Trade In China In The 17th And 18th Century

China has 5000 years of history which experienced wars, collapses, failures and successes. The Opium War in the year 1839 and 1856 marked the changing point of China’s trade policy with foreigners, especially with British in opium and tea. China changed from getting tributes to being forced to sign the Nanjing Treaty and Tianjing Treaty with British and French. Due to China’s over confidence and unwelcome attitude toward foreigners and opium, it caused the British to declare the Opium War to China which made Chinese suffer for many years, but at the same time it also forced China to open its doors to the foreigners.

While westerners in China pushed to claim rights and generally oppose Chinese reformers who worked to better China, Chinese government and society faced internal problems. Being a main target for imperialism, China faced much western influence. One of the events that marked the beginning of intense western influence was the case concerning the Opium Wars. A main imperialistic power, Great Britain, began trading China opium, a heavily addictive drug, in exchange for tea and silk. At first, it seemed like a positive idea – the Chinese

From as early as 2100 BCE to as late as 1912 CE, China lived and prospered in the period of the dynasties (Timeline of Chinese History and Dynasties). The dynastic period included successions of rulers who usually descended from the same family. After the ruler passed away, their successor took their preceder 's sole-reigning position of emperor. The Xia Dynasty started the period of the dynasties in 2100 BCE. (Timeline of Chinese History and Dynasties). The Qing Dynasty marked the end of the dynastic period in 1912 CE (Timeline of Chinese History and Dynasties). In between the first and last dynasties, China experienced a time of economic, social, environmental, and religious growth that affected all of the people of China. Traders and merchants that traveled the Chinese trading systems tremendously contributed to the amplification of trade of goods, skills, ideas, customs, and messages. Humans, most often slaves, built roads and canals such as the Silk Road and the Grand Canal across and through mountains, deserts, and rivers to facilitate ways to connect with China 's other surrounding countries. During the dynastic period, China developed a strong and diverse economy and culture through their unique and innovative trading routes, the Silk Road and the Grand Canal.

The long-term effects of the opium trade were economically harmful to the Chinese. In “An Argument for Legalization,” senior official and advisor to Emperor Daoguang,

Opium came from opium poppy seeds, which were grown and sold under British ruling in India. The British East India Company developed a monopoly which took place in effectively growing opium and making profits and/or trading it with the Chinese in exchange for their premium good such as silk, porcelain, and tea. According to Memorials on the Legalization and Elimination of Opium by Xu Naiji and Yuan Yulin, they explained how the rise of opium prompted many debts and death around China. Opium became an addiction for many, from the poor to officials in government positions. Cutting off all access of trading opium would’ve started issues in the trading network, not just with Britain but with the Western countries as well. Instead of passing laws to completely ban opium, they reverted to only permitting the barbarian merchants to import opium to pay duty as a medication. This made it unacceptable for money to be involved with the product. According to Xu Naiji, smokers of opium were lazy, with no purpose in life and if they were caught smoking it, the only punishment was getting the opium confiscated. However, if any officer, scholar, or soldier were found smoking opium, the would be immediately dismissed from public employ. Yuan Yulin, a minister, believes that the expansion of opium is the government’s fault, being that they cannot decipher right from wrong; he thought it was unfair that prohibition of smoking opium only applied to the officers of the government, scholars, and military but not the common people. The British capitalized on the effects of opium, because many of China’s population were going to put forth their money, goods, etc. for

In conclusion, the 1839 “Letter to Queen Victoria” by Lin Zexu argued that Opium is a source of evil and pain and appealed to the Queen of Great Britain to abolish sale and smuggling of opium in China. Zexu did this through exemplifying the past trading relationship of China and Great Britain, also by moral persuasion, and last by means of warnings and

As a result of Britain’s presence in India, Britain “introduced Western education. This has brought an ancient and civilized nation in touch with modern thought, modern sciences, and modern life. [Britain] built an administration that is strong and efficient. [Britain] framed wise laws and have established courts of justice.” (Doc 12) Although India experienced many improvements in education and technology, China was left in a poor state. Doc 14 states that “[A chinese woman’s] husband sold everything [they] had.”, and this was the case for many Chinese people. Since many citizens were addicts, they were willing to sell everything they owned for money. As a result of opium, China had a growing poor rural population. There was also inflation and heavy taxes which didn’t help

In the beginning of the 19th century the British began to trade opium, an illegal drug, for tea with China which caused, “...the first Opium War...which resulted in a Chinese defeat and the expansion of British trading privileges...”This discrepancy in the trading relationship between the Chinese and the British caused China’s to forfeit their trading territory to the British. The outcome of the Opium War was a setback for the Chinese. Places where the Chinese previously conducted business was no longer available. Economical wars were not uncommon: “During the mercantilist period…a military...would deter attacks by other countries and aid its own territorial expansion.” The focus of many governments became to protect their economy by constantly gaining more territory to increase business. The change of China’s trade routes could have negatively affected the economy. If the Chinese economy were to weaken it could affect the economies of other countries that China interacted with. The Columbian Exchange, a network of trade routes throughout the world, caused the environment to change as, “ ...Old World crops such as wheat, barley, rice, and turnips...raveled west across the Atlantic, and New World crops...traveled east to Europe.” The exchanging of crops between the New World and the Old World, two different geographical areas,

When the trade monopoly of the East India Company started to end in 1834 and the United Kingdom declared that they want a free trade in China, the Chinese authority ignored their wish to close the Canton-System. So the East India Company had to illegally sell their Opium in China, illegally in the way that they violated the Canton-System as they did not only stay in Canton and also since they lost their trade monopoly their selling of Opium lead to much more selling of Opium by various merchants, what in the end lead to an overflowing amount of illegal Opium in

At the end of the eighteenth century, China 's items were richly fancied by Britain. Nevertheless, the Chinese considered Europeans to be savages and would not have jumped at the chance to trade with them. In the midst of trade, there was an anomaly to bolster China, in light of the fact that the Europeans were constrained to buy Chinese stock using silver. The Western Imperialists began to create opium poppies from in India, and thereafter sneak them into China. China soon got the chance to be reliant on the drug and spent most of it 's money on the purchase of it from the Europeans and Americans. This moved the equality of vitality to be to bolster Europe.

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

Xu’s memorandum advocates for the government allowing opium to be brought into China by foreign traders as a taxable good as the best way to combat the opium problem. Xu views strict laws against opium as ineffectual for tackling the drug problem in China, noting in the first paragraph that, “the more severe the interdicts against [opium] are made, the more widely do the evils arising therefrom spread” (Xu page 1). While he acknowledges the addictive and destructive effects of opium on those who use it, Xu believes that the stricter the laws proscribing the dissemination and use of opium, the more widely used the drug becomes. Xu argues that the prohibitions against the opium trade led to increased smuggling by foreign traders and increased use of the drug across China. Conversely, when the state’s policy towards opium was one of leniency, in which opium was allowed into China and taxed as a medicine, the issues involving opium were

Ho-fung Hung’s work attempts to reconcile the widespread expectation that China’s rise would lead to a fundamental change in the global status quo with the observed fact that China has become increasingly connected to and one with the global status quo. To do this, he must first examine China’s rise and prove that it upholds the global status quo, and further must look into the origins of China’s rise, going back to the 13th century, to understand why this rise seemingly changed so little about the global world order.

During the 18th century, the British began trading opium to the Chinese. They had finally found a commodity the Chinese were willing to buy. Opium was an illicit drug with addictive properties. As demand on opium increased, the British traders made huge profits and the trade imbalance was reversed. There was now a steady flow of silver leaving China. In 1796, the Ch’ing government banned the importation of opium. This did not stop the British, who continued the trade illegally. As well, extensive corruption amongst Chinese officials allowed the opium trade to flourish.

In order to increase China’s consumption, some current literatures come up with several policy suggestions to reduce China’s high savings rate and therefore stimulate China’s consumption. Anderson (2007) points out that the bulk of excess savings has come from Chinese firms as they “expropriate” market share and profits from the rest of the world. This implies that the sudden appearance of China’s imbalance over the past few years, the sharply rising trade surplus and the implied dramatic increase in domestic savings relative to the already very high mainland investment levels, was not caused by weak consumers. Instead, the bulk of the evidence points to Chinese companies and rising corporate savings as the source of the problem. In particular, the banking system data show that the household share in total deposits has fallen since the beginning of the decade, offset by a rise in the enterprise deposit share. This is confirmed by flow of funds estimates, which also indicate that while household and government saving rates are generally high, neither ratio has changed much over the past five years. Instead, the real driver of the recent Chinese "savings boom" is the corporate sector, in which the estimated gross saving rate has shot up by nearly 7 percentage points since the beginning of the decade