Imperialism Spread Of China And The Opium War

Also, citizens became addicted, and the drug eventually killed thousands of people. China’s actions angered Britain politicians even though opium was illegal in Britain as well. But was a result, war started between the two countries. In 1842, the treaty of Nanking ended the war. It was the first unequal treaty with Britain and it said that Chinese had to give up Hong Kong to Britain for ninty-nine years, the British would live in China by extraterritoriality at four ports, distribution of opium would continue and Christain missionaries will be set up throughout China. When China couldn’t meet the ridiculous requirements of the treaty, the second Opium War began in 1956. As a result, Britain won again by the Treaty of Tientsin. The treaty asked to open more ports to outer nations, let foreign leaders into the capital Beijing, and legalized the distribution and use of opium. Their situation was dangerously bad.

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.

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

Throughout China, currency was rapidly changing. At first China used paper money, but silver was the main form of payment. Silver was the main form of payment because it was easier to trade among many different countries with it. Paper money was used for a while, but the worth of it didn’t last very long and so China returned to using silver. Europe, America and China all started using silver for foreign trade. It was important for China to establish trading posts with Britain and America because of the new cultural items being brought into the country for the foreign ones. One reason for the success of silver taking over the main form of currency was the fact that large amounts of silver had been available in America and in Britain, who hadn’t started using silver as currency yet. Once the Ming Dynasty ended, silver was still used, but mostly along the coast of China.

In traditional Chinese view, a sign of a growing economy was not necessarily a sign of a prosperous nation. Rather, a steady growth in population was viewed as a sign of peace and prosperity. However, as farms grew smaller and labour surplus lowered the standard of wages, China's standard of living decreased (Ebrey 305). It is due to the large population of China that it never saw a need to rely on inanimate energy for the production of goods. Because labour was plentiful and cheap during this time, machinery was never the focus for manufacturing products. The lack of industrialization in China during the early 19th century would eventually lead the its Western counterparts overtaking them. The Chinese government attempted, but failed, to relieve the fiscal crises afflicting China. These problems compounded with the introduction of opium by the British in the 19th century. Previous to this, the British were upset with the restrictions placed on foreign trade by the Qing in China. Having no commodity other than silver that China wanted from Britain, trade between the two countries greatly favoured the Chinese until the British discovered opium. Acquired by the East India Trading company in India, opium became a good used by the British to gain an upper-hand in trading with China. The opium was highly addictive, becoming so severe in China that by 1813, China had banned the production, importation and use of opium (Ebrey 306). Problems with smuggling opium into China led to the Qing Emperor to bar Western traders in China from trading in the country. This would eventually lead to the opium wars between China and Britain, effectively resulting in a British victory and an age of British dominance over Chinese trade ports. While China is but one example of Western

Western Imperialism had a great impact on the lives of the people of China and their sufferings would never be forgotten. The British violently intruded China and sold opium, a highly addictive drug, to the Chinese people. The result of this was a devastated economy. China describes this as the century of humiliation. The First Opium War (1836-1842) started due to Britain’s confidence in their military as well as the suppression of opium. Britain

The Opium Wars, despite being a small footnote in history books, is a complex war that heavily based itself on the concept of trade. It involved two different nations, China and Britain, and how both sides bickered and argued over trade to the brink of war. China, with clear power in its trade over Europe, implemented a new trade system which restricted the flow of goods from Europe to a single port named Guangzhou or better known as Canton. Worst, the Chinese would only accept opium as a form of payment for goods. For Britain, this would be an economic nightmare since they survived two major wars (American Revolution and Napoleonic) and was running a major trade deficit from buying Chinese goods with silver.

To begin with, the opium trade took a direct hit to China’s prosperity, which set the stage for future tensions. Before the illegal industry was well-established in the early 19th century, China benefited from trade with Great Britain, selling a steadily increasing amount of tea in exchange for precious silver. However, in the late eighteenth century, the British managed to reverse this trade balance by exporting opium instead of silver. By the mid-1820s, China’s silver was rapidly flowing out of China to keep up with the insatiable demand for opium. The outflow of silver caused the price to rise eighty percent between 1800-1830, placing a heavy burden on farmers, whose taxes were assessed in the precious metal.

China, the creator of tea and silk went through a period where they had troubles with the west. This took place in the early nineteenth century. During this time china still thinks that they are the middle Kingdom (The center of the world). Great Britain has wanted to expand for years and get trade from other countries. China has not wanted to trade with Britain. China has not wanted to trade because of they are self sufficiece. China has been living by Confucian principles for the last thousand years, and does not want to change their way of life. The west really wanted China 's tea and silk so they kept trying to trade with china, but the problem was that great britain had nothing china wanted. Then one

The First Opium War was conducted from 1839 to 1842, and was between China and Britain. The reasoning for the war occurring was caused by China’s attempts to withhold the Opium trade. It was over diplomatic relations, trade, and the administration of foreign nationals in China. Opium was illegally being imported into China, through India, by the British. They grew the opium on their plantations in India. At first, the British were addicted to stimulating Chinese tea. Trade imbalance occurred due to the Chinese buying few European products and demanding Gold or Silver in return. The reverse flow of Silver and the increasing number of opium addicts alarmed Chinese officials, and resulted in over 20,000 chests of opium to be confiscated. As opium was being imported into china, it caused unrest in society, the local consumption to increase, and the decrease in the price of the drug. Being a stimulant drug, Opium spread throughout the country, badly affecting its nation.

The Opium War sparked as the Chinese tried subdue the opium trade. British sellers made large quantities of money illegally selling the drug grown in India used for Chinese teas. The drug began to be a troubling addiction in China, the addiction was causing problems in China’s social and economics. The Chinese government banned opium, killed Chinese dealers, and asked the British traders to stop. But the British didn’t agree to stop trade and demanded free trade. Later on in 1839 the war began due to Chinese warships clashing with British sellers. Advanced British gunboats attacked Chinese coastal and river ports, Chinese had no choice but to fight back with outdated war tactics making them an easy victory for the

What caused the First Opium War to take place? From attempts to suppress the Opium trade, diplomatic relations on China’s and Britain’s conflicting viewpoints and foreign nationals of justice for the administration, resulted in the commencement of the First Opium War. Silk, porcelain, and tea throughout the European market for Chinese goods was placed on high demand throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, creating a trade imbalance as of the virtually non-existent market for Western goods in China. In the mid-17th century, when the Canton system was established, China gained large amounts of European silver, in which the trade to Canton confined the sea. The British East India Company (EIC) had an extremely identical or similar trade to the British. In the increasing exchange for silver, opium grown in India by the EIC was undertaken by auctioning off the opium to foreign independent traders. To middlemen on the China coast, the drug was transported then retailed inside China. From India to China throughout the 18th century, the British illegally exported opium, resulting in economic and serious social disruption as of the widespread addiction to the drug. With the act of confiscating and destroying 20,000 opium chests in 1839 throughout March, the Chinese government, which led to being warehoused

The Opium wars were a series of conflicts mainly between China and Britain. The dispute was over the legalization of the Opium trade. China’s people were severely suffering from the effects of the Opium. Britain had been illegally moving opium from India into China. A large mass of the public had become addicted to opioids and the government sensed the problem. Due to the success of the opium trade, Britain refused to stop bringing in the Opium. The conflict between the two countries sparked the two part Opium Wars. The first Opium war resulted in many different unsteady treaties, many of which were seen as unfair to the Chinese. The second Opium War was a result of British greed. The Chinese were preoccupied with the Taiping Rebellion, so the British decided to take advantage of the situation and push the opium trade further, resulting in further conflict. The French decided to join the British in the fighting, and the Chinese were left defeated and forced into negotiations. Both wars resulted in series of treaties, but each war’s treaties had different impacts and affected people in different ways.

Opium War- 1839-42, 1883-85, this was a trade of illegal drugs between the Indians and the Chinese. The trade took place on the Canton River between China, Britain and India. This war was an event to stop the smuggling of Opium into Britain and China.

England tired of the strict regulation of the Canton system, what they believed to be the Chinese undeserved entitled attitudes, and the need for new markets, used gun diplomacy to force China to accept unequal treaties and open its foreign trade. This was China’s introduction to ‘modernity’, but in truth it was the imperial nations craving up of China for their benefit and labeling it as bringing