Opium Wars

Article Outline
Introduction; British-Chinese Trade; The Opium Trade; The First Opium War; The Second
Opium War; Significance

I INTRODUCTION
Opium Wars (1839-1842, 1856-1860), two conflicts between Britain and China
over trading rights. In the Second Opium War, also known as the Arrow War or the
Anglo-French War in China, French forces joined the British. The wars are so named
because they centered on the trade of opium, a powerful narcotic that British
merchants were smuggling into China in vast quantities. The Chinese lost both wars.
As a result, they found themselves forced into the emerging world of global trade
and diplomacy, while Western nations gained significant commercial privileges and
territory in China.

II BRITISH-CHINESE TRADE
Although the Qing dynasty that had ruled China since the mid-17th century was
often depicted as isolationist, the Qing emperors in fact hoped to limit and control
foreign trade, not to eliminate it. This was the object of the so-called Canton system
of trade, which in 1757 established the southern city of Guangzhou (Canton) as the
sole legal port for foreign trade with China. This trade was heavily regulated by the
cohong, a group of Chinese merchants who paid the emperor handsomely for their
monopoly power. The cohong set prices, collected duties, and levied numerous fees
on foreign merchants, who were forbidden to interact with the Chinese people or
even to learn Chinese. Some merchants chafed under such restrictions, especially
since they were forbidden to lodge complaints directly with Chinese officials. Still,
European traders were accustomed to monopolies; most European trade with Asia
was carried out by the English, Dutch, and French East India Companies, merchant
groups that had purchased monopoly trading privileges from the governments of
their countries much as the cohong had.

The real irritant in Chinese-British relations, however, came to be the unequal

balance of trade between the two countries. The principal item of exchange was
Chinese tea, which had become the British national drink over the course of the 18th
century. By the early 19th century, British ships were transporting millions of
kilograms of tea back to England every year. Unfortunately, English merchants were
unable to come up with products to sell to the Chinese in similar volume, and in
some years, 90 percent of the cargo brought by British ships to China consisted of
silver bullion.

The British viewed such an imbalance as unhealthy and as early as 1793 organized a
diplomatic mission to China to demand that the Canton system be abandoned and all
of China opened to British trade. The Chinese leaders refused to comply. In his
famous reply to King George III, Emperor Qianlong declared, We possess all things.
I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your countrys
manufactures.
III THE OPIUM TRADE
Opium became the tool by which the British traders eventually broke open the
Chinese market. The Chinese had long known the addictive drugrecreational use
among the leisured classes had prompted a ban on the sale and smoking of opium as
early as 1729. In 1773 the English East India Company (EEIC) established a
monopoly over opium cultivation in India. They marketed the drug in China through
Western merchants who were licensed by but not technically members of the EEIC,
which had a monopoly on trade in China. The importation and cultivation of opium
were outlawed in China in 1796, reflecting the inroads that Indian opium had made
there, but the ban was ineffective.

In 1819 greater domestic competition within India lowered opium prices

dramatically, causing Chinese consumption to shoot up accordingly. Domestic
political developments in Britain led to the breakup of the EEIC monopoly in 1833,
allowing new groups of merchants to enter the Chinese market. The following year,
British exports to China rose to new heights. The volume of this trade reversed the
direction of the flow of silver, and China paid out 34 million Mexican silver dollars
(the common international currency of the day) to purchase opium in the 1830s.
Although the idle rich were the majority of the Chinese addicts, many poor Chinese
became addicted as well, and all suffered from the economic effects of the loss of
silver.

IV THE FIRST OPIUM WAR

The breakup of the EEIC monopoly was the immediate cause of the First Opium War,
both because it led to a huge increase in opium traffic and because, without the EEIC
to serve as a buffer, the British government now found itself obliged to intervene
more frequently in China. A vocal part of the English public clamored for greater
access to Chinas huge market, and Britain often sought these goals through bluster
and the threat of force.

China saw the problem differently and moved to stem the trade imbalance and the
opium craze that plagued its people. In late 1838 the Chinese appointed a famed
official, Lin Zexu, as imperial commissioner and sent him to Guangzhou to solve the
problem. In March 1839 Lin ordered the British merchants to hand over all of their
opium stocks within three days and to sign a bond pledging never again to traffic in
the drug under penalty of death. When British superintendent of trade Charles Elliot
attempted to negotiate, Lin suspended trade and held all foreign merchants hostage.
Elliot then ordered the merchants to hand over their opium to him, after which he
surrendered it to Lin. Lin washed some 9 million Mexican silver dollars worth of
opium into the sea, not realizing that English patriots would view this as destruction
of Crown property.

While Lin and the British merchants jousted over the signing of the bonds, officials in
England dispatched an armed force to China. The Chinese had prepared for war at
Guangzhou, but the British force simply blockaded that city on its way north toward
the capital of Beijing, where officials met with the Chinese. The result of subsequent
negotiations was the Convention of Quanbi in January 1841, in which the bare
minimum of British demands were met. The agreement was subsequently rejected
by both sides: The emperor was enraged that his representative had made real
concessions, while the British felt that Elliot had failed to press his advantage.

Sir Henry Pottinger replaced Elliot in August 1841 and immediately directed his
forces to occupy important cities along the coast, including Ningbo and Tianjin. In
the spring of 1842 the English renewed their offensive, triumphing readily over
valiant but underarmed Chinese resistance. By late June the British occupied
Zhenjiang, an important communication center and entry to the Grand Canal, the
artery by which rice from the southern regions reached the northern capital. The
Chinese agreed to negotiate, and at gunpoint they signed the Treaty of Nanjing
(Nanking) on August 29, 1842. The treaty more than fulfilled Englands original
goals: The cohong was abolished, four more Chinese ports were opened to trade
(Fuzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, and Xiamen), and the island of Hong Kong was ceded to
the British.

V THE SECOND OPIUM WAR

The Second Opium War was in many ways an inevitable sequel to the first. The
Chinese were not eager to implement the terms of a treaty that they saw as unfair.
Still, skillful Chinese diplomacy and a number of other political distractions kept the
conflict from boiling over for a number of years. On the British side, merchants were
unhappy because they did not see a spectacular rise in profits from the China trade
after the First Opium War; they blamed their disappointment on Chinese foot-
dragging. In addition, the Treaty of Nanjing did not address the opium issue. Opium
smuggling continued, and this only increased Chinese resentment of the foreigners.

The Arrow Incident of 1856 was the spark that ignited the Second Opium War. The
Arrow was a ship owned by a Chinese resident of Hong Kong, and it was registered
with the British there. On October 8, 1856, Chinese officers searching for a notorious
pirate boarded the shipwithout British permissionwhile it was docked off
Guangzhou, hauling down the British flag as they did so. This minor incident quickly
escalated into a shooting war.

The British sent an expedition to seek redress and were joined by a French task
force. (A French missionary had been murdered in inland China in February 1856.)
After some delay, the joint force took Guangzhou in December 1857 and then moved
north to threaten the capital once again. By June 1858 the superior power of the
Europeans and their refusal to compromise culminated in the signing of the Treaty of
Tianjin, the most important term of which was the right of foreigners to establish
permanent diplomatic residence in Chinas capital. The treaty also opened ten new
ports to foreign trade.

When the foreigners returned to ratify the treaty the following summer, however,
angry Chinese forces opened fire, killing more than 400 British men and sinking four
ships. A much larger Anglo-French force returned a year later, in August 1860, and
invaded the Chinese capital, sending the imperial court into flight and burning the
Summer Palace. On October 24, 1860, British leaders forced the Convention of
Beijing on the defeated Chinese, establishing once and for all the right of foreign
diplomatic representation in Chinas capital. Many restrictions on foreign travel within
China were removed, and missionaries received the right to work and even own
property in China. The opium trade, the catalyst for the whole dispute, was legalized.
VI SIGNIFICANCE
The Opium Wars are extremely important to Chinas modern history. The wars, and
the unequal treaties forced on the Chinese by the West, compromised Chinas
sovereignty and weakened the countrys political institutions during a crucial period
in its history. The events contributed to the collapse of the Qing dynastythe
countrys last imperial dynastyin the early years of the 20th century. Although
some historians have argued that the conflicts constituted a painful but much needed
jolt to shake China out of time-bound traditions, the Chinese look back on the Opium
Wars as a cruel and greedy exercise in might makes right.

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The First Opium War or the First Anglo-Chinese War was fought between the British
East India Company and the Qing Dynasty in China from 1839 to 1842 with the aim of
forcing China to import British opium. Britain won the war and as a result gained control
over Hong Kong.
During the 19th century, trading in goods from China was extremely lucrative for
Europeans and Chinese merchants alike. Due to the Qing Dynasty's trade restrictions,
whereby international trade was only allowed to take place in Canton (Guangzhou)
conducted by imperially sanctioned monopolies, it became uneconomic to trade in low-
value manufactured consumer products that the average Chinese could buy from the
British like the Indians did.
Instead, the Sino-British trade became dominated by high-value luxury items such as tea
(from China to Britain) and silver (from Britain to China), to the extent that European
specie metals became widely used in China. Britain had been on the gold standard since
the 18th century, so it had to purchase silver from continental Europe to supply the
Chinese appetite for silver, which was a costly process at a time before demonetization of
silver by Germany in the 1870s. In casting about for other possible commodities to
reverse the flow of silver out of the country and into China, the British discovered opium.
Opium as a medicinal ingredient was documented in texts as early as the Ming dynasty
but its recreational use was limited and there were laws in place against its abuse. It was
with the mass quantities introduced by the British motivated by the equalization of trade
that the drug became prevalent. British importation of opium in large amounts began in
1781 and between 1821 and 1837 import increased fivefold. The drug was produced in
the traditionally cotton growing regions of India (under British government monopoly
(Bengal) and in the Princely states (Malwa)) and was sold on the condition that it be
shipped by British traders to China. The Qing government had largely ignored the
problem until the drug had spread widely in chinese society.
Alarmed by the reverse in silver flow and the epidemic of addiction (an estimated 2
million Chinese were habitual users[1]), the Qing government attempted to end the opium
trade, but its efforts were complicated by corrupt local officials (including the Viceroy of
Canton). In one isolated incident, in 1818, the Laurel carried word to Sydney of a US
ship laden with opium and treasure which was invaded by Chinese pirates. The crew of
the US vessel had all been killed, but for the escaping first mate, who later identified the
pirates to the authorities. In 1839, the Qing Emperor appointed Lin Zexu as the governor
of Canton with the goal of reducing and eliminating the Opium trade. On his arrival, Lin
Zexu banned the sale of opium, asked that all opium be surrendered to the Chinese
authorities, and asked that all foreign traders sign a 'no opium trade' bond the breaking of
which was punishable by death. He also forced the British hand by closing the channel to
Canton, effectively holding British traders hostage in Canton. The British Chief
Superintendent of Trade in China, Charles Elliot (who, surprisingly, broke the blockade
to arrive in Canton) got the British traders to agree to hand over their opium stock with
the promise of eventual compensation for their loss from the British Government. (This
promise, and the inability of the British government to pay it without causing a political
storm, was an important cause for the subsequent British action.) [2] Overall 20,000 chests
[3]
each holding about 120 pounds[4]) were handed over and destroyed in May 1839.
Following the collection and destruction of the opium, Lin Zexu wrote a "memorial" (
)[5] to the Queen of Great Britain in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the trade of the
drug, as it had poisoned thousands of Chinese civilians (the memorial never reached the
Queen).
However, in July 1839 rioting British sailors destroyed a temple near Kowloon and
murdered a man named Lin Weixi who tried to stop them. Because China did not have a
jury trial system or evidentiary process (the magistrate was the prosecutor, judge, jury
and would-be executioner), the British government and community in China wanted
"extraterritoriality", which meant that British subjects would only be tried by British
judges. When the Qing authorities demanded the men be handed over for trial, the British
refused. Six sailors were tried by the British authorities in Guangzhou (Canton), but they
were immediately released after they reached England. Charles Elliott's authority is in
dispute; the British government later claimed that without authority from the Qing
government he had no legal right to try anyone, although according to the British Act of
Parliament that gave him authority over British merchants and sailors, 'he was expressly
appointed to preside over ' Court of Justice with Criminal an Admiralty Jurisdiction for
the trial of offenses committed by His Majesty's subjects in the said Dominions or on the
high sea within a hundred miles of the coast of China'".[6]
The Qing authorities also insisted that British merchants not be allowed to trade unless
they signed a bond, under penalty of death, promising not to smuggle opium, agreeing to
follow Chinese laws, and acknowledging Qing legal jurisdiction. Refusing to hand over
any suspects or agree to the bonds, Charles Elliot ordered the British community to
withdraw from Guangzhou and prohibited trade with the Chinese. Some merchants who
didn't deal in opium were willing to sign the bond, thereby weakening the British trading
position.
War
Preparing for war, the British seized Hong Kong (then a minor outpost) as a base on
August 23, 1839. In late October the Thomas Coutts arrived in China and sailed to
Guangzhou. This ship was owned by Quakers who refused to deal in opium, and its
captain, Smith, believed Elliot had exceeded his legal authority by banning trade. The
captain negotiated with the governor of Canton and hoped that all British ships could
unload their goods at Chuenpeh, an island near Humen. In order to prevent other British
ships from following the Thomas Coutts, Elliot ordered a blockade of the Pearl River
(China). Fighting began on November 3, 1839, when a second British ship, the Royal
Saxon, attempted to sail to Guangzhou. Then the Volage and Hyacinth fired a warning
shot at the Royal Saxon. The official Qing navy's report claimed that the navy attempted
to protect the British merchant vessel and also reported a great victory for that day. Elliot
reports that they were protecting their 29 ships in Chuenpeh between the Qing batteries.
Elliot knew that Chinese would reject any contacts with British and there would be an
attack with fire boats. Elliot ordered all ships to leave Chuenpeh and head for Tung Lo
Wan, 20 miles (30 km) from Macau, but the merchants liked to harbour in Hong Kong. In
reality, they were out-classed by the Royal Naval vessels and many Chinese ships were
sunk. In 1840 Elliot asked the Portuguese governor in Macau to let British ships load and
unload their goods at Macau and they would pay rents and any duties. The governor
refused for fear that the Qing Government would discontinue to supply food and other
necessities to Macau. On January 14, 1840, the Qing Emperor asked all foreigners in
China to stop helping British in China.
In retaliation, the British Government and British East India Company had reached a
conclusion that they would attack Guangdong. The military cost would be paid by the
British Government. In June 1840, an expeditionary force of 15 barracks ships, 4 steam-
powered gunboats and 25 smaller boats with 4000 marines reached Guangdong from
Singapore. The marines were headed by James Bremer. Bremer demanded the Qing
Government compensate the British for losses suffered from interrupted trade. The Qing
Government refused and the British attacked. The mouth of the Pearl River was heavily
defended under Commissioner Lin so the British fleet went northward to Xiamen.
The next year, 1841, the British captured the Bogue forts which guarded the mouth of the
Pearl River the waterway between Hong Kong and Guangzhou. By January 1841,
British forces commanded the high ground around Guangzhou and defeated the Chinese
at Ningbo and at the military post of Chinghai.
By the middle of 1842, the British had defeated the Chinese at the mouth of their other
great riverine trade route, the Yangtze, and were occupying Shanghai. The Qing
government proved incapable of dealing with Western Powers on an equal basis, either
politically or militarily. The war finally ended in August 1842, with the signing of China's
first Unequal Treaty, the Treaty of Nanjing. Gen. Sir Anthony Blaxland Stransham led the
Royal Marines during the Opium War as a young officer, and as the 'Grand Old Man of
the Army', was awarded two knighthoods by Queen Victoria.
Legacies of the War
The ease with which the British forces had defeated the Chinese armies seriously affected
the Qing Dynasty's prestige. This almost certainly contributed to the Taiping Rebellion
(18501864)[citation needed]. The success of the First Opium War allowed the British to resume
the drug trafficking within China. It also paved the way for the opening of the lucrative
Chinese market and Chinese society to missionary endeavours. Some Chinese historians
feel that the First Opium War was initiated by the British in order to make profit from
trafficking the drug. This kind of invasion was encouraged by Queen Victoria [citation needed] in
the Second Opium War in China.
Among the most notable figures in the events leading up to military action in the Opium
War was the man the Manchu Daoguang emperor assigned to suppress the opium trade[7];
Lin Zexu, known for his superlative service under the Qing Dynasty as "Lin the Clear
Sky"[8]. Although he had some initial success, with the arrest of 1,700 opium dealers and
the destruction of 2.6 million pounds of opium, he was made a scapegoat for the actions
leading to British retaliation, and was blamed for ultimately failing to stem the tide of
opium import and use in China[9]. Nevertheless, Lin Zexu is popularly viewed as a hero of
19th century China, and his likeness has been immortalized at various locations around
the world[10]/[11]/[12]/[13].