Zewei's Article Analysis

Before the arrival of western powers, China was very stable, agricultural, and ethnocentric. They had many factories that produced silk, cotton, and porcelain with their natural resources: salt, tin, silver, and iron mines. They had no interest of trade or interaction with foreigners. From the early eighteenth century, European and American Imperialism spread throughout China with a goal to extend their nation’s power. China was one of many territories that undertook the changes of New Imperialism. By 1912, the country was governed by outside nations: Great Britain (mostly), Russia, Germany, France, and Japan. Their influence on China resulted malignantly on the country’s economy, political ties, and lifestyle; in spite of the few

While under the rule of the Emperor Qianlong, China’s foreign policy and trade was beginning to unfold and open up to Europe. Qianlong, however, still maintained a strict and regulated administration of all foreign trade and foreign ability to exist within China. “ It is true that Europeans, in the service of the dynasty, have been permitted to live at Peking, but they are compelled to adopt Chinese dress, they are strictly confined to their own precincts and are never permitted to return home.” All outside interactions with China could only be permitted if ‘in the

British trade with China during the Qing dynasty from 1750 - 1900 was economically harmful for the Chinese, and the Chinese Imperial government responses were political. A document showing a Chinese citizen’s view on the events and how they played out would have helped me to better understand how it affected the people of China’s

This had led to British completely outmuscling the Chinese with their far superior technology, as well as forcing the Chinese into a treaty that opened up numerous ports in China, allowed Westerners to move to China, as well as pay reparations to the British. This utter defeat showed the Chinese that they needed to adapt, and our second document, a map forecasting the partition of China amongst various nations, showed them that they needed to make those changes quick. All of this led to arguments between groups who felt China needed to self-strengthen and those who feared the increasing influence of Western ideals that could be brought on by learning more about the West in order to better defend against it. This is shown in our third document on self-strengtheners, such as Feng Guifen who argues for youths to be taught in Western languages and sciences in order to best defend against them. This document shows further the nationalism within China, as well as the importance of traditions, ideals, and values, as both sides argue their points based on protecting them from Western

In the text, “Letter to Queen Victoria”, written by Lin Zexu in 1839, he implores the Queen of Great Britain, Queen Victoria, to stop her subjects from selling opium to the Chinese public. Zexu does so by exemplifying the past relationship of China and Britain, by moral persuasion, and by warnings and threats. However, Lin Zexu’s assumption of calling British subjects as Barbarian and compliant to Chinese rule ineffectively persuades.

In document 1, there is Hongwu Emperor’s favorite passage from “The Way and the Power” and it’s stopping China from letting people trade and go to other countries because the king was afraid of his people realizing that there are lots of better places in other countries and other countries have better products than China. If people finds out that other countries better place to live than people will start complaining and scatter to other countries. This will eventually make China lose power and other countries will start to invade and attack China. Next, document 9 a Chinese emperor wrote rules for his people in 1524 and it was about trading without permission with Barbarian will be punished. First rule said that people who meet them and trades with barbarian before the examination of the ship will be punished.

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

China experiences the pressure of the imperialist’s military which China did not have the knowledge or the experience to match. China went from a superior leader, self-sufficient country, that thought that everyone else were barbarians to a torn country. China accepted foreign trade, but they wanted to control and limit how much and with who the trade was used for, they felt that they European trade was unnecessary. They did not allow the western merchants to have any power or privileges and restricted them to Canton, plus they refused to open their trade system beyond Co-Hong which caused china to not become as prosperous as Japan. (Valentini 2013) Because China the believed that they were the center of civilization and that the Western culture was inferior the Chinese government refused to go along with any of the European’s request and the two nations became hostile towards

Both Japan and China lie in the East of Asia. ‪To a certain extent，Japan and China own similar culture background, in the Confucian Cultural Circle. But when we look back into the modern history development, Japan and China made quite different decisions when facing the western countries’ aggression. China suffered the invasion in 1840 after the first Sino-British War. Japan was in a similar situation in the black boat incident in 1853, the Opium War made the West began to pay attention to East Asia. From then on, Japan began to face the western culture. ‬The reactions, as well as the result of Japan and China were quite disparate. This article wants to discuss what lead to the difference. ‬‬

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.

China believed that the wealth of China is uses to profit the barbarians because there were a mass amount of ships that enter China for trading purposes even though the country China and Britain is nowhere near each other. For the nations who was force to endure and obey rules made by other country was an insult. Not only did the Western took control of trading and some lands, they also took advantage of government laws. This meant they were allow to exempt or punish as they seem fit for the crimes. This allowed the foreigners to commit crimes and get away with it with only minor consequences, which the Asian nation cannot intervene to carry out justice as this was part of the treaty.

There were many problems with the system of trade in China; even before opium trading began. China, believing herself to be the most civilized and advanced country, did not feel the need to satisfy Britain, a “barbarian” country’s request for freer trade and were concerned the British wanted land. Britain however,

In the 1839 Chinese foreign relations was based on what was good for China. If they were making profits, everything was peachy. But if more harm was being done than good, the Chinese as Lin Zexu says, “would remove it for the world.” China was very strict on Europeans living in China. Emperor Qian only allowed Europeans that he thought “in service of the dynasty” to stay, and they must obey strict rules. Europeans had to adopt Chinese dress, were forced to stay in their designated “precincts”, and were never allowed to return to or communicate with their home country. It was the respect of these rules by the British rulers, according to Lin that China had welcomed so hospitably trade with England for last two hundred years.

Transnational Corporations have been steadfast in calling for respect, support and promotion of human rights (Kline, 2005). This has been done in reference to the United Nations Universal

Many business people and ethicists believe that it is time for businesses to start following human rights. There is however the lack of agreement of human rights laws from transnational corporations. Transnational corporations support human rights by providing jobs with livable wages and show respect for rule of law. However, transnational corporations are also known for violating human rights laws by providing very unsafe working conditions, lower than average pay, have harmful environmental pollution, commit bribery and seem to ignore the laws of the host nation. Non-governmental and transnational organizations have not been very effective in abiding by human rights laws and must begin to follow set human rights laws if they want to receive more support.