The Humiliation of the Opium Wars

Posted by david on Dec 26, 2012 in Blog | 0 comments

Recently, there has been a spate of articles in the Western press hammering China’s ‘selective teaching of history’ that one FT piece labeled as “cultivating a nationalistic, anti-Western mentality among younger Chinese”.  It is interesting how BBC History, in its latest introduction, portrays the First Opium War (1839-1842): “…thousands were killed in the name of free trade” (sic.), although it admits in the next sentence  that the trade in contraband was a “lucrative but illegal business”.  

I have posted on the supposed Chinese ‘victimization’ syndrome derided by the foreign press but it may be useful to revisit some of the major events in modern Chinese history, particularly the Opium Wars, that are so deeply etched into the Chinese psyche since before the 1911 Republican Revolution. 

In his review of Julia Lovell’s newly released history the First Opium War, veteran British China-watcher Eric Gordon, wrote in the Independent newspaper’s Camden New Journal: “Once, the British establishment behaved not all that differently from the Columbian drugs lords who are poisoning the US today…(opium) brought great riches to our merchants and sowed the seeds of two bloody wars as well as, ultimately, helping to create the country’s national pride of today.  This is a slice of our island’s history that Education Secretary Michael Gove probably doesn’t want taught in our schools”.     

While Ms Lovell and Mr Gordon are correct in pointing out that the Qing Emperor and many of his officials contributed to the tragic outcome, there should be no mistake in who the culprits were – the Scottish scoundrel traders William Jardine and James Matheson, the British East India Company that supplied the drug, and the gunboats of the Royal British Navy (later to be joined by the French and others).

By the end of the 18^th Century, the British thirst for Chinese tea was so immense, consuming some 6 million pounds per year, that it lead to a huge deficit in Britain’s terms of trade with China.  Over a 50 year period, the British paid 27 million pounds in silver to the Chinese but sold only 9 million pounds in British goods.  The British longed for a way to reverse the flow of silver.

The practice of mixing opium with tobacco was introduced into China by the Europeans in the 17^th Century.  Jardine and Matheson and others saw their chance after the British Empire conquered Indian Bengal where large amounts of opium were harvested. During the 18^th Century, opium smuggling had increased 20 fold to more than 4,000 chests (256 tons) annually but ballooned to 30,000 chests a year by 1836, four years prior to the First Opium War. 

In 1838, Emperor Daoguang dispatched famed mandarin Lin Zexu to Guangzhou, the gateway for the smuggled drugs, to rein in the illicit trade.  He quickly arrested Chinese opium dealers and seized 20,000 chests of opium along with 42,000 opium pipes worth 2 million pounds.

Outraged by the seizures, Jardine lobbied Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston to strike back.  Since the opium trade yielded a significant portion of British India’s tax receipts, the British government hardly flinched at sending a fleet of 16 warships and 27 transports carrying 4,000 men to the Pearl River Delta. 

Chinese defenses were no match for Britain’s far-superior firepower and over the next two years, British bombardments killed up to 25,000 Chinese while only a few dozen casualties were sustained by the British. 

Brought to its knees, the Qing government signed the Treaty of Nanking, the terms of which were dictated by the British.  Five treaty ports were opened for foreign trade and the British were paid 21 million silver dollars as an indemnity.  Low fixed unilateral tariffs were set and foreigners in China were granted extraterritoriality.  There were also demands for a most-favored nation clause and diplomatic representation in Beijing.  But, the jewel in the crown was the acquisition of Hong Kong Island which would be used as a hub for increased opium trade.

In the ensuing years, the weak, corrupt, and inept Qing government balked at the legalization of the opium trade, transport duty exemptions for foreign imports, accepting foreign ambassadors, along with several other demands.  It also obstructed the trade clauses of the treaties and disputes erupted over the treatment of English merchants in the ports and at sea, setting the stage for the Second Opium War (1856-1860) that involved the joint expeditionary forces of Britain and France. 

In 1860, British envoys, soldiers and a journalist were imprisoned and tortured resulting in 20 deaths.  In retaliation, Lord Elgin, the British High Commissioner, ordered the destruction of the massive and exquisitely beautiful Old Summer Palace, Yuan Mingyuan, whose ruins are preserved to this day.

Once again humiliated at the hands foreigners, the Qing government was forced to sign the Treaty of Tientsin, followed by similar treaties with the US and France that became infamously known as the Unequal Treaties, symbols of China’s “century of humiliation” along side the Opium Wars.

At the end of its introduction, the BBC quoted Dr Zheng Yangwen, a professor at the University of Manchester about the long memory of the Chinese: “Textbooks from elementary school, to middle school, to university highlight the wrong doings of the so-called imperialists.  We have become part of what they call the Patriotic Education Program, to educate Chinese youths like me so that we remember what you have done to us”. 

I wonder, if the tables were turned, would such indignities be etched into the minds of the British?