The Opium War 1839-1842 – Viewing Guide

Vocabulary of Note

• East India Company – a huge trading company funded by private investors that was “chartered,” or given permission by the English crown, to trade in the Indian Ocean region and beyond, including India, Southeast Asia, and eventually East Asia. At one point, the East India Company had its own army and navy; it was responsible for governing British-occupied India. It monopolized trade with China until 1834. (This refers to the British East India Company; there was also a Dutch East India Company.)
• 13 “Factories” – offices and warehouses in a small neighborhood of Canton (Guangdong), China, that European and American traders were allowed to occupy by the Qing government. Trading was allowed only during two “seasons” each year, as the Qing government sought to limit the presence of European traders in China. This system, known as the “Canton System,” was put into effect by the Qing emperor in 1757 and lasted until 1842, when the Opium War concluded. (Editor’s note: 1757 was also the year of the Battle of Plassey in Bengal, India, between France and the East India Company, which the East India Company won and which marked the beginning of British administrative control in India.)
• British India – India under British control, first through trading agreements with the East India Company, which expanded in power from 1615 to 1858, and then directly under British government rule until 1947.
• Gunboat Diplomacy – a diplomatic strategy beginning with the Treaty of Nanjing (which ended the Opium War), in which China was forced to make trading and diplomatic concessions under the threat of military violence.
• Unequal Treaties – treaties beginning with the Treaty of Nanjing that forced China to open itself to foreigners, part of the Century of Humiliation to China.
• Triangular Trade – trade among 3 different ports, where goods from the first port are traded at an intermediary location for other goods, which are then carried to a third port for trade. (The Atlantic Slave Trade is the example often given; here it is the British East India selling opium grown in India to private traders, who then smuggled it into China, where it was illegal. Here it was sold it for silver, which the British East India company could then use to purchase tea and other goods for the British market.)

Names of Note

• Lord Macartney – a British official who led a huge diplomatic mission to China to impress the Qing emperor and establish diplomatic relations, but who failed in part because he refused to bow, or kowtow, to the Chinese emperor.
• Qing Dynasty emperors – Qianlong, who ruled during the high point of Qing power, ending in 1796, followed by Jiaqing (1796–1820) and Daoguang (1820–1850).
• Lin Zixu (ZZ-sue) – a national hero in China’s War on Drugs, he was sent by the Qing emperor in 1838 to end the opium trade
• Charles Elliot – a British trade official who tried to end the crisis between China and the merchants by buying the opium from the merchants and handing it over to Lin Zixu.

Outline of Presentation – with [Timecode]

Background

• A lopsided war where Britain forced China to buy Britain’s (Indian-grown opium); One of the most important and humiliating events of the modern era to China
• The war came out of China’s crackdown on illegal British opium dealers and smugglers operating in China which Britain cast as an issue of free trade [00:25]
• From 1760 to 1843, the Chinese government allowed only the British East India Company trading rights. Trade was restricted to a small section of the southern city of Canton/Guangzhou, in a luxurious if small compound called the 13 factories [01:28]
• All traders were kept in this small toe hold; there was no formal diplomatic relationship [02:17]
• After the Industrial Revolution, Britain was wealthier, mass-produced goods, and sought a more robust trade relationship with China [02:42]

Macartney Mission, 1793

• In 1793 the first diplomatic mission from Britain went to China led by Lord Macartney who brought two ships full of British goods and inventions to impress China, offer himself as an ambassador, and get special trade privileges [02:47]
• The mission was a complete failure due in part to Lord Macartney’s refusal to bow, or kowtow to the Qing emperor Qianlong; trade continued on China’s terms [03:33]
• British demand for Chinese tea was extremely high, and because of tariffs, tea became financially crucial to the British state [05:53]
• Because China did not want to trade anything that Britain manufactured, the British paid for the tea with silver that was mined in Latin America [07:17]
• Social Unrest (revolutions) in Latin America in the early nineteenth century disrupted silver production, creating a shortage which left Britain without sufficient silver to trade for tea [07:45]

Introduction of Opium

• Opium became the solution, the most valuable commercial crop in the world and was processed in the British colony of India. Initially, opium was consumed by elites and not commonly smoked [08:30]
• Opium was illegal, so the East India Company “triangulated” trade, meaning they did not smuggle the opium themselves: they sold it in India to private merchants who brought it to the Chinese coast to sell to Chinese gangs, who then brought the opium into China to sell; traders, pirates, guards, (including Americans) in this drug smuggling trade got extremely rich [09:40]

Centrality of Silver

• By the early nineteenth century, the opium trade flourished and reversed the trade imbalance. More opium was imported than tea exported, forcing Chinese buyers to use silver to purchase opium [12:24]
• China operated with two currencies: copper for everyday use and silver taels for taxes. Peasants had to exchange copper for silver at fluctuating rates in order to pay taxes [12:51]
• As silver flowed out of China to pay for opium, its price rose, increasing the tax burden on peasants and contributing to widespread social unrest [14:00]

Money vs. Morality

• The China trade to Britain was extremely important, so in Britain the moral questions about selling drugs were raised but ultimately ignored [14:40]
• The Free Trade Movement in Britain in the 1830s objected to the monopoly the East India Company had with China and petitioned to open trade to all British merchants, and the opium trade doubled starting in 1834 [15:00]

Governor Lin Zixu as Representative of the Qing Emperor

• In 1838, the Qing emperor sent Governor Lin Zixu to Canton to suppress the opium trade and address the silver shortage [16:20]
• Lin Zixu arrested drug dealers but British traders refused to surrender the opium, prompting Lin to lock down the foreign trading compound [17:27]
• To resolve this growing international incident, and with no power to force the merchants to hand over the opium, Charles Elliot, a British trade official, bought the season’s opium, worth 2 million pounds sterling, with promissory notes to the traders and on behalf of Queen Victoria, and handed it over to Lin Zixu, who destroyed all the opium [18:37]
• The opium Lin Zixu destroyed was technically owned by Queen Victoria, and when the traders began to lobby the British government for the money they were owed, Britain then claimed China owed them that money. This began the opium war [20:03]
• The war lasted from 1840 to 1842 and was disastrous for the Manchu Qing government, as Britain possessed the world’s strongest navy while China effectively had none [22:00] (Editor’s note: After mounting the largest navy in the world in the early years of the Ming dynasty (Ming voyages 1405-1433), China disbanded its navy as it faced no threats from the seas around it; meanwhile, it did need to invest in land defense along its northern borders.)

Treaty of Nanjing

• This is the first of the “Unequal Treaties” that began China’s “Century of Humiliation”
• The Treaty of Nanjing, signed in 1842, ended the war; it was extremely unequal, requiring humiliating concessions from China to Britain, forcing open several ports for trade, and was the first form of “Gunboat Diplomacy” which opened the door to other foreigners including Americans, who forced similar treaties on China [22:40]