The Opium Wars - Research Paper Example

? The Opium Wars Introduction China has experienced too much agony and violence in the past because of addictive drugs. However, this drug crisis did not occur in China before European colonizers exploited it to wreak havoc on China’s economy and culture. Customary intake of opium had never been an adverse activity or habit in China. Opium was originally used in the latter part of the 15th century as medication. The Chinese took opium for the treatment of diseases like cholera and dysentery.1 There were no known misuses of opium in China until the 18th century. However, when it did develop, it proliferated rapidly. By 1729 Chinese imperial authorities were very worried at the increasing cases of opium abuse and the harmful consequences for the users, that they forbid opium lairs and banned the sale of opium. Selling opium-laced cigarettes became a crime and it carried a punishment of deportation or death.2 Yet, the risk of such severe punishment did not dissuade the British opium merchants. In the latter part of the 18th century, the British began to seize China’s opium trade from Holland and Portugal. This was facilitated by the fact that almost all of the opium traded in China was produced in India, which was a colony of Britain at the time. During this time, the Indian metropolis of Patna was the center of both Dutch and English opium factories.3 There were rumors that the huge opium factories in Patna generated massive quantities of opium that can supply the whole of India. The opium cultivated in other regions of India raised huge revenues for the British East India Company.4 Although the Chinese government was implementing more rigid regulations to stop opium misuse and trade, the British were exerting their best effort to boost the sale of opium in China. With this objective in mind, the British East India Company launched three wars against China to acquire the privilege to trade opium in China. The first drug war in human history is the First Opium War. The only reason for the opium war was to gain access to the Chinese market in order for the East India Company to carry on with their selling of addictive, destructive drugs in China.5 The opium trade was very profitable for Britain, but it ruined the lives of a large number of Chinese people. The sale of opium increased steadily in China. Yet, when the British gained control they further boost opium sales. There was firm certainty about the solidity and strength of the opium trade in China. The British governor-general of India even declared in 1830, “We are taking measures for extending the cultivation of the poppy, with a view to a large increase in the supply of opium”.6 In 1839, the First Opium War broke out when Chinese imperial authorities blocked foreign trading vessels and instructed the British to hand over their illicit load of opium. The imperial authorities then instructed the burning of the sequestered boxes of opium. When the officer of the British armada was informed of the instruction to destroy British goods, he commanded India’s governor-general to dispatch all the available ships to China to protect British wealth. The fleet was directed to Hong Kong, where they defended the opium-loaded British trading ships.7 The Chinese emperor deployed Chinese junks to hold off the British armada, but they were not able to fight off the strong British warships. These wars brought about countless casualties; the British extinguished, plundered, and pillaged communities along the Chinese coast.8 The remaining vestiges of humanity had been wiped out to enable the continuous unlimited stream of massive profits from the opium trade. The British journal—the India Gazette— reported about the destruction of Chusan during the First Opium War. The journal stated that all houses were robbed and sacked, and that the pillaging continued until there were no more to loot or extinguish. The First Opium War culminated on the 29th of August 1842, and the Treaty of Nanking obliged China to pay compensation to the British traders, hand over Hong Kong to Britain, and open up Chinese harbors to free British trade.9 Once the First Opium War ended, Chinese authorities carried on with their search for means to stop the British opium trade. China was incapacitated militarily, politically, and diplomatically to ward off British opium sellers. Simultaneously, the British kept on transporting huge quantities of opium to China. As the Chinese government kept on fighting off the British opium trade, it became more indebted to Britain. Besides the debt it incurred from the British for losing the First Opium War, China was eventually forced to finance the foreign armies which were required to stop the Taiping Rebellion. While fighting off the rebellion, foreign armies required massive expanses of China, and millions could have died in the hostility.10 China’s unremitting resistance to the British opium trade pushed Britain to heighten its claim that Chinese inland should be opened to European trade. In 1856, the Second Opium War began, and once more China was defeated. China accepted another trade settlement in 1858 that imposed a small tariff on traded opium.11 This settlement kicked off a forty-eight-year duration of an effective authorization of the local production of opium, as well as opium trade. This settlement led to the local production of opium, and the farming of opium proliferated fast in China. Homegrown or local opium in the 1860s was originally regarded low-grade compared to Indian opium.12 Nevertheless, it was more affordable and its quality quickly advanced. In numerous parts of China, it was sold at a much cheaper price than the imported opium. Furthermore, the poppy was a highly valued crop for Chinese farmers. The opium’s low weight facilitated its shipping over inhospitable environment, attractive to farmers in lands where trade paths were usually difficult roads.13 In the peak year of 1880 China imported more than 6,500 tons of opium, most of which was produced in India. However, after 1880, the demand for foreign opium decreased, and by 1905, the amount of opium imported was roughly 3,250 tons. At the same time, China’s annual opium crop was over 22,000 tons.14 Britain believed that the foreign markets for their products were massive and anticipated to gain huge profits from the Chinese trade. Realizing the enormous trade shortage, they held China’s closed-door policy responsible for their low profits. Inopportunely, nonviolent negotiations between China and Britain on the opening of the Chinese market to Western trade were unsuccessful because of cultural conflicts, among others. The British thought that China was overconfident or very egotistical to negotiate and that it would only be through force that its market will be opened up15; and so the beginnings of the First and Second Opium War. The First Opium War In 1839, the Chinese emperor made a decision to end the British drug trafficking. He assigned Lin Zexu as Canton’s new governor, who blockaded several British traffickers inside their storerooms. Once they surrendered, Governor Lin immediately sequestered properties including boxes of opium and opium cylinders. He instructed the boxes to be laid on ditches, buried with lime, and afterward doused with salt water to extinguish the opium.16 Enraged, British merchants quickly asked for help from the British Crown. That same year witnessed the subsequent event that heightened conflict between Britain and Qing. On the 7th of July 1839, intoxicated American and British seafarers from a number of opium vessels brawled in the town of Chien-sha-tsui, Kowloon, murdering a Chinese civilian and destroying a Buddhist shrine.17 After this event, Qing authorities insisted that the foreigners surrender those involved in the skirmish for trial, but the British decline, referring to China’s unusual legal process as the rationale for declining. Although the misconduct occurred in China, and had killed a Chinese civilian, the British demanded that the seafarers had extraterritorial rights.18 Six seafarers were put to trial in a British court in China. Even though they were sentenced, they were released the moment they went back to Britain. After the Kowloon episode, Qing authorities proclaimed that no foreign traders would be permitted to conduct business in China except if they accepted, under threat of death, to conform to Chinese rules, as well as to the prohibition of the opium trade, and to surrender themselves to Chinese law. Charles Elliot, the British Superintendent of Trade in China, reacted by interrupting all British business activities in China, and commanding British vessels to pull out.19 Strangely though, the First Opium War started with a quarrel among the British themselves. The Quaker owners of the British ship Thomas Coutts had consistently resisted opium trafficking, but still travelled to Canton in 1839. The captain of the ship agreed to Qing laws and started doing business.20 Charles Elliot responded by instructing the Royal Navy to defend the opening of the Pearl River to discourage any other British vessels from coming through. The British trading vessel Royal Saxon arrived on the 3rd of November but the Royal Navy armada started attacking it. The Qing Navy soldiers responded by defending the Royal Saxon, and the British Navy destroyed several Chinese vessels in the consequent First Battle of Cheunpee.21 It was the first unsuccessful campaign of the Qing army, and it was the first in numerous other defeats that it will endure over the subsequent years. Britain took over Dinghai, Ningbo, the Bogue citadels at the opening of the Pearl River, Chusan, and Canton. In 1842, Britain took over Shanghai as well, hence gaining control over the opening of the very important Yangtze River.22 Surprised and mortified, the Qing regime had to make an appeal for a cessation of hostilities. On the 29th of August 1842 delegates of Britain’s Queen Victoria and the Chinese emperor made an agreement referred to as the Treaty of Nanking.23 This treaty is also known as the First Unequal Treaty, for the British seized several important enterprises from China, while China only got a ceasefire.24 The Treaty of Nanking demanded the opening of five Chinese harbors to British merchants, rather than obliging them all to conduct business at Canton. It also demanded a rigid five percent tax rate on foreign goods shipped into China, which was accepted by the Qing authorities and British officials instead of being implemented only by China. Britain was awarded the ‘most favored nation’ position, and its people were awarded extraterritorial privileges.25 British ambassadors acquired the privilege to make negotiations with local authorities, and all British captives were freed. China also surrendered Hong Kong to Britain permanently. Ultimately, the Qing regime approved paying enormous compensations to Britain.26 Under the Treaty of Nanking, China endured a major loss of self-government and autonomy, and experienced economic crises. Yet, possibly most destructive, was the tarnishing of its reputation and losing prestige. The First Opium War revealed the weaknesses of China. Its neighbors, especially Japan, tried to commit to memory China’s weak points. The Second Opium War After the First Opium War, the Chinese authorities of the Qing period became somewhat hesitant to implement the conditions of the Bogue in 1843 and the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, including the equally revolting unequal agreements enforced by the United States and France in 1844.27 Unfortunately, the British claimed more concessions from China in 1854, such as the legalization of the British opium trade in China, a zero percent tax rate on British importations, and opening of all Chinese harbors to overseas merchants. China postponed these concessions for a while, but on the 8th of October 1856, issues finally clashed with the Arrow Incident.28 The Arrow was a Chinese-registered vessel handling contraband, but based in the British colony—Hong Kong. When Chinese authorities embarked on the vessel and detained its crew on allegation of piracy and trafficking, the British complained that the Hong Kong-based vessel was not within the jurisdiction of China. The British petitioned for the release of the arrested crew under the Treaty of Nanking’s extraterritorial rights.29 Even though the Chinese officials were entitled to embark on the Arrow, and actually the Hong Kong registration of the vessel had been terminated, the British ordered them to free the crew. Although China obeyed, Britain afterward attacked several Chinese coastal citadels and destroyed naval ships from October to November.30 Because China was in the midst of the Taiping Rebellion at the moment, it did not possess enough diplomatic and military capability to protect its dominion from this another British attack. Nevertheless, Britain also had other problems at the moment. The Sepoy Mutiny or the Indian Revolt in 1857 expanded all over India, which distracted the British from their issues with China. Yet, when the Indian Revolt was crushed and the Mughal Empire obliterated, the British returned to their unsettled matters with China.31 In the meantime, Auguste Chapdelaine, a French Catholic minister, was detained in Guangxi in 1856. He was accused of giving sermons about Christian beliefs outside of the agreed harbors, in breach of the agreement between China and France, and also of conspiring with the Taiping insurgents. He was given the sentence of death, but his captors already mauled him to death. Even though he was tried in accordance to Chinese rules, as stated in the agreement, the French government would take advantage of this event as a justification for collaborating with Britain in the Second Opium War.32 From 1857 to 1858, the combined forces of Britain and France seized the Taku Forts, Guangdong, and Guangzhou. China submitted, and was coerced to agree to the retaliatory Treaty of Tientsin in 1858.33 The Treaty of Tientsin permitted the United States, Russia, France, and the UK to create embassies in Beijing; it permitted foreigners to enter China; it permitted foreign ships to travel up to the Yangtze River; it opened more harbors to foreign merchants; and once more China had to give war reparations to Britain and France. In another agreement, Russia seized the Amur River’s left portion from China. The Russians would establish their main Pacific Ocean harbor in 1860 on this recently gained territory.34 Even though the Second Opium War appeared to have ended, the advisers of the Chinese emperor persuaded him to oppose the Western powers and challenge their unfair concessions. Consequently, the Chinese emperor declined to sign the new agreement. His companion, Concubine Yi, was especially firm in her opposition to Western culture; she would eventually become the widely known Empress Dowager Cixi.35 When the British and French tried to establish their huge armies at Tianjin, and enter Beijing—allegedly only to build their official embassies, as stated in the Treaty of Tientsin—the Chinese at first did not permit them to enter. But the combined forces of Britain and France insisted on landing and on the 21st of September 1869, annihilated thousands of Qing soldiers. On the 6th of October, they marched to Beijing, where they pillaged and tore down the Emperor’s Summer Palaces.36 On the 18th of October 1860, the Second Opium War at last came to an end, with China’s signing of an amended Treaty of Tianjin. Besides the requirements mentioned beforehand, the amended treaty obliged fair treatment for Chinese who decided to become Christians, the legalization of the sale of opium, and the British also acquired portions of Kowloon. The Second Opium War, for the Qing Dynasty, was the start of the gradual plunge into obscurity that culminated with the resignation of Emperor Puyi in 1911. Nevertheless, the traditional Chinese imperial structure would not disappear or accept defeat that easily. Numerous of the conditions of the Treaty of Tianjin contributed to the emergence of the Boxer Rebellion at the advent of the 20th century, a mass revolt against the presence of foreign knowledge and foreigners in China. The second humiliating defeat of China also worked as both a caution and a disclosure to Japan.37 Japan had felt bitter about the dominance of China in East Asia, at times giving honor or accolade to its emperors, but sometimes declining or even attacking the mainland. Avant-garde rulers in Japan considered the Opium Wars as a warning or a lesson, which contributed to the rise of the Meiji Restoration, with its process of militarizing and modernizing the country. Japan, in 1895, would employ its newly developed, western-inspired military to crush China in the Sino-Japanese War and invade Korea—occurrences that would have implications until the 20th century.38 The production and use of opium flourished in Chiang Kai-shek’s administration throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Chiang exploited the profit from opium tariffs to finance his government and military. By the time of Japan’s attack in 1937, millions of Chinese, or ten percent of the entire population, were already drug addicts. British-owned Hong Kong had a much severe dilemma, with a roughly thirty percent of the overall population of the colony addicted to opium. The Japanese invaders promoted the use and consumption of opium but for political instead of financial motives—addicted people was also passive and submissive. Within 1949, the period of the Communist occupation, the administration of Mao prohibited all drugs, and their production, distribution, and consumption. Mao also made the ban more rigid and stricter. Traders were instantly put to death. The fortunate ones were banished for rehabilitation, which involved starvation. Addicts received more humane treatment in hospitals, waiting for rehabilitation rather than imprisonment.39 But those who relapse to their old addiction were not absolved and were either banished, enslaved, or executed. The administration proclaimed with several evidences in 1960 that addiction to opium had been completely eradicated in China. Several years after sufficient quantities of opium were generated, only adequate for medicinal uses.40 Conclusions What China experienced during the First and Second Opium War became one of the nation’s motivating forces to become one of the powerful states today. After more than a century of destruction and hardships, China was finally freed from their fetters and awarded the liberty to pursue their own political and economic interests, without having to make unfair concessions. However, most importantly, the Opium Wars provided numerous lessons in international relations, and these lessons are still felt all over the world in the 21st century. Bibliography Beeching, Jack. The Chinese Opium Wars. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977. Cherry, Andrew, Mary Dillon, & Douglas Rugh. Substance Abuse: A Global View. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. Fay, Peter. Opium War, 1840-1842. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Hanes, W. & Frank Sanello. Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another. New York: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2004. Harrison, T. Parliamentary Papers Relation to the Opium Trade. UK: Great Britain Parliament, 1840. Holt, Edgar. The Opium Wars in China. Michigan: Dufour Editions, 1961. Melancon, Glenn. Britain’s China Policy and the Opium Crisis: Balancing Drugs, Violence and National Honour, 1833-1840. London: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2003. Polacheck, James. The Inner Opium War. New York: Harvard University Asia Center, 1992. Waley, Arthur. The Opium War: Through Chinese Eyes. New York: Routledge, 2013. Wong, J. Deadly Dreams: Opium and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China. UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Read More