India, Burma and China During

India, Burma and China

During 1850-1870, the histories of India, Burma and China became intertwined in a few different ways. Lower Burma at the time was in the possession of the British Raj. The Qing Dynasty was in charge of China, under the rule of the Empress Dowager Cixi. Despite Cixi's anti-western stance, the Qing Empire was in a position of weakness as the British were expanding their rule. The British has already earned a victory in the Second Anglo-Burmese War, which was a major trend of the era -- the strengthening of British imperialism in Asia.

The Anglo-Burmese War and the consequent strengthening of the British Raj was a contributing factor to the Qing's Self-Strengthening Movement. The expansion of the British at the time caused the Qing to fear further incursions. Their response was the Self-Strengthening Movement, in which the Qing sought to learn Western technologies in order to bolster itself against the threat of incursion into its territory. This resulted in an increase in trade between China and the West, as China opened up ports such as Tianjin and Shanghai in order to acquire Western goods that it could use to help surpass the West.

This episode illustrates the convergence of British action in India/Burma and British action in China, because it opened the door for the British to move into China more aggressively. They were able to, over the course of the rest of the 19th century, to gain a toehold in Shanghai and to solidify its possession of Hong Kong.

The reason that the Qing feared the British to the extent that they did was not only because of the British takeover of Lower Burma, but also because of the Second Opium War. Between 1856-1860, the British and French waged war against the Qing in order to fulfill a variety of objectives. For the Qing, the desired objective was to remove the British, who were poisoning the Chinese by importing opium into the country. For the British, the importation of opium was a means to earn hard currency and therefore a means to help its commercial interests in China.

The opium's source was Burma. Prior to the outset of the Second Opium War, the British had moved to expand the British Raj. The Anglo-Burmese War had given the British increased access to opium, which allowed wholesale export of the product to China. The expansion of the Raj, therefore, was instrumental is setting up the Second Opium War. While the two sides fought that war over a variety of grievances, it was the use of opium as a means to resolve trade conflicts that was a key point of contention. When the British won the war, one of its acts was to legalize opium in China, which would further enslave that populace to the drug and thus improve its position.

Opium was also grown in India. During the early part of the 1850s, when the India was governed by the East India Company, trade in opium between India and China increased dramatically. This brought about significant change in India. As a result of the First Opium War, China had ceded Hong Kong and opened five more ports to the British. This allowed the British better access to the Chinese market, and it was opium, at first from India, that they sent to trade, in particular for in-demand products such as Chinese tea. In turn, profits from opium sales in China were funneled back into strengthening the British presence in India (Biswas, 2008).

As this trade with China expanded, India became more strategically important. When India was administered by the British East India Company, the primary objectives of the British on the subcontinent were to send goods from India back to Britain. It was the opening of the Chinese market that demanded change for the British in the way that they administered India. India was no longer a property strictly with economic value, India was now a territory of key strategic interest. The Great Uprising of 1857 only reinforced to the British that company rule would need to be replaced with something stronger (Ahmed, 2007).

The result was that the British were compelled to strengthen their presence, and this resulted in the creation of the British Raj. The Raj was created to take control of the subcontinent away from the company and place is squarely back in the command of the crown. The creation of the Raj formalized British control and ushered in an era of rapid expansion in Asia, including multiple wars and a wide range of infrastructure projects in India.