China Opium War
China Opium War
China Opium War - China as a civilization with an abundance of human and natural resources has participated in international trade activities. Both trade activities by land and sea routes. This trading activity has brought many goods originating from China to various regions in Europe. The high demand for Chinese goods to Europe such as porcelain, silk, spices and tea, ultimately depleted the foreign reserves of the West, especially since the 16th century when Western nations began to explore the East.
When the West had come into contact with the Chinese, since then there was a desire for the West to dominate China. The entry of Western involvement in Chinese life when British merchants started smuggling opium since the early 18th century. The smuggling of opium was what later led to the Chinese and Western nations involved in a conflict that culminated inperiod the China Opium War which occurred throughout 1840-1860. Which is divided into two phases; First Opium War (1840-1842) and Second Opium War (1856-1860). Below will be explained about the Opium War which became the gateway for Western intervention against China.
Background of the China Opium War
The Chinese themselves actually recognized opium around the 15th century, but the empire prohibited the exploitation of opium since 1729, because the empire realized the bad effects of opium. The opium trade in China was spearheaded by India under the Mughal Empire (1556-1605) where this illegal trade through South China brought tremendous profits; and Britain, which then invested power in India, saw it as a golden opportunity to enlarge its foreign exchange reserves.
Opium exports from India by the British have increased rapidly, this can be seen from the amount of 15 tonnes in 1730 to 75 tonnes in 1773. Opium began to be smuggled by sea in thousands of cases, each of which can contain about 64 kg. This illegal entry of opium into China has weakened the Chinese nation. The number of addicts was increasing among the people, and besides that the existence of a prince who became an addict had made Emperor Daoguang in danger of opium. So that in 1799, the empire reaffirmed the ban on the import of opium, and in 1810 an emperor issued a decree prohibiting the entry of opium into China, especially Guangdong and Fujian Provinces, which were the gates for opium entry in China.
However, the order issued by Emperor Daoguang did not have a significant impact. The location of the government center too far in the north could not control the corrupt merchants and officials who smuggled opium through southern China. This lack of government action has resulted in an increase in the number of opium imported so that the people are suffering even more, and the number of addicts has reached alarming levels. Opium smuggling entering the 1820s had increased dramatically to 900 tonnes per year.
First Opium War
In an attempt to overcome these conditions, the empire in 1838 ordered the execution of local opium smugglers, where opium smuggling in 1838 had increased again to 1,400 tonnes. In March 1839 Lin Zexu was appointed by the emperor as the official charged with tackling the smuggling of opium in Canton. Lin Zexu asked the British to give up the opium that was in that place. When Charles Elliot, the head of British commerce rejected the demands, Lin Zexu laid siege to an opium storehouse where there were 300 workers. After a siege of forty days, the British surrendered and 22,291 cases of opium or about 1500 tons were dumped into the sea.
After that, Lin Zexu also forced the British to sign an agreement not to smuggle opium. Then in May 1839 EIC (East India Company)were forced to leave Canton. This incident had caused Britain to become furious, so that in November 1839 Britain sent its ships from India and opened fire on Chinese warships without any prior declaration of war.
Then, British ships began to attack the southeast coast of China, with an advantage in the field of weapons, the British easily controlled the port cities such as Hong Kong, Canton, Xiamen, Ningbo, Fuzhou and Shanghai. In August 1842, with a strength of 80 warships, the British headed for the city of Nanjing. During the battle in Nanjing, Emperor Daoguang surrendered to the British. The Chinese imperial government was forced to sign the Nanjing Treaty, including;
1. China was forced to lease Hong Kong to the British;
2. The ports of Canton, Xiamen, Ningbo, Fuzhou and Shanghai were to be opened to trade with the British;
3. China had to pay war reparations of 21,000,000 silver coins.
4. Give privileges to Britain and open a special area (extraterritorial) as a residence for British people;
5. Relations between Chinese and British officials of the same rank should be recognized by the principle of equality;
6. Britain has the right to appoint a consul in every port city that is open to trade activities with Britain.
After the signing of the Nanjing Treaty, the United States also demanded the same rights as Britain. Therefore, Caleb Cushing was sent to discuss this issue with the Chinese government. This Cushing mission succeeded in concluding a bilateral agreement between China and the United States in 1844, in which all privileges for Britain also apply to the United States.
Under this bilateral agreement, the United States is also allowed to appoint its own judges in each of the extraterritorial areas where Chinese judges do not have the authority to try US citizens who have violated the law and must submit them to the US consulate court. Apart from the United States, France also demanded the same rights, but this time France was allowed to spread Catholicism in China and restore church property that had been confiscated a hundred years earlier by the Chinese government.
With the Nanjing treaty of 1842 and several agreements with Western nations, Western influences began to spread in China and would in turn carry out a series of interventions against the Chinese government in which the still-ruling Qing Dynasty could do nothing.
Second Opium War
Second Opium War occurred as a result of the desire of the West, especially Britain, to implement its imperialist practices in China. Britain had the ambition to be as good as exercising influence in China by forcing the Qing Dynasty to renew the Nanjing treaty.
In 1854 Britain demanded that all of China be made open territory for British merchants, legalized the opium trade, allowed the British ambassador to be stationed in Beijing, and various matters whose contents were very detrimental to China. The demands were also issued by France and the United States. However, the Qing Dynasty government rejected the demand, so that China's relations with the West became tense again.
On October 8, 1856, an official from the Qing dynasty stopped the ship named Arrow, a Chinese vessel that had been registered in Hong Kong. The ship actually belonged to the Chinese who were in Hong Kong. It has become a custom that Chinese ships that want to smuggle a thing must first register in Hong Kong, so that it appears as if they are sailing under the British flag so that they are free from Chinese law.
The Arrow anchored in Canton was stopped by four Qing Dynasty officials along with sixty armed troops. The captain of the ship then went to the British consulate and reported the detention. The British Consul, Harry Parkes, then went to the Chinese official who carried out the detention, the twelve crew members were still detained because they were suspected of committing crimes of smuggling and piracy. The British insisted that the ship had been registered in Hong Kong, so that a special law prevailed and requested that the ship and its crew be released.
Because the crew was not released, Harry Parkes wrote to Governor Ye Mingchen. Harry Parkes fabricated allegations that officials in Canton had insulted the British and Chinese flags of violating an extraterritorial agreement with Britain. Harry Parkes also wrote to Sir John Bowring and Sir Michael Seymour in Hong Kong asking Britain to apologize to the Chinese government for the incident.
Governor Ye Mingchen stated that the arrest was a sheer misunderstanding and expressed no desire from China to insult the British flag. Governor Ye Mingchen offered to hand over those detained to the British on October 12, 1856. Ye Mingchen also stated that the extraterritorial law only applies to British ships, whereas Arrow is a Chinese vessel. Ye Mingchen stated that Arrow sailed over Chinese waters and there was no abuse of any agreement in that incident.
The British, who rejected Governor Ye Mingchen's explanation, continued to insist that the Arrow was a British ship and that any nationals aboard the British ships were under British law. This incident continued until on October 21, 1856 Britain again asked China to apologize to Britain. On 22 October 1856 Ye Mingchen handed over all prisoners to the British and stated that the incident of 8 October 1856 had no offense committed by China and that China did not need to apologize.
Because China refused to apologize to Britain, Britain immediately mobilized its army in 1857 to attack Canton. Seeing this, France, which also had an interest in exerting influence in China, joined the British troops on the grounds that the trigger was the murder of a French missionary named August Chapdelaine. The British and French who joined then carried out the attack on Canton and were successfully conquered so that now the coalition was headed for Beijing.
Emperor Xianfeng who was afraid of the arrival of this coalition force fled to Jehol. The new war ended after China signed the Tianjin Agreement in June 1858 which contained, among others;
1. Britain, France, the United States and Russia are allowed to open embassies in Beijing;
2. Ten ports were opened to Westerners, of which the previous number was added to Niuzhuang, Danshui, Hankou and Nanjing;
3. Permit foreign visits to the interior of China both for trade and for missionary activities;
4. China had to pay war reparations of 4,000,000 silver coins to England and 2,000,000 to France;
5. China should not refer to Westerners as yi (barbarian).
Even though the Tianjin agreement was signed, the Qing Dynasty still did not allow the establishment of a Western embassy in Beijing. Therefore, in 1860 the combined Anglo-French forces attacked and conquered Beijing on 6 October 1860.
Emperor Xianfeng fled again to Chengde, and ordered Prince Gong to negotiate with the West. When they succeeded in controlling the palace, the Western nations burned and pillaged the city. Prince Gong then said that the Qing Dynasty was willing to carry out the entire contents of the Tianjin agreement in the form of the Beijing Convention which was agreed upon on October 18, 1860. The contents of the Beijing Convention were;
1. China re-recognizes the Tianjin agreement;
2. Making Tianjin an open port;
3. Compensation of war on Britain and France to be 8,000,000 silver coins;
4. The opium trade is legal in China.
With the enactment of this Beijing Convention, Western nations have succeeded in exerting influence and power in China and even in the interior. On the other hand, the legalization of the opium trade will cause the Chinese nation to experience a period of extreme downturn. How could it not be, due to the opium of the Chinese nation as a nation with such a high cultural heritage, it must be subject to and submit to the practices of colonialism and Western imperialism. Although, the Qing Dynasty was still in power, it was as if the government was incapable of doing anything. Because the West has succeeded in controlling the Chinese economy and especially destroying the future of Chinese youth through opium tactics.
That is a brief description of the China Opium War which has caused the Chinese nation to fall under the auspices of colonialism and imperialism applied by Western nations.