C. EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM IN CHINA
As you know, for much of its history, China was relatively isolationist. It traded frequently, but it didn’t make exploration a high priority. It also expanded by conquering its neighbors, but never took this expansion beyond its own region of the globe. Up until the 1830s, China allowed the European powers to trade only in the port city of Canton, and it established strict limitations on what could be bought and sold. But as the European powers, particularly the British, gained industrial muscle, they came barging in, this time with weapons and warships.
The Opium Wars: European Drug Pushers Force Their Right to Deal
In 1773, British traders introduced opium to the Chinese. By 1838, the drug habit among the Chinese had grown so widespread and destructive that the Manchu Emperor released an imperial edict forbidding the further sale or use of opium. Consistent with this edict, the Chinese seized British opium in Canton in 1839.
The British would have none of it. From 1839 to 1842, the two countries fought a war over the opium trade. This was known as the first Opium War. Overwhelmed by British military might, China was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanjing, the first of what came to be known as the “unequal treaties,” by which Britain was given considerable rights to expand trade with China. And, of course, the right to create more opium addicts.
In 1843, Britain declared Hong Kong its own crown possession, a significant development because that went beyond trading rights and actually established a British colony in the region. In 1844, the Manchu Dynasty was forced to permit Christian missionaries back into the country.
When China resisted British attempts to expand the opium trade even further, the two countries fought a second Opium War for four years beginning in 1856. The Chinese defeat was humiliating. It resulted in the opening of all of China to European trade. Still, other than in Hong Kong, European imperialism in China was quite different from what it was in India and what it would be in Africa. In China, Britain fought more for trading concessions than for the establishment of colonies.
The Word Is Out: China Is Crumbling
The Opium Wars had a huge impact on the global perception of China. For centuries, the world knew that China was one of the more advanced civilizations. With the clear-cut British defeat of China with relatively few troops, the world realized that China was an easy target. What’s more, the Chinese themselves knew that their government was weak, and so they, too, started to rebel against it. Internal rebellion started at the beginning of the nineteenth century with the White Lotus Rebellions led by Buddhists who were frustrated over taxes and government corruption. It continued through the middle of the century with the Taiping Rebellion. The Taipings, led by a religious zealot claiming to be the brother of Jesus, recruited an army nearly a million strong and nearly succeeded in bringing down the Manchu government. The rebels failed, but the message was clear. China was crumbling from within, and unable to stop foreign aggression from outside.
In the 1860s, the Manchu Dynasty tried to get its act together in what became known as the Self-Strengthening Movement, but it did no good. In 1876, Korea realized China was weak and declared its independence. Later, in the Sino-French War (1883), the Chinese lost control of Vietnam to the French, who established a colony there called French Indochina. If that wasn’t enough, a decade later the Chinese were defeated in the Sino-Japanese War, when the rising imperial power of Japan wanted in on the action. In the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), China was forced to hand over control of Taiwan and grant the Japanese trading rights similar to those it had granted the Europeans. Japan also defeated the Koreans and took control of the entire peninsula.
Meanwhile, the European powers were rushing to establish a greater presence in China. By establishing spheres of influence, France, Germany, Russia, and of course Britain carved up huge slices of China for themselves. These spheres were not quite colonies. Instead, they were areas in which the European powers invested heavily, built military bases, and set up business, transportation, and communication operations. The Manchu Dynasty was still the governmental authority within the spheres.
By 1900, the United States, which had its own trading designs on Asia, was worried that China would become another India or Africa, and that the United States would be shut out of trade if the Manchu government fell and the Europeans took over the government. Through its Open Door Policy, the United States pledged its support of the sovereignty of the Chinese government and announced equal trading privileges among all imperial powers (basically Europe and the United States).
The Boxer Rebellion: Knocked Out in the First Round
By the twentieth century, nationalism among the Chinese peasants and local leadership was festering. Anti-Manchu, anti-European, and anti-Christian, the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, or Boxers as they came to be known, organized in response to the Manchu government’s defeats and concessions to the Western powers and Japan. Infuriated, the Boxers’ goal was to drive the Europeans and Japanese out of China. Adopting guerilla warfare tactics, the Boxers slaughtered Christian missionaries and seized control of foreign embassies. Ultimately, however, they were not successful in achieving their aims. Instead, their uprising resulted in the dispatch of foreign reinforcements who quickly and decisively put down the rebellion. The Manchu government, already having made great concessions to the Europeans and Japanese, was then even further humiliated. As a result of the rebellion, China was forced to sign the Boxer Protocol, which demanded that China not only pay the Europeans and the Japanese the costs associated with the rebellion but also to formally apologize for it as well.
Contrast Them: European Imperialism in China and in India
Multiple European countries originally traded with India, but the British won out and established exclusive control. In China, the British dominated trade early on, and as they succeeded, more and more countries piled on.
In India, the British established a true colony, running the government and directing huge internal projects. In China, Europeans and the Japanese established spheres of influence, focusing on the economic benefits of trade with no overall governmental responsibilities. Therefore, when independence movements began in India, the efforts were directed against Britain, the foreign occupier. In contrast, when the people wanted to change the government in China, they targeted the Manchu Dynasty.
On its last legs, the Manchu Dynasty couldn’t prevent the forces of reform from overtaking it from both within and without, and as a consequence, Chinese culture itself started to crumble. In 1901, foot binding was abolished. In 1905, the 2,000-year-old Chinese Examination System was eliminated. By 1911, the government was toppled and imperial rule came to an end. For the first time, under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen, a republic was established in China. But more on this in the next chapter.