,600 Manchu banner men, badly equipped. defended the city.
But seeing that they would de defeated, they proceeded to kill their families (women & children)
Then they hanged themselves rather than surrender to the British.
After the defeat the Chinese government decided to agree with the Treaty of Nanking.
Lin was accused by the emperor of being incompetent; he was sent to exile.

The Treaty of Nanking

On August 29, 1842 the Treaty of Nanking was signed aboard a British warship.
It was ratified a few months later by the Daoguang Emperor & Queen Victoria.

Terms of the Treaty

The treaty had several provisions.
a) the opening up of five ports, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai to British trade and residence (consulates)
b) the abolition of the Cohong.
c) equally in office correspondence and agreement on a fixed tariff.
d) China had to pay Britain 21 million dollars to cover the costs of war and the value of the opium that had been confiscated.
The 21 million can be divided this way:
1) 6 million for opium confiscated by Lin Zexu
2) 3 million for there debt owed by Chinese merchants
3) 12 million for the cost of the war.
The treaty made no reference to the opium trade.

The British agreed to withdraw troops from Nanjing.
They could withdraw from other places after they received. the payments in full.
The Treaty of Nanjing was the first of the treaties between China and the West which have been called "unequal treaties."
This was because they conferred benefits on the Western powers without offering advantages to China in return.
These treaties had four characteristic features:
a) the opening of treaty ports.
b ) Extra-territorality, that is, the removal of foreigners from the jurisdiction of Chinese courts.
c) External tariffs fixed by treaty
d) The most favoured nation clause
The last term guaranteed that signatories of unequal treaties would share all benefits given to other powers.
The Treaty of Nanjing was supplemented by the Treaty of the Bogue, which provided for extra-territoriality
It contained a most a most-favoured clause.
In this treaty, import tariffs were fixed at an average rate of 5% of the value of the goods.

Other Treaty Conditions

Similar treaties were negotiated by the United States and France.
The Qing would hand over Hong Kong to the British.
The treaty also agreed to fix tariffs in British goods.
This would provide Great Britain with a harbour for unloading goods.
France also obtained an imperial edict which granted toleration to Roman Catholicism.
This was a concession that was extended shortly afterwards to other Christian sects,

The Rise of Tension

Both sides soon expressed their dissatisfaction with the Nanjing settlement.
On the British there was high hopes that the opening of additional ports would lead to a large increase in trade.
After a short improvement the anticipated bonanza did not occur.
A report made to the House of Commons in 1847 suggested that this war was because of the lack of demand in the Chinese market.
But the suspicion remained that the real reasons were the obstructiveness of the Chinese officials and the imposition of internal transit duties.
Soon after the conclusion of the Nanjing Treaty Pottinger and Qiying enjoyed a diplomatic honeymoon.
After 1844 when Pottinger wa replaced by J.F. Davis, relations between China and Britain began to deteriorate.
A particular contentious issue was the "Guangzhou city question."
This was a dispute over whether the Treaty of Nanjing had given British subjects the right of trade and residence within the walls of Guangzhou.
If it had, then that should be allowed to exercise that right.
In 1848, the emperor dismissed
The emperor appointed Xu Guangjin as governor-general of Guangdong and Guangxi.
Xu was also appointed commissioner for foreign affairs.
Xu, a Chinese, was responsive to local opinion.
Ye Mingchen, who took over as governor of Guangdong, was also known for his xenophobia.
April 1849 was the date they had agreed upon as the date for the British entry into the city of Guangzhou.
As that date approach Xu Guangjin abandoned the conciliatory policy.
He then allowed the local gentry to raise militia to oppose the entry.
He took the gamble of forging an imperial edict ordering him to respect the will of the people.
Sir George Bonham, was the new governor of Xianggang.
He accepted a further postponement.
This was a concession greeted by the Chinese as a victory.
It was commemorated by the granting of imperial honours to Xu Guangjin & Ye Mingchen.
This was deeply resented by the local British community.
The anti-foreign direction of Chinese policy became even more marked after the Daoguang emperor's death in 1850.
This is because his successor the Xianfeng emperor dismissed Muchanga.
In 1852 he promoted Ye Mingchen to the position held by Xu Guangjin.
These incidences and hardening of attitude may had led to a war in the early 1850s.
But other considerations prevailed.
The rise of rebellion forced the Chinese authorities to act carefully.
The Taiping rebels capture Nanjing in 1853
The Red Turbans rebels overran Guangdong in 1854.
British diplomats had assumed that the Treaty of Nanjing would be subject to revision after 12 years, in 1854.
But it was only then that they realized that the Chinese had no intention of reopening questions which they regarded as settled.
The outbreak of the Crimean War in March 1854 provided another reason for delaying an overdue of settlements with China.

The Arrow War

Sometimes the Arrow War was called the Second Opium War.
The Arrow War was waged by Britain and France against China from 1856-60.
On October 8, 1856 Qing officials boarded the Arrow.
This was a Chinese owned ship that had recently been registered in Hong Kong.
The ship's crew of 12 was suspected of privacy and smuggling.
The Chinese officials arrested 12 Chinese crew members.
The British representative in Canton demanded that the sailors be released.
This would be on the grounds that the ship was British registered.
Therefore it was protected by the Treaty of Nanjing.
The Chinese officials insisted that the men they arrested were pirates.
So they refused to release them.
This incidence was treated by Sir John Bowring, the governor of Xianggang as an insult to the British flag.
So he sanctioned a naval attack on Guangzhou.
The British then launched an attack on Canton (Guangzhou).
In response, Ye Mingchen
a) suspended foreign trade.
b) the trade factories were burned down.
c) rewards were offered for the killing or the capture of an Englishman.
News of these events reached London.
Lord Palmerston was now the Prime Minister.
He was criticized for his handling of the affairs in China.
His government was defeated in a vote of confidence.
Palmerston won the next election.
He got a mandate to send an expeditionary force to China.
This force, was headed by Lord of Elgin.
The force was made up of the military from a number of countries.
France, the United States, & Russia all received requests from Britain to
form an alliance.
The United States and Russia supported the British.
But they did not send military aid.
But France did send military aid.
The reason was because the local authorities had executed an French missionary in Guangxi.
British and French forced went on to capture Canton in late 1857.
They were able to maintain control of the city for almost 4 years.
They placed the city under an allied government headed by the British consul Harry Parkes.
The governor of Guangdong & Guanxi, - jYe Mingchen was later captured.
He was sent to Calcutta as a prisoner - he later starved himself to death.
The allied forces then moved north
They seized the Dagu forts and reached Tianjin.
At that point, the emperor decided to negotiate.
The war was settled in 1858 by the Treaty of Tianjin.

The Treaty of Tianjin

The treaty was signed in June 1858.
China agreed to
a) open 10 more treaty ports.
b) allow foreigners, including missionaries to travel to the interior.
c) accept changes related to external tariffs.
d) accept new arrangements governing transit duties.
e) legalize the opium trade.
f) accept a resident British minister in Beijing.

The opening of the treaty ports on the Yang was to be deferred until the Taiping rebellion had been defeated.
Treaties containing similar terms were signed between France and China., the United States and Russia.
The four countries. were allowed to establish diplomatic legations.
This was to be set up in Beijing.
In 1849 N.N. Muraviev, the Governor General of eastern Siberia dispatched an expedition to explore the Amur River valley.
Finding it devoid of Chinese garrisons he established a trading post which he named Nikolaevsk after the czar.
During the Tianjin negotiations the Russian diplomat Count Putiatin pretended to act as a mediator between China and the Western powers.
In the meantime Muraviev took advantage of China's weakness.
This was to obtain the Treaty of Aigun.

The Treaty of Aigun

This was to revise the border determined by the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689.
The treaty to Russia all land north of the Amur River
It also provided for Sino-Russian administration of the territory between the Wusuli River and the sea.
The treaty gave Russia control over a port on the Pacific coast.
This where
Russia founded the city of Vladivostok in 1860.

The Looting of the Summer Palace

Qing officials in the court convinced Xianfeng to resist the demands of the Western powers.
This was before the treaty got ratified.
Xianfeng was the new emperor who succeeded Daoguang.
In June 1858 Xianfeng ordered the Mongol general Senggelinqin to defend the Dagu forts..
Senggelinqin. brought from Inner Mongolia about 4,000 Mongolian cavalry.
Lord Elgin was the newly appointed envoy.
He sailed north with a British naval force of 21 ships and 2,200 troops.
He did this to ratify the Treaty of Tianjin in Beijing.
Senggelinqin allowed envoys to continue the journey to Beijing from Tianjin
He refused to allow any of the armed troops into the Chinese capital.

Then 6,700 French and 11,000 British troops with 170 ships were dispatched from Hong Kong.
This was the summer of 1860.
They headed to Tianjin.
They took Tianjin on August 3rd, 1860.
The Chinese arrested and imprisoned the British diplomatic envoys and the entourage.
Some were tortured, some were murdered.
The Anglo-French forces crushed Seggelinqin’s elite Mongolian troops and marched into Beijing.
On September 21, 1860 Xianfen and his entourage fled from Beijing.
They headed to the Jehol summer retreat about 125 miles northeast of Beijing.

Yuanmingyuan

On October 6, 1860 the British and French forces entered Yuanmingyuan.
This was the summer palace and they began looting it.
It had stored all kinds of exquisite treasures of the emperors that had used it as a retreat.
This was the collection of buildings designed by the Jesuits in the 18th century.
In October Lord Elgin ordered that the summer palace be destroyed.
This would be a punishment to Xianfeng.
Some 1300 British troops took part in the pillage and it burned for three days.

Emperor Xianfeng

The emperor's brother Prince Gong stayed in Beijing to deal with the devastation.
Xianfeng stayed in Jehol for more than a year.
He no intention of returning to Beijing.
Xianfeng called for more than 200 players of the palace theatrical and drake group.
This was so they could entertain him.
This is how he spent his days while his country was on the verge of collapse.
Xianfeng refused to return to return to the capital.
He stayed in Jehol until his death.

Prince Gong

Elgin entered Beijing and signed an additional convention.
The Treaty of Tianjin was ratified by Prince Gong (Oct. 18, 1860)
The treaty was called the Convention of Peking.

The Convention of Peking

a) China hads to open Tianjin as a treaty port.
b) China had to allow religious establishments in China to be established.
c) China hd to allow more that more land in Kowloon be ceded to the British.
d) China had to pay an increase of 8 million taels of silver to Britain and France.
e) the Opium trade was formally legalized
The Russians forced the Qing to sign the "Supplementary Convention of Peking"
In this way Russia gained a further 300,000-400,000 square miles of land from China.
This was east of the Wusili River.
This allowed Russia to establish a naval base at Vladivostok.

Asia 210 - Modern China

Sunday, October 3, 2021

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