China Confronts the West, 1700-1860

How to Deal with Europeans?

Russians

Lifan Yuan (Office of Border Affairs)

Treaty of Nerchinsk, 1689

“Brotherly relations”

Portuguese

Ministry of Rituals

Vassal

Macao

1557

Renewed 1678

Lion presented as tribute

Canton trade

Hong merchants (privately est. in 1720)

Official trade monopoly, 1759

Hoppo

Factories ("Barbarian Houses")

Pearl River

Canton Factories in Perspective

Hong established for SE Asian and Fujian Traders

Trade entrepot for Russians

Kiakhtah, 1727

British East India Company

American Colonies

India

Canton to 1834

Macartney Mission (1793)

Representative of King George III and East India Company

Superficial motive

Qianlong's 83rd Birthday

True motives

Expanded trading privileges

Embassy in Peking

Exchange of “Gifts” and “Tribute”

Qianlong's Reply to King George III, 1793

“We possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country's manufactures...It behooves you, O King, to respect my sentiments and to display even greater devotion and loyalty in the future, so that, by perpetual submission to our Throne, you may secure peace and prosperity for your country thereafter.”

British tea imports

20,000 lbs., 1700
5,000,000 lbs., 1760
23,000,000 lbs., 1800

50% of British China trade

£20 million deficit, 1710-60

Opium in China

Opium smoking

Columbian exchange

Dutch controlled Taiwan, 1624-62

Tobacco Pipe

Tobacco-opium mixture

Qing conquest of Taiwan 1683

Chests of opium sold (1 chest=approx. 150 lbs.)

Opium Dens

Number of addicts

100,000 in 1800

10 million in 1839

Opium War 1840-41

Lin Zexu (1785-1850)

Special imperial commissioner, 1838

Confiscation and destruction of opium, March 1839

David vs. Goliath?

Population in 1800

Britain, 10.5 million

China, 300 million

Area (today)

Britain, 244,820 sq. km. (ranked 86th)

China, 9,596,960 sq. km. (ranked 4th)

British Strategy

“Gunboat diplomacy”

Blockade key waterways

Capture of Zhoushan, July 1840, Aug. 1841

Mouth of Yangzi River

Zhenjiang on Grand Canal, July 1842

Siege of Nanjing, Aug. 1842

Treaty of Nanjing or "Unequal Treaty" (1842)

$21 million silver dollars indemnity

Abolition of the Hong trading system

5 treaty ports

Canton

Xiamen (Amoy)

Fuzhou (Foochow)

Ningbo (Ningpo)

Shanghai

Cession of Hong Kong

Additions in 1843

Fixed tariffs (av. 5%)

Extraterritoriality for British subjects

Most-favored-nation clause