More and more opium was pushed onto the China market and more and more of the merchants chafed at Chinese restrictions. Matters came to a head in 1839, when the Chinese authorities tried to suppress the use of opium throughout the Empire. British stocks of the drug were confiscated and destroyed.
The pent-up frustration of both merchants and the British Government and the continued Chinese refusal to behave like a Western European country led to war in 1839. This war, variously known as the "Opium War" or "the First Anglo-Chinese War”, ended with the Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing) in 1842. The Treaty made no mention of opium, but secured Hong Kong as a British colony much to the chagrin of the British Government, which dismissed it as a "barren rock”. The Treaty also provided for the opening of a number of Chinese ports to foreign trade and foreign residence, attempted to put diplomatic relations between Britain and China on a regular western-style footing and laid down new trade and tariff regulations.
The British treaty was quickly followed by others. These added to the concessions gained by the British. All treaties became interlocking through the use of the "most favoured nation" device whereby benefits gained in one were automatically applied to all other treaty powers. These changes put a severe strain on a China already in considerable difficulties. The twenty years after the Treaty of Nanking saw a series of rebellions against the Central Government. The breakdown of imperial authority provided foreigners with the opportunity, quickly seized, to free themselves of Chinese control. This was particularly the case at Shanghai, where the 1850s saw significant advance of foreign interests at Chinese expense. Tensions created by these developments and by Chinese attempts to reassert control led eventually to the second Opium War of 1856-1860. The treaties concluded as a result of this war allowed the foreign powers to station diplomatic representatives in Peking, extended trade and allowed foreign naval vessels to visit Chinese ports and provided for freedom of travel and missionary activity. In addition, Britain gained the territory of Kowloon as part of the Hong Kong colony. There were also further extensions in the system of extraterritoriality, the legal system under which foreigners, theoretically bound to obey Chinese laws, were in practice under British or other foreign law and legal procedures. First introduced by the United States treaty with China of 1843, it was now put on a firmer footing.
There were some examples of cooperation between Britain and the Chinese Government. General Gordon (later of Khartoum) commanded the "Ever Victorious Army" which helped. imperial forces suppress the Taiping rebellion of the 1860s. The Imperial Maritime Customs Service was organised and headed for many years by Sir Robert Hart and this provided China with about its only steady, and incorrupt, source of revenue. Such activities are naturally not looked on with favour by China's present rulers, but even they do recall fondly the rescue by Dr Cantlie of Sun Yat-sen from kidnap and incarceration in the Chinese Legation in London in 1896. At a different level, Thomas Huxley's Evolution and Ethics and Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations were translated into Chinese and published in 1896 and 1902 respectively.
The years following the Second Opium War saw a steady expansion of foreign influence in China, with the British in the lead. Britain's share of China's foreign trade was the largest of any country. British banks played a major part in Chinese economic development and British missionaries were active in the establishment of schools and hospitals as well as evangelisation. When foreigners won the right to establish manufacturing factories in China, in the treaty signed at the end of the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95, British entrepreneurs were quick to take advantage of this new concession. By a convention signed in 1898, the New Territories were secured on a 99-year lease, thus extending British control over the area adjacent to Hong Kong.
China did not remain passive while these developments took place. Some Chinese enthusiastically embraced foreign things. Others opposed them. There were many incidents in which foreigners were attacked and in 1900 came the Boxer rebellion. After an initial period of success, the Boxers met defeat after a long siege of the Legation Quarter in Peking. The foreign powers exacted a huge indemnity.
20
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.