China Bad Influence

In the 19th Century British planned to invade China for economic reasons. It had no motives to conquer the state rather entice it to accept a free trade. The country was rich in tea which was in high demand not only in Britain but all over the world. China also had porcelain and silk which the Britons envied. The intruders did not have enough silver to buy the commodities thus opted for a barter system. Consequently, a war between the two states occurred. It was fought between 1848 and 1852 with China becoming unsuccessful due advanced military competence of Britons. The signing of an agreement between them then followed, and British was additionally awarded extraterritorial rights by China. However, the imperialism in China was a positive thing to the natives because it introduced trade and much education in the region which opened up opportunities.

d. Contact with the West increased in the 17th century, but in the early 18th century, the Qing rulers restricted trade to land outside the walls of beijing . The 1793 British mission to expand trade did not succeed, and the emperor Qianlong explained in a letter to George III that

In the early eighteen hundreds, Britain and other European countries demanded more and more Chinese commodities, especially tea and silk. However, only the port in Canton was opened to foreign countries, and Chinese would not take any other form of payments besides silver. The desire to make China into a free market that foreigners have more access to and the increasing, though illegal, European opium import to China eventually created tension between the European countries, especially Britain, and the Chinese government (Allingham Par. 1-2). The two battles fought and won by European powers were known as the Opium Wars. China’s politics, economy, and intellects were both positively and negatively

The economic forces of colonial expansion created a global economy where international trade united previously unfamiliar populations with each other. Before the birth of imperialism, many African and Asian economies were in a primitive and inefficient state lacking the modern technologies and innovations that were common in Europe. With the annexation of territories in Africa and Asia, many European powers were able to export their economic technologies and innovations to those under developing nations. Eventually, the adoption of a similar system of economic operations by both settler and non-settler states allowed international trade to be conducted. What is of utmost importance is that colonialism taught these nations the benefits and procedures of exchanging goods and capitals over borders. Through the practice of global trade, previously unknown populations were able to communicate and conduct business on an international level, thus uniting different economies and their corresponding populations. Aside from

History has proven in many points has proven that growth within a country is trade, and a market. As countries grow the population demands different goods, and some become more valued than others. Some countries grow into vast empires, because of the economy built around these trades. The Netherlands and Portugal became great empires, due to the importance of trade, slave trade, and companies that helped power trade.

Western imperialism in China had a very significant impact, it costed the lives of millions of people, but also helped shape China into a much stronger country than it was during the Qing Dynasty. Imperialism is a country extending its power and influence through the use of military force. There were two wars between the imperialists and China, the infamously called the First and Second Opium wars. The result of these wars was the weakening of the Qing Dynasty and led to a time of rebuilding, which was a great struggle for China. The Europeans wanted to trade with China because of the great opportunity that they saw in the market. China’s population, which was 430 million, was seen as a fast and easy way for the Europeans to make a lot of money. The Chinese refused to cooperate for trade which lead to the conflicts and eventually forced China to concede and have the trade ports opened. China was faced with circumstances they had never dealt with before and suffered from a series of crisis’ worse than any others in their history.

There were many negative and positive consequences that came with the contact between China and the European powers at the turn of the 20th century. These consequences are evidently seen in the impacts of European technology. China had no to intentions to welcome the arrival of Europeans and attempted to control the entry of foreigners into the Middle Kingdom. The assumed barbaric behaviour came from a group of Portuguese sailors during the sixteenth century that had set Chinese attitudes against Europeans. The Chinese banned these bothersome Europeans from entering the land, referring to them as ‘barbarians from the Western Ocean’. On the other hand European traders continued to seek Chinese goods such as silk, tea and porcelain, the proud Chinese expressed

For a country that is so forgotten by on the international scene, from past to present nearly every global superpower has attempted to carve out a piece of the continent for themselves. For much of the 19th century Africa stripped apart from the major European powers of Britain, France, Germany, and Portugal. While much of the influences of these countries have dwindled since Africa’s independence in 1960, Africa is now faced with an onslaught of big business in the form of Chinese workers determined to tap into the numerous abundance that the country holds. In China’s Second Continent, author Howard French dives into the lives and accounts of some of those determined to forge a new empire out of the continent.

Without the Europeans’ motivations and desires, European exploration and colonization may have been very subtle. The main objective of the Europeans during that time period was to find an all water route to Asia. This was because some land routes were blocked by empires in the middle and land routes were harsh and long. Because of this, merchants were only able to travel part of the route and trade with the “middlemen merchants”. These merchants often sold their goods at high prices because they were also not able to buy those at cheap prices. These goods included spices, silk and porcelain from China, cotton from India, and rubber from Southeast Asia. By the time a Chinese product reaches Europe, the price would have exponentially increased, making it logical to just go

The Chinese became mongols in trade so much so that their foreign trade became a state monopoly. Although they were successful in trade and known for being so powerful these voyages had consequences. China ended up with a large expense for going into the Indian ocean. Their expenses came from having about 28,000 soldiers to tend to and feed in order their ships be manned. Even though China monopolized trading by having ports in various areas,

The Qing dynasty of China, which began in 1644, was seen as very isolationist and wary of foreign trade and imports. However, the Europeans were very interested in developing two-way trade with China. Europeans had to pay directly in silver for the porcelain, silk, spices, and tea they imported from China. This was a significant stress on the European economy, which was already strained from internal tensions.

A common criticism that “Arrival” receives is that it teetered along the lines of binarism. in other words The Americans were the “good guys” and the Chinese were the “bad guys”, the problem with this argument lies within the premise that China is “bad” because it wanted to protect itself from an unknown threat. A more realistic explanation of China’s choice to take military action against the alien visitors was because General Shang had the standpoint that allowed him to think in a “better safe than sorry” point of view. This is why standpoint theory is so critical in properly understanding the film. Each character has their own standpoint that directs them to see the world in a certain way. Going back to the case of General Shang, he comes

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the demand for Chinese goods in the European market created a trade imbalance because the market for Western goods in China were non-existent; China was very self-sufficient with their produce and tools that they didn’t require imported goods.(Fitzgerald, 1992 The Europeans were not allowed access into China 's interior market, the Chinese people didn’t have a necessity of imported items. European silver flowed into China when the Canton System, established in the mid-18th century, confined the sea trade to Canton and to the Chinese merchants of the Thirteen Factories. (Hanes, 2003) The British East India Company had a monopoly of British trade. The British East India Company began to auction opium grown in India to independent foreign traders in exchange for silver. (Hughs, 1972) The opium was then transported to the Chinese coast and sold to local middlemen who retailed the drug inside China. The flow of silver was increasing in numbers as well as the amount of opium addicts that had alarmed Chinese officials. (Lim, 2011) The drug weakened a large percentage of the population, and silver began to flow out of the country to pay for the opium. Many of the economic problems China faced later were either directly or indirectly traced to the opium trade. (Keller, 2012)

“Most of the peasants’ clothing and other daily necessities were produced at home. The men farmed the land and the women worked at home cooking and weaving cloth. People had no need, nor did they have the money, to buy foreign manufactured goods ” However the Opium Wars instigated major change to the economy through the Treaty of Nanjing among over successive unequal treaties. Article II states that Western merchants are to be allowed for the purpose of carrying on their Mercantile pursuits, without molestation or restraint at the Cities and Towns of Canton, Amoy, Foochow-fu, Ningpo, and Shanghai. These were strategically selected ports which allowed a large scope of the coastline of China to be fully accessed by the ships. Consequently, there have been dramatic increases in the economic activity of China, for generations of the denial of foreign trade sector, the sudden ease of access allowed commercial activity to flourish especially in regards to exports. “Tea export increased by over 500% and silk export rose to 28 times the previous amount of bales being shipped. Also, with the Hong abolished foreigners could now trade freely in China. Because all duties had to be negotiated with foreign countries, they were cut from 65% to 5%, wrecking many industries within China.” This is a direct correlation between the coerced changes that were made to

New Imperialism started China’s downward spiral. Europeans, British, and Americans made a mad dash to claim new territories. The main goals of these countries were to supply their countries with raw materials to fuel their economic growth. Benefits to occupied countries were determined by which country and what faction of that country occupied the territory.