Opium Wars Flashcards
Long-term Causes
1) Britain’s expansion as a free trade power led to its exploitation of China as both a market and a source of materials.
2) East India Company - rapidly expanded in 1830s (1767-1000 chests) and by 1838 (40,000- chests)
3) Licensed traders pressuring Chinese importers - dealt with corrupt officials and smugglers
4) Money that Britain received from opium trade was source of income for which they bought Chinese tea with
5) China’s relative military weakness - (Britain greatest naval power)
Short-term Causes
1) Chinese Balance of Payments - late 1830s paying out $18m in silver
2) Growing addiction of the drug itself - affects on military
3) 1839 ordered seizure of opium stocks in Canton - (90% distributed in Canton)
4) Traders stockpiles seized and destroyed post debate about legalising opium
5) Lin Zexu - Special imperial commissioner to Canton - (50k pounds of opium, 70k opium pipes confiscated, 1600 opium addicts arrested)
Course
1) Arrival of British gunboats in 1840 marked beginning of the opium wars
2) Land war was siege and counter-siege with westerners obliged to take refuge in foreign settlements but British broke the sieges and forced the Chinese to take shelter
3) Chinese weapons and equipment did not match Britain’s (12 feet, 3.7m steamships)
4) On land, British forces were equipped with rifles rather than flintlock muskets used by Chinese
5) The British captured vital warehouses where silver raised in taxes were stored, denying the Chinese the ability to pay their soldiers and fund the war effort.
6) June 1840, large British forces from British Indian army sent from Singapore, arrived at sea to put Canton and other ports and towns under siege
7) A fleet of 25 steam ships bombarded the coastal forts up the Yangtze and Pearl Rivers
8) In 1842, reinforcements were sent where the British were able to capture the Bogue forts which commanded entrance to the Pearl River. Later that year the British forces were in a position to seize Shanghai which obliged the Chinese to make peace.
Convention of Ch’uan-pi, January 1841
Attempt to stop the war, provincial governor of Guangdong, Qishan entered discussions with Charles Eliott and they came up with these terms.
1) China to pay Britain $6m in compensation
2) Canton to be fully open to British trade
3) Hong Kong to be ceded to Britain
4) Qing government to be permitted to collect tax from Hong Kong
5) Britain to withdraw from islands it temporarily occupied during the war
Convention did not become a formal treaty as neither side with it, outraged by the governor’s assumed authority the emperor Daoguang, dismissed him.
Treaty of Nanjing, January 1842
1) Qing government was required to pay Britain $21m in compensation for damage and lost opium sales resulting from the war
2) China agreed to cede Hong Kong island to Britain as a permanent colony
3) Britain was granted special trading rights in China’s main ports
4) British subjects were to be entitled to purchase property and take up residence in the treaty ports
5) British residents were exempt from local Chinese law.
Treaty of Tianjin, 1858 (Second Opium War)
1) 11 Chinese ports to be opened for foreign trade
2) Britain, France, Russia and US granted right to set up embassies in Beijing
3) Foreigners entitled to travel in China without restriction
4) Yangtze was to be open to foreign shipping
5) Foreign and Chinese christians were to be entitled to worship openly without interference of the Qing
6) China pay $10m in silver dollars to Britain and France
7) Further $5m to British merchants in reparation for their losses during fighting
Convention of Beijing, 1860
1) Kowloon granted to Britain on a permanent basis
2) Manchu government grant permission to Chinese nationals to emigrate to North America as intended labourers
