Causes of the Opium War

Causes of the Opium WarHowever, this prosperity and balance of portion out came down the stairs intempe pose threat when Britain discovered growing on the hills of India, a production that numerous Chinese slew craved for and would shift the balance of deal out in its favour opium. In the ensuing fight, the Chinese perceived cultural favorable position did not reflect in its glaring military inferiority to the British technological and tactical military favourable position (Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, 2010). china contende was heavily defeated in the fight that overly brought shame to Britain (CNN, 2009). In the British Parliament, William Ewart Gladstone criticised the government for a war he exposit as cheating(prenominal) in its origin and designed to cover Britain in permanent shame (Kossoff, 2010). Staring down the barrel of a gun, the Chinese were constrained to sign a one-sided treaty at Nanking (see appurtenance B) as every Chinese move fai direct (CNN, 2009). concord to CNN, mainland mainland mainland china was forced to part with 21 one thousand thousand ounces of atomic number 47 to pay for a war started by Britain. Five ports were designated for unrestricted British parcel out Shanghai, accommodate, Ningpo, Amoy, and Foochow (Hooker, 1996) and Hong Kong became a British territorial dominion. Other wattern countries soon moved in to accomplishment Chinas war wounds as France and America secured similar trading concessions (CNN, 2009 Hooker, 1996). According to CNN, Chinas defeat led to an invasion of Western culture, and on Chinas doorstep, barbarians lived in grand houses. However, 150 historic period later, China has reclaimed these houses and interpreted back Hong Kong.This essay aims to discuss the probatory incurs of the opium war over which there has been much controversy. On the one hand, the Chinese perspective on the contract of the war is nearly Britains im incorrupt inebriety of China with opium from im port, while on the another(prenominal) hand Britain holds the view that the war was as a result of Chinese arrogance that treated extraneousers as inferior beings and subjected Western countries to unfair affair and unacceptable diplomaticalal standards. mismatched Cultural DifferencesDuring the eighteenth and early 19th centuries, the Chinese culture project a face of indifferent arrogance and contempt for contrasteders which included the debonnaire assumption of Chinese cultural superiority. This played a epochal social function in flushts that resulted in the opium wars (Hanes Sanello, 2002 Helprin, 2006 Holt, 1964). The arrival of Western traders in China for the premier time brought them in direct contact with a strange refreshing realism having an alien system of government. East Asiatic nations had barely either knowledge about Europe. Their relation institutionalize with each other was built on the idea of a Confucian hierarchy, with China as the head of the Asi an family and other sm consummatelyer nations Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Burma occupying inferior positions around her (Schurmann Schell, 1967).This status was accepted by these nations and they compensable homage to china by embarking on periodic visits to capital of Red China to perform the Kowtow a series of kneeling down thrice and nine prostrations before the Emperor, climaxing with the recommendation bearer bringing his nose to the al-Qaida (Schurmann Schell, 1967 Holt, 1964). According to Holt (1964), the Chinese perceived China as the celestial pudding stone and their Emperor as the traditional Son of Heaven. Other rulers of the foreign world were perceived to be no more than vassals expected to pay tribute to the Son of Heaven (Holt, 1964 Lewis, 2009 Pelissier, 1967).Holt (1964) as tumesce as Hanes Sanello (2002), note that envoys from England to China refused to perform this ritual, especially since they did not grant their own monarch such recognition. Howev er, no matter how vehemently Britain protested, or how unreasonable she found this custom, and how a dependable she declared herself to be, China made no exception to her sermon (Schurmann Schell, 1967). Britain was among the other Western barbarians.Chinas perceived arrogance and deep sense of cultural superiority cocooned it from the rest of the civilized world by producing a complex administrative structure that isolated the Emperor and his chief advisers from direct diplomatic contacts. though Britain had traded with the Chinese for legion(predicate) years, China declined to establish any formal diplomatic contacts because it did not perceive Britain as equal (Rodzinski, 1984). As noted by Chesneauk, Bsatid Bergere (1977), Britain twice attempted to dismantle this barrier by sending gentle Macartney in 1793 and Lord Amherst in 1816 as ambassadors to Peking. Both attempts failed. This was one of the nettlesome features of the complex Chinese administrative structure that re sulted in the Opium war.Commercial avarice and Free TradeThe foreign devils as they were called by the Chinese were merchants from many countries, particularly Britain, United states of America and Portugal but also included France, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark (Holt, 1964). Portugal news report with the Far East was the earliest and longest but Britain gradually secured the largest quota of the Chinese trade with the West. Englands trade with the Eastern countries was monopolised by the East Indian association until 1833. According to Holt (1964), this monopoly however quited privately owned vessels from Britain and India to trade with China under licence from the East Indian Company. These vessels carried some(prenominal) raw cotton and the pestilent drug opium. Opium was a source of enormous revenue to the Indian governance, wealthiness to the foreign merchants, and brought pleasure as sound as suffering to the bulk of China (Hanes Sanello, 2002 Holt, 1964).Du ring this period, the British Government of India and the directors of the East Indian Company realize that the Chinese were addicted to opium and that this presented a keen trade opportunity for a huge fortune. Opium cultivation was quickly monopolised by the Government and permission altogether given to the East Indian Company for its production and sale for which the accompany paid substantial duty to the Indian Government (Holt, 1964). Both the British and Indian Governments found opium smuggle to China too lucrative to be discarded. By 1832, the duty paid on opium to the British Indian Government made up one-eighteenth of its gross revenue (Holt, 1964).In the past, Britain had substantially merchandise tea, silk and porcelain from China. Holt (1964) estimates that twelve million pounds worth of tea was consumed in Britain annually. China had substantially much less interest in British goods of woollen, lead, iron and Cornish tin and so Britain had to pay for its trade def icit in silver (Pelissier, 1967 Holt, 1964). By 1817, China had been paid one hundred and fifty million pounds worth of silver by European traders (Holt, 1964). For the British Government, these profits from opium trade restored parity of payments from trade with China. Blinded by greed both the British and Indian Governments failed in their legal and moral obligations not to participate in, or encourage the export to another country, goods prohibited by that country. This was another substantive calculate that provoked incidents that led to the opium war.At this time, much of the frugal possible action guiding the British Empire was based on Cobdens perception of tolerant trade unrestricted trade in all commodities including narcotics (Ball, 2010). According to Ball, arguments for vacate trade were that it promoted civilization and peaceful influence. In 1833, parliament brought an end to the monopoly of trade enjoyed by the East Indian Company with China and established si nless trade (Holt, 1964). Private merchants succumbed to the greed for fast and enormous profits. Special ships cognize as opium clippers were now more frequently being used for smuggling opium. Notable British owners included James Matheson, William Jardine and Lancelot Dent (Holt, 1964 Pelissier, 1967). These vessels were known to ship opium from India to China with great speed and efficiency thus compounding the opium dependance crisis in China.Figure Opium Smuggling Clippers from the West (Hays, 2008)Opium sales leaped. The trade inhibitionquet from its original centre at Macao to nearby Lintin and by 1837 had reached the coast of Fukien, far East. There they delivered their goods to Chinese smugglers in swift river boats called fast crabs which headed for the opium dens (Pelissier, 1967). In the 1760s, China received about 1,000 chests of opium. This gaind to about 10,000 chests in the 1820s. However, afterwards free trade began in 1833, this amount reached 40,000 chest s of opium by 1838 (Rodzinski, 1984 Holt, 1964 Gelber, 2006). The opium crisis had frame as much of an irritant to China as the refusal of equal status was to Britain (Pelissier, 1967 Holt, 1964). This vast increase in opium smuggling into China became a recipe for war.The effects of Opium on ChinaChinas history with opium dates back to the 7th century when it was taken orally for medicinal purposes (Holt, 1964 Pelissier, 1967). After The Dutch introduced tobacco into Fukien and Formosa in 1620, the Chinese began gage opium mixed with tobacco (Hays, 2008 Holt, 1964). By 1729, China was augmenting home-grown product by importing foreign opium from Portuguese traders. The damaging effect of opium smoking in China eventually led the Chinese Emperor to alone prohibit both home-grown cultivation and foreign importation of this pernicious article in 1780 (Holt,1964). Apart from Portugal which actually began the importation of opium into China, French and Dutch companies were also i nvolved in the trade at heart their limits. American firms also had their cover in smuggling opium into China (Holt, 1964).CorruptionTrade relations with the West had always been organized according to the billet system since the middle of the 18th century as Westerners were only allowed to trade in Canton. The Cohong was a meeting of Chinese firms exclusively responsible for trade with the West and fixed prices and lot of trade. The Cohong was responsible to the notoriously sully hoppo who received huge bribes from Hong merchants and members of the Cohong (Chesneauk, Bsatid Bergere, 1977).The vested interests that controlled the opium trade within China included the foreign merchants, Chinese middle men and corrupt Chinese decreeds. These corrupt official encouraged smuggling with little attempts at concealment. Even the Chinese fleet of ships stationed to prevent smuggling did nothing as long as they were duly paid a fixed care on each smuggled chest of opium by the Chines e buyers. On occasions where the Chinese purchasers fell behind in payments, the foreign merchants were well too willing to oblige the admiral of the fleet with the payments (Allingham, 2006 Holt, 1964 The Free Dictionary, 2010). ample corruption resulting from opium smuggling posed a major problem of countenance that challenged the ability of the state to rule. This was the general pattern of trade that provoked the opium war. Canton and other ports of the Southeast regularly visited illegally by foreign vessels had become oases of corruption and insubordination (Chesneauk, Bsatid Bergere, 1977).AddictionFigure Opium Den in China (Hays, 2008)While line of reasonings raged on in Britain about the moral sanction of the opium trade in China and about whose responsibility it was to stop the illegal trade- the British Government or the Chinese Government?(Holt, 1964), opium dens populated China. The effective aphrodisiac nature of the drug promoted obscenity. Smokers lay in stupor on wooden couches, their minds filled with fantasies and blissful emotions (Holt, 1964 Hays, 2008). Eventually, most of them were unable to work, business activities became importantly reduce and the civil service was almost completely paralysed (Holt, 1964 Allingham, 2006). According to Allingham, the smoking of opium had touch on the idle rich and more significantly, about 90 percent of all men under the age of forty in Chinas coastal regions. sleepyheaded addicts roamed the streets in their thousands causing many social problems and increasing the crime rate significantly as they searched for means to enable them support their habit (Wudi, 2002). According to Hays (2008), Emperor Tao-kuangs special high gear Commissioner Lin Tse-hsu estimated that 4 million Chinese people got addicted to opium but a British physician running(a) in Canton puts the figure at about 12 million. such was the take of addiction that led to the opium war. Even though Britain was aware of this leve l of addiction in China, it failed to respond positively to stop this decay.Chinese economyThis huge number of opium addicts required an equally huge supply of the drug. By 1838, opium represented 57 percent of Chinese imports (Allingham, 2006 Chesneauk, Bsatid Bergere, 1977). This took its toll on the Chinese economy. The sale of goods to Westerners was no longer sufficient for Chinese purchase of opium. merchandise of Chinese silver, prized by the West for its fine quality had to be assiduous to balance trade (Chesneauk, Bsatid Bergere, 1977 Asia for Educators, 2009). Even by 1833 when the East Indian Companys monopoly on trade ended, China already had a trade deficit of about 1.5 million to 2 million pounds a year that had to be paid in silver (Holt, 1964). This drain in Chinese silver caused flash in its value within China and people had to pay more in copper for a fixed amount of silver (Holt, 1964).High Commissioner Lin Tse-hsuEmperor Tao-Kuang who was enthroned in 1820 had a fiery zeal for reform innate(p)(p) out of genuine care for his people. He realised that the opium crisis required a radical cure (Holt, 1964). In 1838, after a great debate that involved most of Chinas top ranking officials in which a absolute majority favoured an eradication of the opium trade while some advocated its legalization, Emperor Tao-Kuang commissioned a prominent official called Lin Tse-Hsu to go to Canton to eradicate the illicit opium trade that had become severely pervasive (Rodzinski, 1984 Chesneauk, Bsatid Bergere, 1977). Extremely heavy punishments that included the conclusion penalty were promulgated for native opium traders (OBrien, 2010). According to Rodzinski (1984), Lin Tse-hsu was known for his integrity, justice, compassion and condition for others. However, his attempt to carry out his assignment was fundamentally the immediate cause of the opium war (Teng Fairbank, 1954 Rodzinski, 1984 Hooker, 1996).Figure Artist Impression of Lin Tse-hsu (Chi naA2Z.Com, 2010)When Lin arrived in Canton in March 1839, he began his mission by appealing to everyone, especially the foreign merchants, to co-operate with him in the suppression of opium smoking. He then ordered all foreign merchants to surrender to the Imperial Government all supplies of opium held in store-ships in Lintin. In addition every foreign merchant was given a trey day ultimatum to sign a bond vowing to stop importing opium and deem that any default would lead to confiscation of the illegal cargo and death penalty of the defaulter (Holt, 1964 OBrien, 2010). According to Holt, under enormous pressure 20,000 chests of British opium were false over to Lin which he destroyed but Captain Charles Elliot (then Chief of the Commission) refused to allow British merchants sign the bonds. However a drunken brawl involving British and American sailors at a Kowloon village resulted in the death of a Chinese citizen called Lin Wei-hi. This brought more tension to the Anglo-Chine se crisis and directly resulted to an Aglo-Chinese war (Holt, 1964).According to Holt, Lin had insisted that foreigners involved in Lin Wei-his death be handed over for trial. Captain Elliot refused, fearing unjust capital punishment as had occurred in the past. This led to a ban imposed by Lin on supplies of provisions and Chinese labour to the entire British community in Macao. Soon after, the British community was expelled from Macao to the unembellished island of Hong Kong. The effect was devastating on the community. In defiance however, Captain Elliot proceeded to arrange for supplies of food from the local peasantry backed by the 28-gun frigate which opened fire on some Chinese war junks that tried to prevent deliver of these supplies. This pronounced the beginning of military hostilities between Britain and China (Holt, 1964).Aggrieved, especially because British merchants in response to Captain Elliots orders had refused to resume normal trading in Canton after they were e xpelled from Macao, Lin issued a formal war threat accompanied with a demand for all British merchant ships in Chinese territory to resume trade in Canton within three age or leave the country. This again led to another military brush in which China sustained heavy losses and the whole Chinese fleet was forced to retreat as 29 war junks were no match for the British frigates (Holt 1964). Lin responded by writing a long letter to Queen Victoria (see appendix A) in which he argued that the Chinese cause pertained to Englands insistence on poisoning Chinese citizens with opium already banned in England. Many authors on the opium wars restrain expressed doubts that Lins letter ever got to the Queen. In 1840, Lin passed an edict that listed the crimes committed by British merchants and barring Britain from trading with China forever (Holt, 1964).The British ResponseHaving reached a decision to go to war, Britain responded by issuing an ultimatum to China demanding that China returned all confiscated goods or paid the pecuniary equivalent, reparations for imprisoning the Chief Superintendent of trade and British merchants, and that British trade would be secured in future. Britain declared that if China did not meet these claims as well as sign a treaty with these claims incorporated, the war would continue.However, Britain acknowledged to China, its right to prohibit the import of opium but insisted that The Queen of England was obliged to protect her people from violence and ill treatment. Britain suggested that China should have dealt instead with its corrupt official who connived in the opium trade. Britain certainly took this position to protect her economic interest by forcing China into maintaining trade. By barring trade with Britain, China had provided the opportunity for Britain to exploit grievances Britain already had. This was the deciding factor that led to the Opium wars.ConclusionChinas arrogance born out of a sense of cultural superiority created tension that significantly affected its relationship with Westerners. This was particularly evident in Chinas refusal to consider a mutually favourable balanced trade with western nations. But for this arrogance, Lin Tse-hsu would have immediately recognized that the Chinese military was inferior to the British and thus he would have adopted a more diplomatic greet rather than threaten war. His actions in trying to eradicate opium smoking and smuggling led directly to the opium war.Chinas seclusion prevented proper diplomatic relationship with the West. This spanking requirement between nations could have prevented a war, but instead it bred grievances that were significant to the Anglo-Chinese war. Such grievances encouraged Britain to promote free trade which led to an increase in opium smuggling, corruption and insubordination. Opium smuggling also resulted in Chinas increased opium addiction and subsequent destruction of lives, families, the Chinese society and degradation o f the Chinese economy.This caused great concern to the Chinese Government and thus increased tensions between both countriesThe British desire to balance trade with china, establish proper diplomatic relations and be treated as equal to China were important factors that provoked the opium war. This was partly due to commercial greed. As a result, even though Britain recognized the damage opium had done in China, she failed in her moral and legal duty not to encourage or participate in smuggling opium into China, especially after it had been banned in Britain. Finally, Britains decision to go to war with china because it wanted to protect its citizens from Chinese unfair treatment was only an excuse that was justifiable in part. However, it was mainly to protect its economic interest with China by forcing China to continue trade which China had prohibited. A decision Britain took with the realization of the extent of Chinese military inferiority. This factor encouraged Britain to go to war.