First Opium War
During the eighteenth century, the market in Europe and
America for tea, a new drink in the West, expanded greatly.
Additionally, there was a continuing demand for Chinese silk
and porcelain. But China, still in its pre-industrial stage,
wanted little that the West had to offer, causing the
Westerners, mostly British, to incur an unfavourable balance
of trade. To remedy the situation, the foreigners developed a
third-party trade, exchanging their merchandise in India and
Southeast Asia for raw materials and semi-processed goods,
which found a ready market in Guangzhou. By the early
nineteenth century, raw cotton and opium from India had
become the staple British imports into China, in spite of the
fact that opium was prohibited entry by imperial decree. The
opium traffic was made possible through the connivance of
profit-seeking merchants and a corrupt bureaucracy.
When the Daoguang Emperor took the throne in 1820, he
walked into an ongoing crisis. From the late 1700s, opium had
been leaking into China. In 1839, the trade with Britain,
which was mostly handled in Canton, consisted of porcelain,
tea, cotton, and silk. When cotton exports decreased, a trade
imbalance occurred. Opium was seen as a replacement for it.
Opium is addictive (see Opium
Addiction), and the British East India Company took
advantage of that. The substance was harvested in Bengal,
near India, and it would be purchased by the British, who
then would trade it with the Chinese. Many eventually became
addicted to the drug and needed it to cope with daily life or
else suffer from withdrawals. Chinese smugglers brought it
farther inland for distribution to the population, causing
the problem to grow worse. Americans competed with the Bengal
opium by buying it in Turkey and then offering discounted
opium at Indian auctions. Chinese smugglers then bought it,
and the British East India Company helped by making illicit
agreements to distribute it farther inland. Around 40,000
chests of it were brought into the mainland in 1839 alone.
Buyers paid silver for it, so the silver stockpiles in China
decreased significantly.
The Daoguang Emperor had made the use of opium illegal and
wanted it confiscated at Canton. When shipments of opium
poured into Canton, he had his minister, Lin Zexu, blockade
the harbour. Following the seizure and destruction of opium,
the British began shelling Chinese cities from their ships.
The British, having a far superior navy eventually caused
heavy enough casualties that the Chinese signed the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. The
treaty forced China to open up multiple cities for trade, to
pay for the cost of the war, and to turn control of Hong Kong
over to the British. Rather than having any more destruction
occur, the Qing Daoguang Emperor signed the treaty.
The Treaty of Nanking was the first of the "unequal
treaties" that China was forced to sign. Although the British
had to withdraw their troops, the rest of the terms benefited
them over the Chinese. The Qing had to repay the British for
the opium Lin Zexu confiscated, release all British
prisoners, and cede Hong Kong to the British. In addition to
Hong Kong, four other ports were opened to the British.:
Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai. The sale of opium,
which was the cause of the war in the first place, was not
even addressed in the treaty.
Thus, while in China the use of opium was still illegal,
Chinese smugglers continued to distribute opium on the
streets to be used at home or in dingy opium dens in secret
sub-basements in crowded cities. Authorities were authorized
to arrest these people but were generally unsuccessful,
mostly due to the fact that local officials were bribed.
