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HIST214 - Paper analysis
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//ABISOURCE//DTD XHTML plus AWML 2.2//EN" "http://www.abisource.com/2004/xhtml-awml/xhtml-awml.mod"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:awml="http://www.abisource.com/2004/xhtml-awml/"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=UTF-8" /> <title> Abiword HTML Document </title> </head> <body> <div> <p style="margin-left:72.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:16pt;color:#000000">304</span><span style="font-size:16pt;color:#000000"></span><span style="color:#000000">●</span><span style="text-decoration:underline;color:#000000">The World in the Age of Western Dominance: 1800–1914</span> </p> <p style="margin-left:108.000000pt;text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="text-decoration:underline;color:#000000">ENCOUNTERS WITH THE WEST</span> </p> <p> <span style="color:#000000">Signs of changing Western aims and strategies in East and Southeast Asia were first noticeable in the late 1700s, when the British intensified their efforts to convince the Qing government to liberalize its commercial policies. They became more evident in the 1810s and 1820s, when the British founded a colony at Singapore on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, the Dutch imposed the harsh Culture System on Java, and the British took two provinces and demanded a huge indemnity from the king of Burma after their victory in the first Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826). Three even more significant events soon followed:</span> </p> <p> <span style="color:#000000">In 1842 Great Britain, in the wake of its victory in the First Opium War, imposed on China the first of the “unequal treaties”—the Treaty of Nanjing; in 1854, the Japanese government acquiesced to the demands of Commodore Matthew Perry by agreeing to open two ports for the provisioning of U.S. ships and a limited amount of trade; and in 1862 the Vietnamese emperor Tu Duc ceded control of three provinces to France after his army’s defeat by a French invading force. Respectively, these latter three events smashed the myth of Chinese invincibility, ended Japan’s centuries-old seclusion policy, and led to the near-complete colonization of Southeast Asia.</span> </p> <p style="margin-left:144.000000pt;text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="text-decoration:underline;color:#000000">OPIUM AND IMPERIALISM</span> </p> <p> <span style="color:#000000">68 Lin Zexu, Letter to Queen Victoria, 1839</span> </p> <p> <span style="color:#000000">In 1842, only a half-century after the Qianlong emperor sent King George III his condescending rejection of a British request for trade concessions (see source47), the Daoguang emperor (r. 1820–1850) approved the Treaty of Nanjing, which required his government to open five ports to British merchants, cede Hong Kong to Great Britain, lower tariffs, pay Britain an indemnity of $21 million, and free all British prisoners. Acceptance of these humiliating terms was the result of China’s defeat in the Opium War (1839–1842), the climax of Chinese efforts to halt the British sale of opium to China.</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">Although opium derivatives had been used in Chinese medicine for centuries, smoking opium as a narcotic dates only from the seventeenth century. Opium use increased in the late 1700s, when British merchants with access to the poppy-growing areas of India began to sell opium in China. By the early 1800s, millions of Chinese were addicts, and almost two million pounds of opium were being sold in China every year</span> </p> <p style="margin-left:72.000000pt;text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="text-decoration:underline;color:#000000">Chapter 10 East and Southeast Asia Confront the West</span><span style="color:#000000"> ●</span><span style="font-size:16pt;color:#000000"></span><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:16pt;color:#000000">305</span><span style="color:#000000"></span></p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">Chinese officials viewed the epidemic of opium smoking with alarm, but they dis-agreed on how to stop it. Some advocated the legalization of opium and the expansion of poppy growing in China to lessen imports. Those who favored more drastic measures won the support of the emperor, who banned opium use in 1838. One year later, he sent his official, Lin Zexu (1785–1850), to Guangzhou to confiscate the foreign merchants’ stock of opium and stop the opium trade altogether.</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">Lin Zexu was a highly respected scholar-administrator who in previous provincial postings in Hubei and Hunan had tried to suppress opium smoking. In Guangzhou, he launched a campaign of moral persuasion and threats to enforce the emperor’s ban. Insight into his thinking is provided by a letter he wrote to Great Britain’s Queen Victoria in 1839, imploring her to halt her subjects’ sale of opium.</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">Nothing came of his letter, and the noncooperation of British merchants in Guangzhou drove Lin to take more drastic steps. He arrested the leading English opium traders and blockaded the foreign quarter until its merchants handed over twenty thousand chests of opium. In response, the British government dispatched a fleet to Chinese waters and mobilized Indian troops to protect its interests. While the flotilla of almost fifty vessels was en route in late 1839, fighting had already started around Guangzhou. The Opium War had begun.</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">His Majesty the Emperor. . . loves all the people in the world without discrimination. Whenever profit is found, he wishes to share it with all men; whenever harm appears, he likewise will eliminate it on behalf of all of mankind. His heart is the heart of the whole universe.</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">Generally, the rulers of your honorable country have been respectful and obedient. Time and again they have sent petitions to China, saying: “We are grateful to His Majesty for the impartial and favorable treatment he has granted to citizens of my country who have come to China to trade,” I am pleased to learn that you are thoroughly familiar with the principle of righteousness and are grateful for the favor His Majesty has be-stowed upon your subjects. Because of this fact, the Celestial Empire has been doubly considerate towards the people from England. You have traded in China for almost 200 years, and as a result, your country has become wealthy and prosperous.</span> </p> <p style="margin-left:72.000000pt;text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:16pt;color:#000000">306</span><span style="color:#000000"> ●</span><span style="text-decoration:underline;color:#000000">The World in the Age of Western Dominance: 1800–1914</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">As this trade has lasted a long time, there are bound to be unscrupulous as well as honest traders. Among the unscrupulous are those who bring opium to China...; they succeed so well that this poison has spread far and wide in all the provinces. You, I hope, will certainly agree that people who pursue material gain to the detriment of others can be neither tolerated by Heaven nor endured by men…</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">Your country is more than 60,000 li1 from China. The purpose of your ships in coming to China is to realize a large profit. Since this profit is realized in China and is in fact taken away from the Chinese people, how can foreigners return injury for the benefit they have received by sending this poison. . . ? They. . . are so obsessed with material gain that they have no concern for the harm they cause. Have they no conscience? I have heard that you strictly prohibit opium in your country, indicating that you know how harmful opium is, but you choose to bring that harm to other countries such as China. Why?</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">Has China produced one item that is harmful to foreign countries? For instance, tea and rhubarb are so important to foreigners that they have to consume them every day.2 Were China to concern herself only with her own advantage, how could foreigners continue to live? Where would the foreigners’ profit come from? The products that foreign countries need and have to import from China are too numerous to enumerate: from food products. . . to useful necessities such as silk and porcelain. The imported goods from foreign countries, on the other hand, are merely playthings. . . Since we do not need these things, what harm would come if we should decide to stop foreign trade altogether? The reason why we unhesitantly allow foreigners to ship out such Chinese products as tea and silk is that we feel that wherever there is an advantage, it should be shared by all the people in the world…</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">I have heard that you are a kind, compassionate monarch... I have also heard that you have instructed every British ship that sails for Guangzhou not to bring any prohibited goods to China… The fact that British ships have continued to bring opium to China results perhaps from the impossibility of making a thorough inspection of all of them owing to their large numbers. I am sending you this letter to reiterate the seriousness with which we enforce the law . . . and to make sure that merchants from your honorable country will not attempt to violate it again.</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">I have heard that the areas under your direct jurisdiction such as London, Scotland, and Ireland do not produce opium; it is produced instead in your Indian possessions . . . [where] the English people not only plant opium poppies that stretch from mountain to mountain but also open factories to manufacture this terrible drug. As months and years pass by, the poison they have produced increases in its wicked intensity, and its repugnant odor reaches as high as the sky. Heaven is furious with anger . . ., It is hereby suggested that you plow under all these opium plants and grow food crops instead, while issuing an order to punish severely anyone who dares to plant opium poppies again. If you adopt this policy . . . Heaven will protect you, and gods will bring you good fortune. Moreover, you will enjoy a long life and be rewarded with a multitude of children and grandchildren! In short, by taking this one measure, you can bring great happiness to others as well as yourself. Why do you not do it?...</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">Since a foreigner who goes to England to trade has to obey the English law, how can an Englishman not obey the Chinese law when he is physically within China? The present law calls for the imposition of the death sentence on any Chinese who has peddled or smoked opium. Since a Chinese could not peddle or smoke opium if foreigners had not brought it to China, it is clear that the true culprits</span> </p> <p style="margin-left:72.000000pt;text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="text-decoration:underline;color:#000000">Chapter 10 East and Southeast Asia Confront the West</span><span style="color:#000000"> ●</span><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:16pt;color:#000000">307</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">of a Chinese’s death as a result of an opium conviction are the opium traders from foreign countries. Why should they be spared from capital punishment?... Just imagine how many people opium has killed! This is the rationale behind the new law which says that any foreigner who brings opium to China will be sentenced to death by hanging or be-heading. Our purpose is to eliminate this poison once and for all and to the benefit of all mankind.</span> </p> <p style="text-indent:36.000000pt"> <span style="color:#000000">Our Celestial Empire towers over all other countries in virtue and possesses a power great and awe-some enough to carry out its wishes. But we will not prosecute a person without warning him in advance; that is why we have made our law explicit and clear. If the merchants of your honorable country wish to enjoy trade with us on a permanent basis, they must fearfully observe our law by cutting off, once and for all, the supply of opium. Under no circumstance should they test our intention to enforce the law by deliberately violating it. You, as the ruler of your honorable country, should do your part to uncover the hidden and unmask the wicked. It is hoped that you will continue to enjoy your country and become more and more respectful and submissive. How wonderful it is that we can all enjoy the blessing of peace!</span> </p> </div> </body> </html> ">
