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Course: World history > Unit 5
Lesson 7: ImperialismWATCH: Opium Wars
The British wage two wars on China to have better access to Chinese markets, especially to sell opium grown in British India.
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- What was the Taiping Rebellion about? And Sal mentioned something about a Christian group, so where did that influence originate from?(12 votes)
- The Taiping rebellion was led by a man named Hong Xiuquan. After a series of failures on the national imperial exams, Hong went through many mental breakdowns. But he reported saw many visions and dreams along with reading many Christian texts. This led him to conclude that he saw God in his visions and that he was the younger brother of Jesus. Already filled with the anti-Qing sentiment from his exam failures, he began to attract many followers and begin his quest to overthrow the Qing dynasty and reform China under his vision.(15 votes)
- How much was China immersed in Western Trade at this point? I understand many europeans surrounded them, but the Japanese had kept to themselves, so how much did the Chinese contact Europeans or other Westerners?(11 votes)
- China did trade with westerners ever since the Portuguese arrived on their shores in the 15th century. But trade and diplomatic relations were limited due to China's semi-isolationist foreign and protectionist economic policy. But as technology and trade boomed in the west, the Europeans began to attempt to assert more trade power in Asia. But China's centuries-long policy came into conflict with that of westerners. China tried to cut trade benefits for the West, which led to many wars with Western powers over trade dispute, which led China to sign multiple unequal treaties.(14 votes)
- If the British were trading Opium out of India, did the wars have any effect on India? Or was it only on England and China?(8 votes)
- I'm sure it increased the demand for opium in India leading to more people working to grow it(0 votes)
- Just how addictive is opium compared to other substances, and exactly why are the British selling opium in Qing China?(1 vote)
- The British were selling opium in Qing China to create a cycle of hard silver. The British were paying hard silver to China for their teas, silks, and other products, but China was not interested in British products, so the silver stayed in China. Britain wanted to get the silver out, so they smuggled opium into China, which once the Chinese were addicted, the Qing government had to pay for in hard silver. The same silver that Britain had paid them for their products. So it was a cycle, Britain paying silver for Chinese products, and China returning that silver to Britain in exchange for Opium.(5 votes)
- Sal says that the british decide to force the issue. The issue of what? China not trading?(3 votes)
- When the video said "Force the issue" it meant that they would force opium upon the Chinese whether they liked it or not. They did this by starting the First Opium War.(2 votes)
- why did the christians want to overthrow the Dynasty of Quing?(1 vote)
- That depends on whether one can equate the people of the Taiping rebellion with Christians. The way I read it, the guy who led the Taiping was a megalomaniac who used misunderstood parts of Christianity to drive his personal mission to overthrow the Qing. And, besides, by the time of the Taiping, the Qing were pretty well on the decline, anyway. China was ripe for some kind of a change, but the Christians were in no way powerful enough to drive that.(5 votes)
- what was the chinese european balance of trade problem in the early nineteenth century?(1 vote)
- Too much European silver was going to China for the purchase of Chinese exports, so the British empire began exporting opium from India to get some of that cash back.(2 votes)
- So Britan and France is just being harsh to Qing China(1 vote)
- why did the christians want to overthrow the Qing Dynasty?(0 votes)
- Well, firstly, there were different groups of "Christians," but I assume you are referring to the Taiping rebellion. Their leader Hong Xiuquan, was incredibly delusional and believed himself to simultaneously be the (adopted) brother of Jesus Christ and the next leader of China. He wanted to throw out the "Manchu Devils" (the Qing dynasty was not native to China, and this fact was greatly resented by the local populace) and establish the next Chinese dynasty, the Taiping Tianguo (Heavenly Empire of Great Peace), under himself.(6 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] This is a map of East Asia in the 19th century and you
can already see significant imperial control by
Western European powers. You have the British East
India Company in India, you have the French
initially getting a foothold in Southeast Vietnam in this orange area but eventually they will
take over this entire region that will become one day
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. You have the Dutch in Indonesia
and you have the Spanish in the Philippines, but
what we're going to focus on in this video is the European
and in particular the British attempt to open up the Chinese
markets to British trade. China at the time under the
control of the Qing Dynasty. Well before this period,
Chinese products were in demand in Europe, in particular, Chinese porcelain and Chinese silk. Unfortunate for the Europeans,
the Chinese did not have a lot of demand for European products and so you had a balance of trade problem. These products would be
exported from China into Europe and you would have hard silver
currency going to China. And so the imperial powers,
especially the British, were looking for a solution,
and they eventually found that opium grown in India, which
is a highly addictive drug, it's the core constituent
of heroin and morphine, could be addictive to the
Chinese people and maybe could help solve this
balance of trade problem, that silver could then
flow outside of China. Well you could imagine
the Chinese government, the Qing Dynasty, had no
interest in opium coming in to China, it was destructive
to their society, it was an addictive drug, but
in 1839, the British decide to force the issue and you
have what will be known as the First Opium War. This is a picture of the
Second Battle of Chuenpi, you see the British vessel
Nemesis, which is actually owned by a company, the British
East India Company, destroying Chinese junk ships
and because of this show of force and this military superiority, they were able to win the
First Opium War and extract major concessions from Qing China. The Chinese had to open
up five ports to trade with the British, they had to
give the island of Hong Kong to the British indefinitely
and the British would keep control of it all the way until
the end of the 20th century. The Chinese had to pay for
opium that they destroyed, they had to give
reparations to the British to pay for the costs of the war. Now to add insult to injury,
the British were not satisfied and in 1856, you have
the Second Opium War, where they tried to extract
even more concessions from China, after which
opium is legalized, the whole time opium
flooding into the country and really undermining the
social fabric of society. To make matters worse for China,
you have a major civil war in this time period,
the Taiping Rebellion, which was started by this sect
of Christianity that viewed it as their destiny to
overthrow the Qing Dynasty and this is one of the
most bloody civil wars that any nation has seen in
history, with over 20 million people being killed and
historians believe that the Qing concessions to the British
and then the French and also the opium that was
undermining Chinese society was a major contributor to
this long and bloody civil war. These opium wars are often
cited by Japanese in this time period as a reason for
their need to industrialize and become imperial power so
that they don't get unraveled the same way that Qing
China does by the Europeans. But to appreciate that
this was even controversial in Europe. William Gladstone, as we enter
into the First Opium War, was a young parliamentarian in Britain and he will eventually be, at
the end of the 19th century, a significant British prime minister. But as the opium war was beginning, he gave a famous speech in Parliament. "It is a matter of
certainty that if we stopped "the exportation of opium
from Bengal and broke up "the depot at Lintin and
checked the cultivation of it "in Malwa and put a moral
stigma upon it, that we should "greatly cripple if not
extinguish the trade in it. "The great principles of justice "are involved in this matter. "You," and he's talking to I
believe the Foreign Minister who is an aggressive
proponent of the opium wars, "You will be called upon to
show cause for your present "intention of making war upon the Chinese. "They gave us notice to
abandon the contraband trade, "the trade in opium. "When they found that we
would not, they had the right "to drive us from their coasts
on account of our obstinacy "in persisting in this infamous
and atrocious traffic." And opium was addictive and
William Gladstone had personal experience with this, his
sister became addicted to opium. He went on to say, "I am not
competent to judge how long "this war may last, but
this I can say, that a war "more unjust in its origin,
a war more calculated "in its progress to cover
this country with permanent "disgrace, I do not know,
and I have not read of." And a few days later, he wrote, "I am in dread of the
judgments of god upon England "for our national iniquity towards China."