The Opium War of 1839-1842, was a war in which British merchants sought to legalize the trade of opium after commissioner Lin Zexu made it illegal for anyone to trade or bring in any opium. (Modern World History, ch. 13) The main goal or motive behind the opium wars was mainly due to Chinese merchants not having any interest in trading with European goods. In turn Europeans were forced to buy trading goods such as, tea, porcelain, silk, and lacquerware with silver instead of simply trading European goods for Chinese goods. (Modern World History, ch. 13) As a result, Europeans, The British East India Comp in particular (Modern World History, ch. 13) sought for other ways of making profit because the Chinese restrictions were severely draining …show more content…
(Modern World History, ch. 13) That decision clearly did not satisfy the Europeans and in turn sparked the Opium Wars. The highly industrialized British military severely outclassed the Chinese military, the use of muskets and swords by the Chinese was no match for the British rifles and iron gunboats. (Modern World History, ch. 13) After a short period, the Chinese government was forced to sue for peace which led to humiliating consequences and unjust peace terms with not only Britain, but France, Japan, and the United States as well. These unjust consequences included: repaying the costs of that war to Britain, opening ports to British trade, grant total control of Hong Kong to Britain, and providing a treaty of extraterritoriality to all British citizens living in China. (Caswell) Extraterritorially was unfair because it granted Europeans the power to do whatever they felt seen fit and can only be subject to laws and courts of their own nation. (Caswell) The opium wars concluded with unfair treaties that were greatly exploited by Europeans, and ultimately resulted in Britain and other European countries to take total economic control of China as well as, extend their influence to the rest of
In document 4 Ralph Fitch, a British merchant, is trying to join in on the trade and for the British government to join to be able to obtain more money. They see how the Portuguese is making money and the trade and profits being made between them and China and believe they should join the trade to earn some of the profit. A similar situation goes on in document 7 He Qiaoyuan, a Ming dynasty court official, he try's to convince the emperor to repeal the on foreign trade. He tells the emperor how Chinese merchants are trading there goods for profit and that they could be the ones making the profit instead of others. But in document 8 there was a conflict going, Charles D' Avenant, an English scholar, tells about the restricting Indian textiles.
Event: Tom accuses Matt of killing Furball, and Tam Lin is disappointed in Matt, but doesn’t see him as a beast, but as a human who made a mistake. “But Tam Lin had called Matt a human and expected much more from him. Humans, Matt realized, were a lot harder to forgive,” (138).
China was divided up into spheres of influences for different countries, meaning they controlled exclusive trading rights in that area but weren't in control of the government. The Chinese revolted against the British in the first opium war when they tried to stop the British from exporting opium, however the British swiftly defeated the rebellion and forced the Chinese to sign the Treaty of Nanking opening five ports for the British to export opium, later China was forced to open up eleven more ports to the British. With many european countries controlling basically all of China a group called the Boxers, a nickname given to the Society of the Harmonious Fist, their goal was drive out the foreigners. They were secretly funded by the Chinese government and started a rebellion which came to be known as the Boxer rebellion. They launched a series of attacks against foreigners and the imperialistic powers sent a force of 25,000 troops to crush the boxers and china remained a sphere of influence and the countries kept making
The Revolutionary War, or American Revolution, started in Lexington and Concord in April 1775. The first shot was fired in the middle of a fight between colonists and British soldiers. The fighting started because one of the colonists threw a snowball at the soldiers. In the chaos of the fight a shot was fired and a colonist was shot and killed. This shot was known as the shot heard around the world.
This made China the only way for getting tea. Sooner by the late 18th century, when Britain had an even greater demand of tea, there was the problem. They needed to pay bribes to every Chinese official as they came along to do trading with Hong, and British merchants could not bear the constantly fluctuating tariffs and port fees any more . In Britain’s point of view, they only needed to return products such as woolens, cottons, and other articles ; but China did not have the attempts to buy any British products. In this case, British merchants lost one side of the benefit, whereas they earned less than they supposed to get.
It was isolated and closed from the rest of the world and refused to use western ways. The Chinese allowed people and companies trade but only at the Port of Canton, and where the rights of European merchants were at the edge of the emperor. Imperialism in China was started with the First Opium War, which was 1839 through 1842. It was when the Chinese government had tried to stop the British from importing opium. Opium is a very addictive drug that ruined many people's lives, and it was destroying the economy.
Unfortunately, this thinking prevented the Chinese from learning from western technology and science. As a result the West was able to easily defeat the Qing in key battles such as the Opium War in 1839 to 1841. In contrast to the Ottomans, the Qing was unable to compromise with the West and Europe forced its way into China. However, both societies were influenced by Western methods, despite attempts to restore traditional ideology and campaigns by both Chinese
In 1839, the Chinese government tried to ban opium from a port city called Canton. Columbia University 's article, China and the West, says that, “the Chinese are defeated by superior British arms and which results in the imposition of the first of many “Unequal Treaties.” These treaties open other cities, “Treaty Ports” — first along the coast and then throughout China — to trade, foreign legal jurisdiction on Chinese territory in these ports, foreign control
The Chinese refusal of trade with Britain ultimately led to the Chinese loss of the Opium War and allowed the British to gain control over China. Although the most significant causes of European Imperialism in both Africa and China were similar due to the fact that the belief that one country was superior in comparison to another was present in both situations, the most significant causes also differed in which country held the
One of the major causes for Imperialism was our economics. As we became more knowledgeable and fulfilled with new products we needed to know where to sell them and of course we knew China had all the customers. It all started during the early 1890’s. America became a victim of the early crisis decade due to overcrowded cities who were full of immigrants and filled with anxiety and concern of what America’s future would be along with a panic that occurred in 1893 caused by a failure due to a British bank who led the United States to a horrible economic depression. According to two American politics there was only two options left.
It caused the Opium War, World War 1, and created many racist and unreasonable laws. The British were very self-centered and imperialized countries only to gain territories and resources from them. I think that imperialism was not justified for multiple reasons because although imperialism did improve the lives of many natives and increased global trade, the majority of the world ended up hurting from it. The negatives outway the positives because of the exploitation of the natives which caused many unnecessary events to
In this in-depth article, Joshua Fogel discusses the details and importance of opium in China. Published in 2006, “Opium and China Revisited: How Sophisticated Was Qing Thinking in Matters of Drug Control?” takes us back to the nineteenth century and China's relationship with the outside world during the Mao years. Fogel begins by highlighting the significance of the Chinese government and nationalism in China during the 19th and 20th centuries. This then leads to talk of the opium in China and other area of Eurasia including Britain and Japan. Finally, Fogel succeeds in analyzing the studies done by other scholars, but fails to bring any new evidence or arguments in his work.
However, during this time period this control of Indian commerce was at its strongest because of British actions of conquering Indian territories. Whilst in China, the economic continuity was a bigger issue; it was the continuity of opium trade way before the Opium War and after. The only distinct is that before the war it was illegal, and after the war China was forced to legalize it. However, it was still a part of Chinese economy whether legal or illegal.
In 1895, Japan took over a large part of China and so did the Europeans in the late 1890s due to China’s leaders’ lack of power to control their nation by opening up its doors for them to trade and them taking an advantage of it. Many of the US business and government leaders worried they were not give equal opportunity to trade with them so they proposed the Open Door Policy with China. The policy stated all nations will be allowed to trade freely in and with China. Europeans this to be the benefit of the US and would take away their power in China so they did not accept. Later European accepted the Open Door Policy after more than 200 foreigners were killed in the Boxer Rebellion.
This led the Colonists to assume that the British Parliament wanted to restrain the colonist along the Atlantic where they would be easier to regulate. This event sparked the tension between the Colonies and Great Britain. The end of the war might of brought a victory for Great Britain, but it also resulted in them being in great debt. Parliament began to search for ways to pay off the war debt.