China Confronts the West, 1790-1860

How to Deal with Europeans within Qing system of Multi-faceted Rule

Khan

*Lifan Yuan (Office of Border Affairs)

Manchus
Mongols
Tibetans
Russians

Treaty of Nerchinsk, 1689

“Brotherly relations”

*Son of Heaven

The Central Kingdom (Zhongguo 中國)

Ministry of Rituals

Tributary relationship as vassals

Koreans

Vietnamese

Portuguese

Macao, 1557

Renewed 1678

Lion presented as tribute

British Macartney Mission of 1793

*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

Canton, Xiamen, Ningbo, Shanghai

Trade entrepot for Russians

Kiakhtah, 1727

*British East India Company (EIC)

Parliamentary acts of 1773

Monopoly on trade with India

Monopoly on trade with Canton to 1834

Tax exemption on tea sales in American colonies

British legal tea imports

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

1/7 of China’s tea production

90% of EIC trade

10% of Britain’s tax revenue

British trade deficits

£20 million, 1710-60

£400,000/yr.

£24.5 million, 1775-95

£1,225,000/yr.

British Tea Drinking

Popularization of tea drinking in Britain

Chinese Tea industry

Cultivation, ca. 1800

Tea warehouse, Canton, ca. 1820-40

Opium in China

Opium smoking

Columbian exchange

Dutch controlled Taiwan, 1624-62

Pipe

Tobacco

Tobacco-opium mixture

Qing conquest of Taiwan, 1683

Qing ban opium smoking, 1729

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)

Lord Macartney could not force open China in 1793. Can Britain win a war against China by 1839?

British Strategy

Nemesis

*“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

Ningbo

Shanghai

Cession of Hong Kong

Additions in 1843

Fixed tariffs (av. 5%)

Extraterritoriality for British subjects

Most-favored-nation clause