Later Qing Dynasty

1. Later Qing Dynasty Professor Pacas

2. Later Qing • Much like India, China’s eventual succumbing to European powers was more a case of internal issues weakening it from the inside than external (European) conquests. • However, China differed from India in that most Han Chinese part of the population viewed the Manchus, even though highly Sinicized, as foreigners and often plotted to overthrow the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty.

3. The power struggle • So what you had in 19th century China was a struggle between competing interests groups: • Manchus- trying to retain power Qing Dynasty • Han Chinese- trying to overthrow the Manchus/Qing Dynasty and reestablish Han rule in China • Europeans- trying to promote trade interests with China irrespective of who was in power.

4. Early 1800’s • The Europeans, particularly the English, had been trying to establish more trading posts in China since the 1700’s but without much success. • The Qing actually saw trade with Europeans as a favor to these ‘western barbarians’ since what Europeans brought to the table for trade was not really coveted by Chinese (except for silver). • European trade with China throughout the 1700’s was one in which the scale tipped in favor of the Qing Dynasty. • Europe had an insatiable demand for Chinese porcelains, tea, silk, spices, etc.

5. Opium • Although, long known and used in China as a painkiller, the British were able to gain favorable trade with China once they began to import Opium. • They discovered that extracting the sap from the poppy and vaporizing it and inhaling it from a pipe the user could increase the effects of the drug. • The huge drawback for the Chinese was that consuming the drug in this way created a higher percentage of addiction. • This development was detrimental to the Chinese and profitable for the British.

6. Opium cont’d • By the 1820’s China’s trade surplus with the West had disappeared. • By 1833 10 million ounces of silver flowed out of China. • Britain had stumbled on the miracle that would finally tip the scales in its favor…drug pushing. • By 1836 China was on a trade deficit with the British consuming $18 million worth of opium but selling to the Brits only $ 17 million worth of tea.

7. Late 1830’s • During the early stages of Opium/British inroads, Chinese/Qing officials had been corrupt and easily bribed to look the other way. • However, by late 1830’s the situation had alarmed the Qing court sufficiently to garner stricter enforcement of laws banning trade and use of opium in China. • In 1839, Lin Zexu became the commissioner of in Guangzhou…he was determined to suppress the opium trade. • He was responsible for seizing and destroying 21,000 chests of opium at a cost of about over $ 15 million to the British.

8. The Opium War of 1840-1842 • The British government sent a naval force to exact payment from the Qing for the lose of their opium and to further expand trade in opium and other British goods in China. • In 1842 after many failed attempts at negotiations and military actions the Chinese were forced to pay indemnities for the war, the loss of the original chests destroyed by Lin Zexu, and open more coastal enclaves to the British and other Western European nations. • The British also received Hong Kong.

9. The Aftermath of the Opium War • The Opium War herald the beginning of the end for the Qing Empire. • Europeans exacted ever increasing demands that practically transformed China into a colony. • China was swamped with European industrial goods and its wealth was siphoned off to Europe. • Soon the U.S. joined the scramble to attempt to get a piece of the Chinese pie.

10. The aftermath of the Opium War cont’d • The rapaciousness of the Europeans, the costly wars that the Qing had engaged to try to stave the Europeans off, and now the need to pay the indemnities and taxes put huge financial strains on the court and the cost was passed down to the people. • This further alienated Han Chinese population who blamed the Manchus for selling China to the Europeans. • In the mid 1800’s many social movements with aims at Han Chinese independence from the Manchus emerged.

11. The Taiping Rebellion 1854 • One of the more temporarily successful of these was the Taiping movement led by Hong Xiuquan. • The Taiping Tianguo(Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace) took control of Nanjing by the Yangzi River in 1854. • Taking under his banner disenfranchised unemployed workers and angry peasants, Hong was able to coalesce them into an army that effectively challenged the Manchus. • Initially, because Hong was a Christian, the Europeans sought to financially support his cause and gain his allegiance. • However, his belief that he was Jesus’s younger brother, soon alienated them and instead the Europeans supported the Qing…arguing that a Chinese civil war would adversely affect their business interests in China. • It is estimated that 20 million people were killed in the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion.

12. Second Opium War 1858-1860 • In order to secure their business interests and fearing that the struggle between the Taiping and Qing would prove costly for European interests a force of Anglo-French troops invaded Beijing, burned the palace, and forced the Qing to grant further concessions to Europeans in Chinese trade. • After 1860 Westerners took control of China’s taxes and trade further turning the once opulent Chinese empire into a defacto export oriented economy enriching Europe.

13. Forced labor of Chinese 1860-1880 • European and later the U.S. began to abuse the Chinese population and use them as a source of cheap labor. • Chinese people became in effect indentured servants for industries such as the railroad to build under hard labor conditions the countless miles of railroad tracks. • Chinese immigrants were subjected to all sorts of abuse. • The racist white population of many Western industrial nations treating the Chinese people abusively with what today we would call human rights violations. • Ideas that persisted well into the 1960’s and 1970’s in Europe and U.S.