The Opium Wars

The Opium WarsMy travel reading for this course was a history lesson on one of the darkest periods in China’s long history. Before the Cultural Revolution and the Nanking Massacre was the Opium Wars. This two part war forever changed China’s future albeit violently and at high cost. In short, the wars were due to British smuggling of opium from British controlled India in the defiance of Chinese law. Historically, China was the most advanced civilization for centuries. It had coveted treasures that nations far away obsessed over. European want for Chinese tea, silk, and porcelain created a trade deficit in silver, the only form of payment that the Chinese would accept. The British solution to this problem was to import opium. The addictive nature of the drug created an instant consumer base and the British trade problem was reversed. The opium trade was highly lucrative and British opium traders as well as Chinese port merchants greatly benefited. Wu Bingjian, known to the British as Howqua, was the most influential of these merchants and at one point was the wealthiest person on the planet. This one sided war demonstrated the ethnocentric fall of China. The British, at this point, were the most technologically advanced people. Their steam powered ships and superior cannons tore through Chinese ports without hesitation.

The Opium Wars signaled the end of Chinese isolationism, albeit forced, and is now thought of as the beginning of modern Chinese history. Due to a wide number of unequal treaties created by the victorious British, Hong Kong was ceceded to Britain and five more treaty ports were indefinitely opened to the west. The Treaty of Nanjing not only saw the cession of Hong Kong but the Treaty of Tianjin, during the second Opium War, that saw the legalization of opium importation in China. The Opium Wars effectively opened up China to the west as France, Russia, Britain and the United States were granted rights to set up legations in Beijing. Russia and the United States piggybacked on a most favored nation clause, stating that whatever rights Britain and France received, they would in turn receive.

Western influence in China is evident now as Shanghai has its own “french concession”, and a big french population. Hong Kong is titled as a Special Administrative Region and is an area still governed by two countries. Macau, also lost during the Opium Wars, is the other SAR and is governed by China and Portugal. The Bund, perhaps the most famous landmark in Shanghai has seen its share of foreign direct investment and has housed numerous western banks and financial institutions, which can all be traced back to the opening of Shanghai as a treaty port after the Opium Wars.