Decline of China 18th Early

Decline of China 18th Early 19th Centuries

China has recently gone trough a significant political and economic change, as it has finally taken back all its territories from European control, the last vestiges of colonial interests.

In 1999, China resumed control of Macau, the last of its held territories, after resuming control of Hong Kong in 1997. Macau had been the first permanent European settlement in China, and its status as a trade center, controlled by European powers remained until the 21st century. Though China never officially surrendered to colonial rule, becoming a colony of Portugal or another European nation this does not mean she did not experience the lasting effects of colonial and empire building desires.

Porter 294)

The decline of China during the 19th and early 20th century can be easily boiled down to a demonstrative effect of empire building. European trade powers each sought to control its bit of China, to gather for itself the valuable trade goods that the Chinese were able to produce and to flood China with debilitating but profitable opium. "From the 1780s to the eve of the First World War, the opium trade was instrumental in integrating China into the world market and in harnessing that country to the institutions of European, and especially British, colonialism."

Blue 31) Opium was the source of many ills in China, and elsewhere but it was one of the most significant trade goods brought into the nation, and even though for most of the 19th century it was illegal it was frequently smuggled into the nation and a blind eye was given it by most of those trading in the regions it was received. China declined, in the sense that it was nearly completely infiltrated first by European trade and then frequent attempts of social, political and economic control, mainly by Britain, Portugal and to a lesser degree America.

The increase in the imports of opium and the rapid spread of the vice of opium smoking in spite of the severity of the law led the Chinese government in 1800 to issue an edict prohibiting the importation of the drug. From this date the trade in opium became illegal, but it continued to flourish notwithstanding. The British East India Company forbade its ships to carry the drug to China, but as rulers of a large portion of India they continued to produce and sell it. Other British vessels carried it to Macao and Canton, and the vessels of all nations sailing to China engaged in the contraband trade. There were high-minded merchants, of course, who refused to violate the law, but they appeared to be few. The value of the opium carried by Americans to China in 1810 was only $21,664; but the amount increased rapidly in subsequent years and in 1829 was worth considerably over a million dollars, nearly one-third of the total value of their imports. The prohibition was not rigorously enforced until 1821, and after that date the vessels engaged in the business discharged the contraband cargo into receiving ships anchored at islands outside the limits of the port of Canton.

Williams 252-253)

Fighting over little bits of Chinese land and large shares of control over her goods and demands for goods frequently ended in China becoming occupied by various nations, to protect their own interests from other European powers. One example is the initial occupation of Macao, where the British were concerned over the interest of France, under Napoleon in the territory, so they simply occupied and controlled it. China fought western infiltration, at the same time that she to some degree welcomed the trade. In 1808, one province of China even decreed that it was forbidden not only to bring opium into the kingdom but for western missionaries to enter it either.

The severe laws against heretical sects in China continued during this reign to be enforced against Christianity. Missionaries were forbidden under penalty of death to preach their faith and converts were subject to deportation. Notwithstanding the law, missionaries of the Roman Church continued to arrive and several suffered martyrdom. In 1807 Protestant mission work began with the arrival of Robert Morrison. The British East India Company, conforming to its policy of respect for Chinese prohibitions, declined to allow Morrison to sail to China in one of its vessels. Thereupon he came to the United States and went out in an American vessel. Subsequently, after Morrison had acquired a knowledge of the Chinese language, the East India Company was glad to give him a position as translator.

Williams 252-253)

The 1819 war between Britain and America, even brought China conflict, as merchant and official trading, struggles ensued in her ports between these two warring nations, with America taking British goods and China not intervening on the part of the British.

Williams 254)

According to many scholars the main difficulty between the Europeans (especially the British and American) and the Chinese was a demonstrative individual belief in the superiority of each by itself. Each believed had the divine right to rule, and to take the lion's share of all prizes. For this reason the customs, laws and traditions of each were in constant conflict, at the most basic levels.

The Europeans and Americans were confident that they were superior to the Chinese; the Chinese were just as sure that they were the only civilized people. Under such conditions amicable relations were almost impossible to maintain.

Williams 254)

The British clearly demonstrated a change, when they simply stopped following the laws and customs of the Chinese, during trade, appointed a government official to replace the exiting bureaucracy of the British East India Company in 1934 an proceeded to demand that this individual, there were four in so many years, follow British customs of communication, rather than those of the Chinese, who had controlled the situation, in most ways up to this point.

Williams 256) When this change occurred, it really became the beginning of extreme change in China, even though she was still ultimately resistant to total control by the British. It was an interesting misunderstanding that led to a British official in charge of the trading in the region. The Chinese had been told of the restructuring of the British East India Company so;

They asked for a t'ai pan. At once there was a misunderstanding. The Chinese under- stood by a t'ai pan a senior merchant, such as Arabs and Indians in the old days had had appointed over them, and such as the Chinese themselves have in their colonies in the East Indies. They were not in any sense representatives of foreign powers. The British very naturally supposed that, since the British Government was replacing the Company in control of the trade, there would be needed a Superintendent of Trade, having an official status, as a representative of that government.

Williams 256-257)

There was almost immediate conflict, which resulted in constant strain between the two powers, and eventual led to what is thought of as the Opium War. The emperor's commissioner Lin in 1839 demanded that the letter of the law be followed with regard to the import of opium into China All the foreign factories were besieged, until the merchants complied with the commissioners request of the surrender of all opium and the sworn statements of all involved to never bring opium into China again. This and many other factors contributed to the war, not the least of which was the power play of pride between the Chinese and British officials.

Williams 264-266) the war lasted until 1843 and ended with the treaty of Nan king, mainly a trade agreement after the defeat of the Chinese that demanded among many other things a payment to the British to compensate the merchants who had been deprived of their opium contraband in 1839.

Williams 272)

While the treaty gave China no relief respecting her complaint against opium, it made provision in general terms for the satisfaction of several of the most important complaints made by the British. The restrictions upon foreign residence and trade were ameliorated by the provisions of Article II which opened five ports to British residence and mercantile pursuits. These ports were Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai.

Williams 273)

The treaty of Nanking, in addition to demanding that the Chinese government settle trade debts and repay Britain for the costs of the war at extremely high cost, cemented the furtherance of Western powers into China. The next western power to seek a treaty was America, who had looked upon the dealings Britain had made following the war and chose to strike while the iron was hot, with their own demands and the French followed the next year.

Williams 274)

Thus in the days of China's ignorance of international practices there was imposed upon her, as the result of a war in which she had been humiliated, a treaty tariff, which was in violation of her sovereignty and which, by reason of the duties levied, has interfered seriously with her revenue and which today gravely affects the stability of her government.

Williams 276)

During an intense period of social and political unrest among the western civilizations (roughly 1843-1853) it was a religious infiltration in China that created social and political turmoil, "the movement that finally overshadowed all other disturbances was really of a religious character." (Williams 279) the conflict is known as the Tai ping Rebellion and was in part spurned on by Protestant missionary teaching of rebels in China, yet another example of western infiltration of China.

Williams 278-280) the rebellion effectively replaced the Manchu dynasty, ending thousands of years of dynastic rule, asserting the capital at Nanking and creating an even more corrupt cruel government than had ever been present before.

Williams 281)

Education in China was even influenced heavily by western powers, as adoptions of what was thought of as superior progress, clearly created the education system in China, as well as many other locations.

Since near the end of the nineteenth century what promises to be an even more wonderful transformation of a people -- political, social, scientific, and industrial -- has been taking place in China (R. 335). A much more democratic type of national school system than that of the Japanese has been worked out, and this the new (1912) Republic of China is rapidly extending in the provinces, and making education a very important function of the new democratic national life... displacing the centuries-old Confucian educational system

Cubberley 721)

Clearly, from the above statement made in 1902, one can se the arrogance of the western tradition, as it infiltrated every aspect of Chinese life, down to the manner in which children were assimilated into western thought and culture, again clear evidence of the decline of Chinese culture and tradition, a sign of progress only in the sense of the nature of control realized by colonialism and imperialism.