Coming of the West
The first European
ships to anchor off the shores of China, in 1516, were Portuguese. Although
by 1557 they had set up a trade mission in Macau, it was not until 1760
that other European powers-- the British, Dutch and Spanish -- gained
secure access to Chinese markets via a base in Guangzhou. All trade was
carried our via a monopolistic guild; the same guild mediated all non-commercial
dealings with the Chinese empire, effectively keeping foreigners at a
long arm's length from the political center in Beijing.
Trade flourished under the auspices of the guild - in China's favor. British
purchases of tea, silk and porcelain far outweighed Chinese purchases
of wool and spices. In 1773, the British decided to balance the books
with sales of opium. Despite imperial declaration of war against drugs,
opium addiction in China skyrocketed and with it so did sales.
After much imperial vacillation and hand-wringing, in March 1839 Lin Zexu,
an official of great personal integrity, was dispatched to Guangzhou to
put a stop to the illegal traffic once and for all. He acted promptly,
investigated thoroughly, demanding and eventually destroying some 20,000
chests of opium stored by the British in Guangzhou. This, along with several
other minor incidents, was just the pretext that hawkish elements in the
British government needed to win support for military action against China.
In 1840 a British naval force assembled in Macau and moved up the coast
to Beihai, not far from Beijing. The Opium War was on.
For the Chinese, the conflicts centred on the opium trade were a fiasco
from start to finish. While the Qing court managed to fob the first British
force off, increasing British frustration soon led to an attack on Chinese
positions close to Guangzhou.
The resulting treaty ceded Hong Kong to the British and called for indemnities
of six million yuan and the full resumption of trade. The furious Qing
emperor refused to recognise the treaty, and in 1841 British forces once
again headed up the coast, taking Fujian and eastern Zhejiang. They settled
in for the winter, and in the spring of 1842, their numbers swollen with
reinforcements, they moved up the Yangtze duly dispatching all comers.
With British guns trained on Nanjing, the Qing fighting spirit evaporated,
and they reluctantly signed the humiliating Treaty of Nanjing.