The Opium War

by Julia Lovell

  The curious thing about contemporary China’s most intemperate nationalists, then, is how easily their anger turns against their own government and people. Public discontent about Japan’s refusal to apologize for the Second World War, or claims to the Diaoyu Islands, often spirals into fury at the Chinese government for failing to defend the country’s honour, or contempt for the indifferent general public. The government’s tough stance on Freezing Point in 2006 was motivated at least in part by a desire to soothe cyber-nationalists outraged by the offending article’s iconoclastic liberalism. Two days after the Carrefour protests erupted in 2008, the Chinese authorities moved to dampen their nationalistic ardour. ‘Internet users are in an intense mood toward Western countries’, noted government censors. ‘Such information has shown a tendency to spread and, if not checked in time, could even lead to events getting out of control’.53 ‘It’s good your hearts are patriotic,’ one group of fledgling anti-Tibetan-independence demonstrators were told by Public Security, ‘but you can’t compromise social order and traffic flow.’54 Chinese patriotism today must not imperil social stability, or frighten off foreign investment – the key to achieving post-1989 China’s economic miracle and to persuading the population to keep trusting in the wisdom of the Communist Party. For China’s current rulers, the Century of Humiliation is a tricky balancing act. Properly controlled, public memory of the Opium War and later acts of imperialism provides a politically correct pressure valve for venting strong feelings in the PRC’s tightly controlled public sphere. Carelessly managed, these same feelings spill out into something dangerously subversive.

  Contemporary China and its current surge of nationalism, then, are not as stable or monolithic as the CCP would ideally like. In the summer of 2009, Martin Jacques’ carefully illustrated When China Rules the World suggested, over the coming decades, the decline of the West (with its model of liberal democracy) and the inexorable rise of a probably authoritarian, racist China that views itself as a ‘civilization-state’: homogeneous, unchanging over (at least) the past 2,000 years, and convinced of its own superiority over the rest of the world. But while political editorialists worried at the prospect of ‘the rise of the middle kingdom and the end of the Western world’ (the book’s subtitle), other China-watchers saw things differently. Six weeks after the book was published, the political and environmental journalist Isabel Hilton pointed out, the Muslim-dominated north-western province of Xinjiang erupted into racial violence in which hundreds of Han Chinese settlers were killed or wounded; tense paramilitary control descended, and a communications cordon was drawn up around the region, cutting off Internet and mobile-phone connections. Hilton argued against ‘a story that the Chinese government likes to tell: that China is the world’s oldest continuous, unchanging civilization (the dates vary, according to the exuberance of the moment, from 2,000 to a mythical 5,000 years) . . . A more accurate description would be that it is a recently expanded land-based empire struggling to justify itself.’55 For there is plenty of social and political volatility disturbing the twenty-first century’s supposed new superpower (in the form of the tens of thousands of ‘mass incidents’ – strikes, street demonstrations and so on – that take place each year; an estimated 58,000 in the first quarter of 2009 alone); and around the patriotism that seems to be fuelling its confident rise.

  China in the third millennium possesses (as it did in the nineteenth century) about as many reasons to fall apart as it does to stick together: banks riddled with bad loans, the challenges of finding employment and pensions for a massive, rapidly ageing workforce, severe social inequality (which, according to Chinese estimates, reached potentially destabilizing levels as early as 1994), government corruption (at the end of 2009, a Chinese newspaper directly blamed the country’s rash of mass incidents on officials ‘blindly pursuing profit’ through ‘expropriating land and demolishing houses’), environmental degradation.56 There is general agreement that the country has grown extraordinarily, and with relative ease, over the past three decades. Consensus on what will come next is non-existent.

  For 170 years, the Opium War and its afterlives have cast a shadow over Sino-Western relations, both sides tampering with the historical record for their own purposes. Influential nineteenth-century Britons worked hard to fabricate a virtuous casus belli out of an elementary problem of trade deficit: to reinvent the war as a clash of civilizations triggered by the ‘unnaturally’ isolationist Chinese. Joining this blame game, twentieth-century Chinese nation-builders in turn transformed it into the cause of all their country’s troubles: into a black imperialist scheme to enslave a united, heroically resisting China. The reality of the war itself, by contrast, illuminated deep fault lines in the messily multi-ethnic Qing empire, as China’s rulers struggled unsuccessfully to rally its officials, soldiers and subjects against a foreign enemy.

  The West’s public stance of self-justification over the war overlaid a moral guilt that has subsequently fanned further fears of, and tensions with, the Chinese state and people. Opium became a symbol both of Western malfeasance and of a sinister Chinese pollution, generating irrational clouds of Yellow Peril suspicion that arguably still haunt our media coverage. In China, meanwhile, opium, defeat and imperialism have manufactured an unstable combination of self-pity, self-loathing and pragmatic admiration for the West that continue to coexist uneasily in Chinese patriots.

  Whether Western nations such as Britain have attacked the Chinese for their arrogance in refusing to pay them enough attention or respect, lambasted themselves for what they did or obsessed paranoically about Chinese retribution, one misconception has remained constant: that the West is central to China’s calculations and actions. But both back in the nineteenth century and now, China’s rulers have been primarily preoccupied with domestic affairs, rather than foreign relations. This refusal to look at matters from the perspective of the Chinese state’s own prerogatives helped drive Britain towards war in the nineteenth century, and risks pushing relations towards confrontation in the early twenty-first.

  In 1839, the Qing court was too distracted by fears of social unrest to come up voluntarily with a pragmatic response to Western trade demands; Britain interpreted this political paralysis as inveterate xenophobia. In 2010, the situation did not look so very different, with the government infuriating Western states over its rejection of climate-change legislation that might slow growth, its harsh stance on social control and its aversion to compromise on international-trade issues, such as strengthening the yuan relative to the dollar (thereby making exported Chinese manufactures more expensive, foreign imports less so). ‘The current leadership’, China-watcher Jonathan Fenby observed in January 2010, ‘just want to get to retirement without the country collapsing. And their caution sometimes leads them into conflict with the West. Take the question of revaluing the yuan. There’d be plenty of advantages: less danger of a trade war with the US, cheaper imports. But they’re nervous of jeopardizing economic growth or looking like they were capitulating to the West – the public outcry in China might be too great.’57 For the noisy anti-Western nationalism that the state has programmatically engineered since the 1920s (and with renewed energies after 1989) regularly threatens to mutate into anti-government dissidence.

  From the age of opium-traders to the Internet, China and the West have been infuriating and misunderstanding each other, despite ever-increasing opportunities for contact, study and mutual sympathy. Ten years into the twenty-first century, the nineteenth is still with us.

  Principal Characters

  LORD AUCKLAND (1784–1849): Governor-General of India between 1835 and 1841; cousin to Charles Elliot.

  SIR JOHN BOWRING (1792–1872): fourth Governor of Hong Kong and Harry Parkes’ co-conspirator agitating for a second war with China in 1856–57.

  CHIANG KAI-SHEK (1887–1975): protégé of Sun Yat-sen, leader of the Nationalist Party, instigator of the anti-Communist purge of 1927 and President of the Nationalist regime in China and Tai
wan from 1928.

  DAOGUANG EMPEROR (1782–1850): the emperor who oversaw the first Opium War with Britain.

  DENG TINGZHEN (1776–1846): Governor-General of Guangdong in the late 1830s; friend and ally of Lin Zexu.

  DENG XIAOPING (1904–97): successor to Mao who oversaw China’s transition to the market economy in the 1980s and 1990s, and who directed the crackdown of 1989.

  LORD ELGIN (1811–63): British Plenipotentiary to China during the Second Opium War.

  CHARLES ELLIOT (1801–75): Superintendent of Trade in China at the start of the Opium War, advocating armed conflict with China. After a year as plenipotentiary on the campaign, he was dismissed by Palmerston for disobeying official orders.

  ADMIRAL GEORGE ELLIOT (1784–1863): until December 1840, joint plenipotentiary to China with his cousin Charles Elliot.

  GUAN TIANPEI (1780/1–1841): admiral of the Qing fleet at Canton and architect of the city’s river defences during the 1830s; killed in the battle for Canton’s forts in February 1841.

  GUO SONGTAO (1818–91): first Qing ambassador to London and passionate anti-opium campaigner.

  KARL GÜTZLAFF (1803–51): missionary, exceptional linguist, assistant to opium smugglers, magistrate in British-occupied east China and spymaster.

  HAI LING (d. 1842): unhinged defender of Zhenjiang against the British attack in spring 1842.

  HOWQUA (1769–1843): the richest of the Hong merchants in antebellum Canton.

  WILLIAM HUNTER (1812–91): New York merchant, Canton opium trader and author of a nostalgic memoir of antebellum Canton, The ‘Fan Kwae’ at Canton before Treaty Days.

  WILLIAM JARDINE (1784–1843): with James Matheson, co-founder of Jardine–Matheson, the largest opium-trading house in antebellum Canton; lobbyist for war with China.

  JIAQING EMPEROR (1760–1820): successor to Qianlong; author of several prohibitions against opium.

  KANG YOUWEI (1858–1927): radical late-Qing reformer and mentor to Liang Qichao; driven into exile after the failure of the ‘Hundred Days’ Reforms’ in 1897.

  KANGXI EMPEROR (1654–1722): the second Qing emperor of China, first of the succession of three vigorous Qing rulers who oversaw a massive expansion of China’s frontiers and population.

  LIANG QICHAO (1873–1929): leading late-Qing radical journalist, celebrated for popularizing ideas about nationalism and political reform.

  LIN ZEXU (1785–1850): Imperial Commissioner to Canton, dispatched in 1839 to crack down on opium smuggling.

  GRANVILLE LOCH (1813–53): secretary to Sir Henry Pottinger in the closing stages of the first Opium War.

  LORD MACARTNEY (1737–1806): leader of an abortive 1793 British trade mission dispatched to China by George III.

  MAO ZEDONG (1893–1976): leader of the Communist Party from 1935 to 1976 and founder of the People’s Republic of China.

  JAMES MATHESON (1796–1878): with William Jardine, co-founder of Jardine–Matheson, the largest opium-trading house in antebellum Canton.

  WILLIAM, LORD NAPIER (1786–1834): first British Superintendent of Trade to China, who died of fever in Macao following a clash with the Canton authorities.

  NIU JIAN (d. 1858): Governor-General of Zhejiang in the closing stages of the first Opium War.

  LORD PALMERSTON (1784–1865): British foreign secretary at the start of the first Opium War; prime minister during the second conflict with China.

  SIR HARRY PARKES (1828–85): instigator of the Second Opium War and chief negotiator in the closing stages of the 1860 campaign in north China.

  SIR HENRY POTTINGER (1789–1856): plenipotentiary who replaced Charles Elliot in August 1841 and who directed the closing negotiations at Nanjing; the first British Governor of Hong Kong.

  QIANLONG EMPEROR (1711–99): after Kangxi and Yongzheng, the last of the vigorous Qing emperors who ruled over China’s ‘Prosperous Age’.

  QISHAN (1790–1854): Manchu aristocrat appointed to replace Lin Zexu to oversee negotiations with the British in winter 1840. Arrested in March 1841 for ceding Hong Kong to Charles Elliot.

  QIYING (1787–1858): imperial kinsman appointed as plenipotentiary to negotiate the Treaty of Nanjing in August 1842.

  SAX ROHMER (1883–1959): born Arthur Ward, the creator of Fu Manchu.

  SUN YAT-SEN (also Sun Zhongshan) (1866–1925): leading revolutionary, ‘Father of the Chinese Nation’, first President of the Republic of China and the engineer of the first United Front between the Communist and Nationalist parties.

  YAN FU (1854–1921): leading theorist of late-Qing nationalism, celebrated for his translations of Social Darwinist texts into Chinese.

  YANG FANG (1770–1846): veteran of the Qing dynasty’s wars in Xinjiang, appointed commander of Canton’s troops in February 1841.

  YE MINGCHEN (1807–59): Governor-General of Canton during the second Opium War. Died in British captivity in India.

  YIJING (1791–1853): nephew of the Daoguang emperor, appointed to manage the disastrous counter-offensive on the east coast of spring 1842.

  YILIBU (1772–1843): imperial kinsman appointed as plenipotentiary to negotiate the Treaty of Nanjing in summer 1842.

  YISHAN (1790?–1878): cousin of the Daoguang emperor, appointed ‘Rebel-Suppressing General’ in February 1841. Oversaw the ransoming of Canton to the British that May.

  YONGZHENG EMPEROR (1678–1735): reigning after Kangxi and before Qianlong, the second of the three most successful Qing rulers and author of the first prohibition against opium.

  YU BUYUN (d. 1843): commander of the Qing forces on the east coast 1841–42; executed by Daoguang for cowardice and incompetence in 1843.

  YUQIAN (1793–1841): Mongolian imperial commissioner on the east coast who advocated war, not negotiations, with the British. Oversaw the Qing defeat in Zhoushan and Zhenhai in October 1841.

  ZHANG XI (?): aide to Yilibu and key negotiator with the British in the run-up to the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842.

  Timeline of Modern Chinese History and of the Opium War

  1644

  the last Ming emperor hangs himself. The Manchus enter Beijing and found the Qing empire in China.

  1661

  the Kangxi emperor comes to the throne.

  1683

  the Qing occupy Taiwan.

  1690s–1750s

  Qing conquest of Central Asia.

  Early 1700s

  the Chinese begin to smoke tobacco soaked in opium syrup.

  1720

  founding of the Hong in Canton, a merchants’ guild with a monopoly on trading with Europeans.

  1722

  the Yongzheng emperor comes to the throne.

  1729

  first Qing prohibition against opium.

  1735

  the Qianlong emperor comes to the throne.

  1757

  British conquest of Bengal.

  1760

  European trade with China limited to Canton.

  1792–93

  George III dispatches a trade mission, led by Lord Macartney, to China.

  1793

  British government establishes a monopoly over opium production in Bengal.

  1799

  death of the Qianlong emperor; the Jiaqing emperor takes power and purges Heshen.

  1816–17

  a second British embassy travels to China, led by Lord Amherst.

  1820

  the Daoguang emperor succeeds to the throne after the death of his father, Jiaqing.

  1832

  many of the Qing troops defeated by aboriginal rebels in Guangdong are discovered to be addicted to opium.

  1833

  abolition of the British East India Company’s monopoly over the China trade.

  1834

  Lord Napier dies in south China while locked in conflict with Canton’s authorities.

  1836–38

  intensification of Qing court debate about opium and escalation of legal measures against opium smugglers.

  1838 />
  Lin Zexu, one of the leaders of the opium prohibition party, is summoned to an audience with the emperor and dispatched to Canton to crack down on drug-smuggling.

  1839

  March Lin Zexu reaches Canton and threatens foreign smugglers with death if they do not hand over their opium stocks. The British superintendent of trade, Charles Elliot, and the foreign community are blockaded within the foreign factories. Three days after the start of the siege, Elliot agrees to surrender all foreign opium to Lin, who begins destroying it in May.

  April to September diplomatic disputes continue over the British unwillingness to sign a bond pledging to give up the opium trade and over Elliot’s refusal to hand over to the Qing judiciary sailors involved in the drunken manslaughter of a Chinese local, Lin Weixi. British ships migrate to and effectively occupy Hong Kong.

  August news of Lin’s blockade of the foreign factories reaches England.

  September to October a Cabinet meeting at Windsor agrees to send an expedition to China.

  September to November the first shots are exchanged between British and Chinese warships, in the Battles of Kowloon and Chuanbi.

  1840

  April the Whig government’s handling of affairs in China is debated in Parliament. The government narrowly wins a motion for war.

  June a British force assembles off Macao; Charles Elliot serves as joint plenipotentiary with his cousin George Elliot.