King George III
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(AP/Wide World Photos)
Milestone Documents in World History
1793
Qianlong’s Letter to George III
“ My capital is the hub and centre about which all quarters of the globe revolve.”
Overview
Arguably the earliest communication
between a monarch of China and the ruler
of a European country, Qianlong’s letter to
George III was the official response to Lord
George Macartney’s mission, sponsored by
the British East India Company in cooperation with the British government, to
secure diplomatic relations and improved trade conditions
with the Qing Dynasty. From its establishment in 1600, the
British East India Company was a major exporter of silk,
tea, porcelain, and lacquerware from China to England and
the rest of Europe. Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, the East India Company also attempted to sell English
and European goods, most of them manufactured products, to China in order to offset a mounting trade deficit.
Before the Macartney embassy, the company had sent
emissaries to China, hoping to broaden trade relations and
gain better access to the Chinese market. None of them
was successful.
It was in this context that Lord Macartney undertook
his mission. Unlike his predecessors, he was permitted to
enter the Qing palaces in Beijing and elsewhere, have an
audience with the Qing emperor Qianlong and his confident Heshen, and present George III’s letter to the emperor. None of this had been achieved before. But in the end
Macartney failed to realize the goals set by the government
and the East India Company for his embassy. Considering
himself to be the ruler of the “central country,” at the time
the richest and most powerful in the world, Emperor Qianlong rejected all of Macartney’s requests. Nor did the
emperor think that a small maritime kingdom located several thousand miles away was a force deserving his attention and concern. Little did he know that all this was to
change in about a half century.
Context
Several factors prompted the British East India Company and the British government to launch the Macartney
embassy to seek diplomatic contact with Qing China, occa-
Qianlong’s Letter to George III
sioning the letter exchange between George III and Emperor Qianlong. First, during the second half of the eighteenth
century the Industrial Revolution was well under way and
was playing an increasingly important role in shaping
British foreign policy. Propelled by the British desire for
raw materials and new markets, British foreign policy
became more and more colonialist and expansionist. Having won the Seven Years’ War (1756 1763), the British
began to establish their colonial empire around the
world a drive that continued despite the later loss of the
North American colonies in the American Revolution.
Indeed, to some extent, this loss may have served to deepen the English craving to seek compensations elsewhere.
Second, the eighteenth century was an era of exploration
and discovery. Even as Britain was dispatching the Macartney mission to China, it was beginning to expand its holdings in Canada, India, and Australia. Little wonder, then,
that among Macartney’s retinue were botanists, artists, and
cartographers. The embassy thus was both a diplomatic
mission and a voyage of discovery; as the former realized an
economic interest, the latter showed a curiosity for firsthand knowledge of the mysterious Far East. Born and
raised in Northern Ireland, George Macartney, who was
created Viscount Macartney of Dervock right before his
departure, was regarded as the best available diplomat and
administrator to fill the post, because he had had experience dealing with Catherine the Great of Russia, another
despotic ruler.
The third and perhaps most immediate reason for
Britain’s desire to secure diplomatic relations with China
was that though the English trade with China would not be
formally established until the early eighteenth century, that
trade was nevertheless quickly increasing in importance.
Throughout the seventeenth century, for example, tea
drinking had gradually become a national habit in England,
generating a strong demand for expanded trade with China.
Indeed, according to Jonathan Spence, “by 1800, the East
India Company was buying over 23 million pounds of
China tea at a cost of £3.6 million” (p. 122). Between 1660
and 1700 the East India Company had made attempts to
establish a factory in the provincial capital of Guangzhou
(known in English as Canton) and elsewhere, but to no
avail. By 1710 English merchants were trading regularly in
825
Time Line
1600
■
December 31
The East India
Company is
established by
charter and
soon becomes a
major trader
with the Indian
Subcontinent
and the Orient.
1644
■
The Manchus
found the Qing
Dynasty, or
Empire of the
Great Qing.
1683
■
The Qing, under
Emperor Kangxi,
unify the whole
country by
defeating
various forces in
South China,
Tibet, and
Taiwan.
1736
■
Emperor
Qianlong
ascends the
throne.
1760
■
The Qing
Dynasty
imposes the
Canton System
to control trade
in China.
■
October 25
King George III
ascends the throne
of England.
■
February 10
The Treaty of
Paris is signed,
ending the
Seven Years’
War and
establishing
Britain’s
dominance of
most colonies
outside Europe.
1763
826
Guangzhou, but their activities were straitjacketed by the
Canton System imposed by the Qing Dynasty in 1760. By
sponsoring the Macartney embassy, the company hoped,
through diplomacy, to circumvent the Canton System and
other Qing governmental regulations and gain direct access
to Chinese goods.
The Qing Dynasty was not completely disinterested in
foreign trade and the profit it generated. Although Emperor Qianlong forcefully rejected Macartney’s requests for
expanded trade, the Qing court reaped handsome customs
revenue from seaborne foreign commerce in certain ports
along the coast. This stood in stark contrast to the policy of
its predecessor, the Ming Dynasty (1368 1644), which
during the early fifteenth century was known for launching
stupendous maritime expeditions that reached the eastern
and southeastern coasts of Africa. But from the time of the
mid-Ming, troubled by piracy, the dynasty resumed its policy of haijin, or “coastal clearance,” forbidding the Chinese
to sail into the sea and foreign merchants to come ashore.
The Qing rulers continued this “sea ban” policy, though for
a different reason to prevent the recuperation of the
remaining Ming forces that had been active along the coast
and in Taiwan. After Emperor Kang Xi, the dynasty’s second and perhaps most able ruler, had pacified the coastal
regions in 1683, he lifted the ban on overseas trade. Ironically, it was during Emperor Qianlong’s reign that the sea
ban was greatly relaxed, giving rise to the Cohong, a merchant guild that gradually gained a monopoly, authorized
by the Qing government, on trading with Western merchants. The Cohong thus became a core agency in the
Canton System, which helped put overseas trade under the
direct control of both the provincial government and the
central government’s Ministry of Revenue. The Canton
System was aimed at delimiting foreign trade and exploiting its income for the Qing court.
While Emperor Qianlong showed interest in foreign
trade, he was clearly not ready to expand it to the extent
desired by the British. The Qing was founded by the
Manchus, a nomadic group and an ethnic minority that
had arisen originally in Manchuria, today’s Northeast
China. After replacing the Ming Dynasty, the Manchu
rulers quickly adopted a policy of presenting themselves as
the legitimate successors of the Ming imperial realm. In
economic terms, this meant that the Qing continued the
traditional emphasis on agricultural development, one that
had been in place for two millennia. Like the Ming and
most of its predecessors, the Qing considered itself politically and ideologically the owner of the Central Country
(Zhongguo, or “Middle Kingdom”), an undisputed center of
civilization in the world and one that radiated its cultural
influence to the surrounding regions. All this was reflected
in the practice of the entrenched “tributary system” that
the Qing had inherited from its predecessors in managing
relations with its neighbors. Under this system, it was
assumed that uncultured neighboring barbarians would be
attracted to China and would be transformed by Chinese
culture. The Chinese ruler would show compassion for foreign emissaries. In Emperor Qianlong’s era, these “tribu-
Milestone Documents in World History
Qianlong’s Letter to George III
Time Line
1760s
■
A series of
inventions in cotton
spinning are
patented in Britain,
propelling the
expansion of its
textile industry and
sparking interest in
acquiring silk and
other fabrics from
China.
1780s
■
James Watts
improves the
design of the
steam engine, a
landmark event
in the Industrial
Revolution and
one that led to
advances in
oceangoing
vessels.
1792
■
September
The British East
India Company and
British government
dispatch Lord
George Macartney
as ambassador to
China for
developing trade
and diplomatic
relations with the
Qing Empire, where
he remains until
1794.
1793
■
September 14
Macartney
presents a letter
from George III
to Emperor
Qianlong,
seeking to
secure
diplomatic
relations and
improved trade
conditions with
Qing China.
■
October 3
Emperor Qianlong
summons
Macartney to his
court and tenders
his reply to King
George’s letter.
Milestone Documents
tary states” could be found not only in today’s Korea, Vietnam, Burma, and Thailand but also in parts of Russia, the
Netherlands, and Portugal.
Compared with the Russians, who had established an
ecclesiastical mission in Beijing, and the Portuguese, who
had held Macao as their enclave, the British were latecomers in seeking a relationship with Qing China. However,
powered by the raging Industrial Revolution, this nation of
just eight million compared with 330 million in Qing
China began to sense that they represented the burgeoning great power in the world. This sentiment was evident in
the instructions given by Henry Dundas, the home secretary of the British Government, to Lord Macartney:
1. to negotiate a treaty of commerce and friendship and
to establish a resident minister at the court of Qianlong;
2. to extend British trade in China by opening new ports
where British woolens might be sold;
3. to obtain from China the cession of a piece of land or
an island nearer to the tea- and silk-producing area than
Guangzhou, where British merchants might reside the whole
year and where British jurisdiction could be exercised;
4. to abolish the existing abuses in the Canton System
and to obtain assurances that they would not be revived;
5. to create new markets in China for British products
hitherto unknown, such as hardware; and
6. to open Japan and Vietnam to British trade by means
of treaties.
The nature and scope of these charges suggest that the
British government hoped to attain much more from their
contact with the Chinese than had been accomplished by
other Europeans. Most important, they wanted their country to be treated as an equal by the Qing ruler. Lord
Macartney intended to show the Chinese that a new power
had been born in the West.
Steam-driven vessels would indeed bring the English
close to the Chinese shore and deliver a serious blow to
their empire in the mid-nineteenth century. But Emperor
Qianlong did not foresee this. After all, the Qing Dynasty,
from the time of its founding in the mid-seventeenth century and until the time of Qianlong, had stood undefeated
in all the wars it had fought with its enemies. The emperor
was willing to show his compassion for, or even “cherish,”
the visit of an embassy from afar, especially one offering
belated congratulations for his eightieth birthday and presenting tribute to his Celestial Empire. But he was uninterested in anything beyond that, let alone in any notion of
treating the British as equals.
On September 14, 1793, a year after departing from
London, Macartney and his retinue were received by the
emperor at Rehe, a Qing summer palace north of Beijing.
As he presented King George III’s letter to Qianlong,
Macartney is said to have knelt on one knee, as if he were
being received by his king, though he omitted kissing the
emperor’s hand. Macartney and his associates denied that
they ever performed kowtow (which required bending both
knees) at the Qing court, but new scholarship reveals that
while the Chinese ministers were performing the kowtow
on one or two other occasions, prostrating their bodies and
827
Time Line
1796
■
Emperor Jiaqing
ascends the
throne.
1799
■
Emperor
Qianlong dies.
poems and essays in Chinese and was a patron of an ambitious ten-year bibliographic project known as the Four
Treasuries (Siku quanshu), the avowed aim of which was to
cull, catalog, and abstract all existing books. The study of
Chinese Confucian culture, in the form of “evidential
learning” an intellectual trend of the Qing period that
emphasized an empirical approach to the understanding of
Confucian classics flourished.
Explanation and Analysis of the Document
1820
■
January 29
George III dies.
1839
■
The First Opium
War begins.
knocking their foreheads on the ground, the British also
knelt on both knees and bowed their heads to the ground.
Thus, scholars differ in their reading and interpretation of
the sources regarding the kowtow ritual. Despite this, most
of them seem to agree that even if the English, or Macartney, had followed the usual ritual in meeting Emperor
Qianlong, it would not have altered their mission’s outcome the emperor would still have rejected their
requests. For though the Qing court delighted in profiting
from tea, silk, lacquer, and porcelain exports to Europe,
such things remained luxurious and therefore peripheral to
their agriculture-based economy.
After he presented King George III’s letter to Emperor
Qianlong on September 14, 1793, Lord Macartney did not
receive a reply until October 3, when he and his assistant
were ushered into Beijing’s Forbidden City and asked to
genuflect before the scroll that represented the emperor’s
rejoinder. In fact, Qianlong’s response had been ready
since September 22. Indeed, Qing court documents reveal
that the letter had been drafted as early as July 30 and had
been submitted to Emperor Qianlong on August 3, more
than six weeks before King George III’s letter was even
delivered. In other words, the failure of the British mission
to establish trade and diplomatic relations was “inevitable
from the outset” (Peyrefitte, p. 288). Nevertheless, Macartney’s omitting to kneel on both knees when he delivered his
king’s requests to the emperor apparently had served to
toughen the letter’s tone in rejecting these requests. As an
imperial edict, Qianlong’s response was written in classical
Chinese and rendered into Latin by Jesuit missionaries.
Next, the embassy drafted an English summary of the Latin
translation, erasing any trace of offensive and condescending phrases. Neither of these texts has survived. The letter
exists today only in abridged versions.
◆
About the Author
Emperor Qianlong was born Hongli, the fourth son of
Emperor Yongzheng, in 1711. Qianlong was his reign
name, and he would not take it until he assumed the
throne of the empire. In imperial China, members of the
upper class usually had several names for difference occasions. The name given by the parents was used strictly
within the family. Emperors had a reign name because, out
of deference, no one outside the family was supposed to
use his given name. Qianlong was the fourth emperor of
the Qing Dynasty, and his reign which began in 1736 and
ended officially in 1795 (though he remained in power
until his death in 1799) was the longest in the dynasty,
representing its heyday. Among the emperor’s many accomplishments was the acquisition of a huge territory in the
northwest, known as Xinjiang, or “New Territory,” which
doubled what was then China’s territory. Under Qianlong’s
rule, the population experienced a boom, attesting to the
vibrancy of the economy.
Besides being an able administrator, Emperor Qianlong
was a cultural dilettante. He penned a great number of
828
Paragraphs 1–6
In the first two paragraphs, Emperor Qianlong politely
acknowledges the effort by King George III to send a diplomatic mission, which he interprets as a “desire to partake
of the benefits of our civilisation.” He delights in the fact
that the mission was sent to congratulate him on the
anniversary of his birthday. In return for this friendly gesture and for the mission’s gifts (which he regards as tributes), the emperor informs King George that he has shown
his generosity by personally meeting the embassy and treating them with presents and banquets.
In the next four paragraphs, the emperor proceeds to the
first important issue: rejecting the embassy’s request to
establish a diplomatic residency in Beijing and denying English merchants permission to travel and trade freely in the
country. His reasons are three: First, drawing perhaps on
the experience of the Jesuit missions, the emperor cites the
historical precedent that once a European was permitted to
live in China, he then would be expected to adopt the Chinese way of life and would be forbidden to return home.
This would not suit the goal that the diplomatic residency
hoped to achieve. Second, the emperor suggests that there
is nothing wrong with the Canton System of managing and
Milestone Documents in World History
Milestone Documents
Seals belonging to the Qianlong Emperor
(Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D C Anonymous gift, F1978 51a-f)
controlling trade with the Europeans, and he refuses to
alter it to accommodate the English request that a resident
diplomat be allowed to direct English trade with China. He
asks, “If each and all [Europeans] demanded to be represented at our Court, how could we possibly consent?” a
reflection of the historical reality that tributary missions
from foreign lands would remain in China for no more than
several months. It likewise suggests that although the
emperor was aware that Europe comprised many nations,
he did not know that diplomatic residence had become a
Qianlong’s Letter to George III
common practice among them. Of course, knowing would
almost certainly not have altered his judgment: Qianlong
was quite confident that China’s “ceremonies and code of
laws” were superior to those of the Europeans.
This sense of cultural superiority stands as Qianlong’s
third reason for dismissing the English request. He tells the
king that he believes that even if the English envoy “were
able to acquire the rudiments of our civilisation, you could
not possibly transplant our manners and customs to your
alien soil.” Considering himself to be the ruler of a superior
829
civilization occupying the center of the universe, the emperor makes it clear to King George that if he permits certain
trade with the English, it is because he wants to bestow
grace and extend friendship to a foreign nation, for “we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country’s manufactures.”
nations would seek the same, which he regards as dangerous, for “friction would inevitably occur between the Chinese and your barbarian subjects.” In the same spirit, he
sees that this permission would invariably expand their
contacts with the Chinese people.
◆
◆
Paragraphs 7 and 8
These paragraphs explain the emperor’s refusal to expand
trade with the English. They begin with a similar acknowledgment, only now in a somewhat more condescending
tone. Noting King George’s interest in seeking to “come into
touch with our converting influence” and his “respectful
spirit of submission,” the emperor informs the king that he
has reciprocated with “the bestowal of valuable presents.”
The emperor continues to explain somewhat haughtily
to the English king why he is forced to reject his emissary’s
requests. The emperor sees the proposal to expand trade
and bypass the Cohong as a violation of the existent practice, which he considers impeccable. Such a request, if
granted, would set a “bad example” for other nations. Thus,
he not only wanted his ministers to educate the embassy
about the rules of his empire but also ordered them to
arrange departure for the embassy.
◆
Paragraphs 9–12
The next four paragraphs address Macartney’s detailed
requests for gaining access to the Chinese market, which
include setting facilities for assisting English ships in port
cities other than Xiamen (“Aomen” in the document); establishing a merchant repository in Beijing, the Qing capital;
allowing English merchants to reside on a small island near
Zhoushan (“Chusan”); and gaining them a residential compound in the city of Guangzhou (“Canton”). The emperor
rejects all of these requests because he considers the established Cohong system the best way to handle foreign trade.
Specifically, he states that the port city Xiamen, located in
southeastern China, is the most ideal geographic location for
a merchant repository because it is “near to the sea.” More
important, it was where the Cohong ran its operation by
which the Qing Dynasty controlled and contained trade with
the West. The emperor regards the request for merchant residence and repository as an infringement on the empire’s territorial integrity. But in doing so, he has to explain why the
Russians were granted such a facility in Beijing. Although his
answer is hardly persuasive, it is nevertheless unequivocal:
“The accommodation furnished to them [the Russians] was
only temporary.” He underscores the fact that his dynasty
restricts the movement of foreigners when he says that they
have never been allowed “to cross the Empire’s barriers and
settle at will amongst the Chinese people.”
In responding to the request for an island near
Zhoushan where merchants could reside and warehouse
goods, the emperor is unequivocal that it would set up an
“evil example.” He asks how he could comply with such
requests from other nations. The same argument is applied
to the request for a site in Guangzhou. If he allows the
English to gain such a privilege, then other European
830
Paragraphs 13 and 14
The next two paragraphs deal with issues related to tax
and tariff. One of the major reasons for the English government to send the Macartney mission to China was to seek,
in modern language, a “most favored nation status” for
Britain. This status would reduce duties and tariffs levied by
Qing China on English merchandise. Emperor Qianlong
also rejects these requests. As before, he does so by stressing
the issue of equality. As he puts it, he does not want to “make
an exception in your case” lest the principle of equality exercised by the Qing court in managing foreign trade be violated. Yet what lurks beneath this seemingly grand reason is his
refusal to make any changes to the existing Cohong system.
◆
Paragraph 15
The next paragraph, denying the request to conduct missionary activities in China, offers a glimpse into the emperor’s mindset regarding cultural exchange in general and his
recalcitrant attitude toward managing overseas trade in particular. Although he does not denigrate Christianity, he
clearly regards the Chinese moral system as superior. He
describes how this system was established from time immemorial and how it has been religiously observed by generations of Chinese. He reminds the king that Europeans present in China are prohibited from preaching their religion to
his subjects. This explanation was consistent with the policy instituted in the early eighteenth century by Emperor
Kangxi Emperor Qianlong’s much-loved grandfather in
the wake of the Rites Controversy, which essentially forbade
Christian missionaries from proselytizing the Chinese.
◆
Paragraph 16
Having rejected all of the requests “wantonly” made by
the Macartney embassy on behalf of King George III,
Emperor Qianlong concludes his letter by blaming Lord
Macartney and not the king himself for entertaining and presenting such “wild ideas and hopes.” Even if the king were
somewhat involved, the emperor writes, it was out of ignorance and innocence; he assumes that King George III “had
no intention of transgressing [Qing dynasty regulations].” He
goes on to deliver a stern warning to King George III: If the
British government persists in pursuing those proposals, it
and its emissaries will face severe punishments. “Tremblingly obey and show no negligence!” he tells the king.
Audience
Emperor Qianlong’s letter was, first and foremost,
addressed to the king of England, George III. Although he
wrote as one monarch to another, Qianlong was issuing a
response in the form of an “imperial edict.” He was placing
Milestone Documents in World History
“
Essential Quotes
Milestone Documents
“As to your entreaty to send one of your nationals to be accredited to
my Celestial Court and to be in control of your country’s trade with
China, this request is contrary to all usage of my dynasty and
cannot possibly be entertained.”
(Paragraph 3)
“How can our dynasty alter its whole procedure and system of etiquette,
established for more than a century, in order to meet your individual views?”
(Paragraph 4)
“Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim in view, namely, to maintain
a perfect governance and to fulfil the duties of the State: strange and costly
objects do not interest me.”
(Paragraph 5)
“My capital is the hub and centre about which all quarters of the
globe revolve.”
(Paragraph 10)
”
“Ever since the beginning of history, sage Emperors and wise rulers have
bestowed on China a moral system and inculcated a code, which from
time immemorial has been religiously observed by the myriads of my
subjects. That has no hankering after heterodox doctrines.”
(Paragraph 15)
himself on a quite different footing. Although Qianlong was,
in a sense, having his own “audience” with the British king,
his condescending tone was that of a superior. King George,
as the intended recipient, would have been unlikely to have
received the letter in the spirit in which it was offered. We
do not know, however, whether the letter was ever delivered.
The more immediate audience for the emperor’s letter
was Lord McCartney and his embassy. Written in classical
Chinese, the letter had first to be translated by Jesuit missionaries into Latin and then by the embassy into English.
The embassy was concerned enough about the language to
erase any trace of offensive and condescending phrases.
Macartney wrote of the event in his journal, where he
describes being received at the palace by the First Minister,
Qianlong’s Letter to George III
but without the usual graciousness and with a certain constraint. Later, when high officials of the court delivered the
letter itself to him at home, Macartney comments that from
their manner it had become clear that the Chinese wanted
the British embassy to leave. He does not remark on the
contents of the letter itself. In early 1794 Macartney sailed
for home, disappointed that his mission had failed.
Impact
In response to King George’s request for broadening trade
and bettering diplomatic relations, Emperor Qianlong wrote
his letter in the form of an imperial edict, explaining in detail
831
how and why he would not grant such a request. The emperor wanted to tell the English king how ignorant he was about
the magnificence of the Chinese Empire and how improper
his request was. However, we are unsure whether Lord
Macartney actually delivered Emperor Qianlong’s letter to
King George. Hence, we do not know King George’s reaction. In other words, whatever the emperor’s intention was in
writing the letter, it did not have the intended impact.
This first communication between the Qing emperor of
China and the king of England was not entirely fruitless.
Although George Macartney failed in his diplomatic mission to open the door to British trade with China, he was
more successful in his voyage of discovery. During his sixmonth sojourn in China he made careful and detailed
observations of the country in his journal, as did some of
other members in the embassy. Their portrayal of the Chinese as a stubborn and superstitious people and the Qing
Dynasty as a backward-looking empire, uninterested in
change and novelty, eventually altered the more positive
image of China in the European mind generated by the
Jesuits’ writings and by the philosophes. Instead, Macartney
and his assistants were convinced that to change China “the
effort required would be superhuman and that violence
could someday be necessary” (Peyrefitte, p. 541). Violence
was indeed used in the First Opium War of 1839 1842.
. “Tradutore, Traditure, A Reply to James Hevia.” Modern China
24, no. 3 (July 1998): 328 332.
Gillingham, Paul, “The Macartney Embassy to China.” History
Today 43, no. 11 (November 1993): 28 34.
Hevia, James H. “Postpolemical Historiography: A Response to
Joseph W. Esherick,” Modern China 24, no. 3 (July 1998): 319 327.
■
Books
Cranmer-Byng, J. L., ed. An Embassy to China: Being the Journal
Kept by Lord Macartney during his Embassy to the Emperor Ch’ienlung, 1793 1794. St. Claire Shores, Mich.: Scholarly Press, 1972.
Hevia, James H. Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and
the Macartney Embassy of 1793. Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press, 1995.
Peyrefitte, Alain. The Collision of Two Civilizations: The British
Expedition to China in 1792 4, trans. Jon Rothschild. Hammersmith, U.K.: Harvill, 1993.
Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1990.
Q. Edward Wang
Further Reading
■
Articles
Esherick, Joseph. “Cherishing Sources from Afar.” Modern China
24, no. 2 (April 1998): 135 161.
Questions for Further Study
1. The British East India Company was a private corporation, but during the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century it represented a projection of British imperial power in Asia and thus became a governing power.
How and to what extent was the company able to achieve this goal?
2. Why was China such an important market for Great Britain? What economic reasons did Great Britain have
for strengthening trade relations with China?
3. To what extent did cultural differences between China and England lead to the Chinese emperor’s rejection of
King George III’s proposal? What specific cultural practices in China influenced Qianlong’s response to King George?
4. Qianlong rejected out of hand every one of Britain’s proposals. What do you believe was the underlying reason for his refusal even to entertain the possibility of agreeing to any of these proposals?
5. Compare and contrast Qianlong’s Letter to King George III with Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to Queen Victoria,”
written less than four decades later in 1839. Did the later letter suggest any advances in relations between Great
Britain and China, or was China still “closed” to Britain and its trading goals?
832
Milestone Documents in World History
Document Text
You, O King, live beyond the confines of many
seas, nevertheless, impelled by your humble desire to
partake of the benefits of our civilisation, you have
dispatched a mission respectfully bearing your
memorial. Your Envoy has crossed the seas and paid
his respects at my Court on the anniversary of my
birthday. To show your devotion, you have also sent
offerings of your country’s produce.
I have perused your memorial: the earnest terms
in which it is couched reveal a respectful humility on
your part, which is highly praiseworthy. In consideration of the fact that your Ambassador and his
deputy have come a long way with your memorial
and tribute, I have shown them high favour and have
allowed them to be introduced into my presence. To
manifest my indulgence, I have entertained them at
a banquet and made them numerous gifts. I have
also caused presents to be forwarded to the Naval
Commander and six hundred of his officers and
men, although they did not come to Peking, so that
they too may share in my all-embracing kindness.
As to your entreaty to send one of your nationals
to be accredited to my Celestial Court and to be in
control of your country’s trade with China, this
request is contrary to all usage of my dynasty and
cannot possibly be entertained. It is true that Europeans, in the service of the dynasty, have been permitted to live at Peking, but they are compelled to
adopt Chinese dress, they are strictly confined to
their own precincts and are never permitted to
return home. You are presumably familiar with our
dynastic regulations. Your proposed Envoy to my
Court could not be placed in a position similar to
that of European officials in Peking who are forbidden to leave China, nor could he, on the other hand,
be allowed liberty of movement and the privilege of
corresponding with his own country; so that you
would gain nothing by his residence in our midst.
Moreover, our Celestial dynasty possesses vast
territories, and tribute missions from the dependencies are provided for by the Department for Tributary
States, which ministers to their wants and exercises
strict control over their movements. It would be
quite impossible to leave them to their own devices.
Supposing that your Envoy should come to our
Court, his language and national dress differ from
Qianlong’s Letter to George III
Milestone Documents
Qianlong’s Letter to George III
that of our people, and there would be no place in
which to bestow him. It may be suggested that he
might imitate the Europeans permanently resident in
Peking and adopt the dress and customs of China,
but, it has never been our dynasty’s wish to force
people to do things unseemly and inconvenient.
Besides, supposing I sent an Ambassador to reside in
your country, how could you possibly make for him
the requisite arrangements? Europe consists of many
other nations besides your own: if each and all
demanded to be represented at our Court, how could
we possibly consent? The thing is utterly impracticable. How can our dynasty alter its whole procedure
and system of etiquette, established for more than a
century, in order to meet your individual views? If it
be said that your object is to exercise control over
your country’s trade, your nationals have had full liberty to trade at Canton for many a year, and have
received the greatest consideration at our hands.
Missions have been sent by Portugal and Italy, preferring similar requests. The Throne appreciated
their sincerity and loaded them with favours, besides
authorising measures to facilitate their trade with
China. You are no doubt aware that, when my Canton merchant, Wu Chao-ping, was in debt to the foreign ships, I made the Viceroy advance the monies
due, out of the provincial treasury, and ordered him
to punish the culprit severely. Why then should foreign nations advance this utterly unreasonable
request to be represented at my Court? Peking is
nearly two thousand miles from Canton, and at such
a distance what possible control could any British
representative exercise?
If you assert that your reverence for Our Celestial
dynasty fills you with a desire to acquire our civilisation,
our ceremonies and code of laws differ so completely
from your own that, even if your Envoy were able to
acquire the rudiments of our civilisation, you could not
possibly transplant our manners and customs to your
alien soil. Therefore, however adept the Envoy might
become, nothing would be gained thereby.
Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim in
view, namely, to maintain a perfect governance and
to fulfil the duties of the State: strange and costly
objects do not interest me. If I have commanded that
the tribute offerings sent by you, O King, are to be
833
Document Text
accepted, this was solely in consideration for the
spirit which prompted you to dispatch them from
afar. Our dynasty’s majestic virtue has penetrated
unto every country under Heaven, and Kings of all
nations have offered their costly tribute by land and
sea. As your Ambassador can see for himself, we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or
ingenious, and have no use for your country’s manufactures. This then is my answer to your request to
appoint a representative at my Court, a request contrary to our dynastic usage, which would only result
in inconvenience to yourself. I have expounded my
wishes in detail and have commanded your tribute
Envoys to leave in peace on their homeward journey.
It behoves you, O King, to respect my sentiments
and to display even greater devotion and loyalty in
future, so that, by perpetual submission to our
Throne, you may secure peace and prosperity for
your country hereafter. Besides making gifts (of
which I enclose an inventory) to each member of
your Mission, I confer upon you, O King, valuable
presents in excess of the number usually bestowed
on such occasions, including silks and curios a list
of which is likewise enclosed. Do you reverently
receive them and take note of my tender goodwill
towards you! A special mandate.
You, O King, from afar have yearned after the
blessings of our civilisation, and in your eagerness to
come into touch with our converting influence have
sent an Embassy across the sea bearing a memorial.
I have already taken note of your respectful spirit of
submission, have treated your mission with extreme
favour and loaded it with gifts, besides issuing a
mandate to you, O King, and honouring you with the
bestowal of valuable presents. Thus has my indulgence been manifested.
Yesterday your Ambassador petitioned my Ministers to memorialise me regarding your trade with
China, but his proposal is not consistent with our
dynastic usage and cannot be entertained. Hitherto,
all European nations, including your own country’s
barbarian merchants, have carried on their trade
with our Celestial Empire at Canton. Such has been
the procedure for many years, although our Celestial
Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance
and lacks no product within its own borders. There
was therefore no need to import the manufactures of
outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce.
But as the tea, silk and porcelain which the Celestial
Empire produces, are absolute necessities to European nations and to yourselves, we have permitted,
as a signal mark of favour, that foreign hongs should
834
be established at Canton, so that your wants might
be supplied and your country thus participate in our
beneficence. But your Ambassador has now put forward new requests which completely fail to recognise
the Throne’s principle to ‘treat strangers from afar
with indulgence,’ and to exercise a pacifying control
over barbarian tribes, the world over. Moreover, our
dynasty, swaying the myriad races of the globe,
extends the same benevolence towards all. Your England is not the only nation trading at Canton. If other
nations, following your bad example, wrongfully
importune my ear with further impossible requests,
how will it be possible for me to treat them with easy
indulgence? Nevertheless, I do not forget the lonely
remoteness of your island, cut off from the world by
intervening wastes of sea, nor do I overlook your
excusable ignorance of the usages of our Celestial
Empire. I have consequently commanded my Ministers to enlighten your Ambassador on the subject,
and have ordered the departure of the mission. But I
have doubts that, after your Envoy’s return he may
fail to acquaint you with my view in detail or that he
may be lacking in lucidity, so that I shall now proceed
to take your requests seriatim and to issue my mandate on each question separately. In this way you
will, I trust, comprehend my meaning.
(1) Your Ambassador requests facilities for ships
of your nation to call at Ningpo, Chusan, Tientsin
and other places for purposes of trade. Until now
trade with European nations has always been conducted at Aomen, where the foreign hongs are established to store and sell foreign merchandise. Your
nation has obediently complied with this regulation
for years past without raising any objection. In none
of the other ports named have hongs been established, so that even if your vessels were to proceed
thither, they would have no means of disposing of
their cargoes. Furthermore, no interpreters are available, so you would have no means of explaining your
wants, and nothing but general inconvenience would
result. For the future, as in the past, I decree that
your request is refused and that the trade shall be
limited to Aomen.
(2) The request that your merchants may establish
a repository in the capital of my Empire for the storing and sale of your produce, in accordance with the
precedent granted to Russia, is even more impracticable than the last. My capital is the hub and centre
about which all quarters of the globe revolve. Its ordinances are most august and its laws are strict in the
extreme. The subjects of our dependencies have
never been allowed to open places of business in
Milestone Documents in World History
Document Text
Qianlong’s Letter to George III
are prevented, and a firm barrier is raised between my
subjects and those of other nations. The present
request is quite contrary to precedent; furthermore,
European nations have been trading with Canton for
a number of years and, as they make large profits, the
number of traders is constantly increasing. How
would it be possible to grant such a site to each country? The merchants of the foreign hongs are responsible to the local officials for the proceedings of barbarian merchants and they carry out periodical inspections. If these restrictions were withdrawn, friction
would inevitably occur between the Chinese and your
barbarian subjects, and the results would militate
against tile benevolent regard that I feel towards you.
From every point of view, therefore, it is best that the
regulations now in force should continue unchanged.
(5) Regarding your request for remission or
reduction of duties on merchandise discharged by
your British barbarian merchants at Aomen and distributed throughout the interior, there is a regular
tariff in force for barbarian merchants’ goods, which
applies equally to all European nations. It would be
as wrong to increase the duty imposed on your
nation’s merchandise on the ground that the bulk of
foreign trade is in your hands, as to make an exception in your case in the shape of specially reduced
duties. In future, duties shall be levied equitably
without discrimination between your nation and any
other, and, in order to manifest my regard, your barbarian merchants shall continue to be shown every
consideration at Aomen.
(6) As to your request that your ships shall pay the
duties leviable by tariff, there are regular rules in
force at the Canton Custom house respecting the
amounts payable, and since I have refused your
request to be allowed to trade at other ports, this
duty will naturally continue to be paid at Canton as
heretofore.
(7) Regarding your nation’s worship of the Lord of
Heaven, it is the same religion as that of other European nations. Ever since the beginning of history,
sage Emperors and wise rulers have bestowed on
China a moral system and inculcated a code, which
from time immemorial has been religiously observed
by the myriads of my subjects. There has been no
hankering after heterodox doctrines. Even the European (missionary) officials in my capital are forbidden to hold intercourse with Chinese subjects; they
are restricted within the limits of their appointed residences, and may not go about propagating their religion. The distinction between Chinese and barbarian
is most strict, and your Ambassador’s request that
Milestone Documents
Peking. Foreign trade has hitherto been conducted at
Aomen, because it is conveniently near to the sea,
and therefore an important gathering place for the
ships of all nations sailing to and fro. If warehouses
were established in Peking, the remoteness of your
country, lying far to the north-west of my capital,
would render transport extremely difficult.
Before Kiakhta was opened, the Russians were
permitted to trade at Peking, but the accommodation
furnished to them was only temporary. As soon as
Kiakhta was available, they were compelled to withdraw from Peking, which has been closed to their
trade these many years. Their frontier trade at
Kiakhta is on all fours with your trade at Aomen. Possessing facilities at the latter place, you now ask for
further privileges at Peking, although our dynasty
observes the severest restrictions respecting the
admission of foreigners within its boundaries, and
has never permitted the subjects of dependencies to
cross the Empire’s barriers and settle at will amongst
the Chinese people. This request is also refused.
(3) Your request for a small island near Chusan,
where your merchants may reside and goods be
warehoused, arises from your desire to develop trade.
As there are neither foreign hongs nor interpreters in
or near Chusan, where none of your ships have ever
called, such an island would be utterly useless for
your purposes. Every inch of the territory of our
Empire is marked on the map and the strictest vigilance is exercised over it all: even tiny islets and farlying sand-banks are clearly defined as part of the
provinces to which they belong. Consider, moreover,
that England is not the only barbarian land which
wishes to establish relations with our civilisation and
trade with our Empire: supposing that other nations
were all to imitate your evil example and beseech me
to present them each and all with a site for trading
purposes, how could I possibly comply? This also is a
flagrant infringement of the usage of my Empire and
cannot possibly be entertained.
(4) The next request, for a small site in the vicinity of Canton city, where your barbarian merchants
may lodge or, alternatively, that there be no longer any
restrictions over their movements at Aomen, has arisen from the following causes. Hitherto, the barbarian
merchants of Europe have had a definite locality
assigned to them at Aomen for residence and trade,
and have been forbidden to encroach an inch beyond
the limits assigned to that locality. Barbarian merchants having business with the hongs have never
been allowed to enter the city of Canton; by these
measures, disputes between Chinese and barbarians
835
Document Text
barbarians shall be given full liberty to disseminate
their religion is utterly unreasonable.
It may be, O King, that the above proposals have
been wantonly made by your Ambassador on his own
responsibility, or peradventure you yourself are ignorant of our dynastic regulations and had no intention
of transgressing them when you expressed these wild
ideas and hopes. I have ever shown the greatest condescension to the tribute missions of all States which
sincerely yearn after the blessings of civilisation, so
as to manifest my kindly indulgence. I have even
gone out of my way to grant any requests which were
in any way consistent with Chinese usage. Above all,
upon you, who live in a remote and inaccessible
region, far across the spaces of ocean, but who have
shown your submissive loyalty by sending this tribute
mission, I have heaped benefits far in excess of those
accorded to other nations. But the demands presented by your Embassy are not only a contravention of
dynastic tradition, but would be utterly improductive
of good result to yourself, besides being quite
impracticable. I have accordingly stated the facts to
you in detail, and it is your bounden duty reverently
to appreciate my feelings and to obey these instructions henceforward for all time, so that you may
enjoy the blessings of perpetual peace. If, after the
receipt of this explicit decree, you lightly give ear to
the representations of your subordinates and allow
your barbarian merchants to proceed to Chêkiang
and Tientsin, with the object of landing and trading
there, the ordinances of my Celestial Empire are
strict in the extreme, and the local officials, both civil
and military, are bound reverently to obey the law of
the land. Should your vessels touch the shore, your
merchants will assuredly never be permitted to land
or to reside there, but will be subject to instant
expulsion. In that event your barbarian merchants
will have had a long journey for nothing. Do not say
that you were not warned in due time! Tremblingly
obey and show no negligence! A special mandate!
Glossary
836
tribute missions
persons representing dependent states who appeared before the emperor bearing rare
and valuable items as evidence of submission to the Qing Dynasty
Swaying the wide
world
a reflection of the emperor’s belief his geopolitical importance far outweighed that of
Great Britain, continental Europe, and the rest of the known world
Milestone Documents in World History
1839
Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to
Queen Victoria”
“ The wealth of China is used to profit the barbarians.”
Overview
In 1839, in light of the growing level of
opium addiction in China under the Qing
Dynasty, Emperor Daoguang sent Commissioner Lin Zexu to Guangzhou (also called
Canton), Guangdong Province, and ordered
him to stop the smuggling and sale of opium
in China by Western, especially British,
merchants. While negotiating with Charles Elliot, the
British superintendent of trade, for his cooperation, Lin
wrote a letter in the traditional “memorial” form to the ruler
of Britain expressing China’s desire for peaceful resolution
of the opium trade. He used what limited even mistaken
knowledge he had newly acquired about his adversary in the
hope of evoking the latter’s sympathy and understanding.
Drawing on Confucian precepts as well as historical events,
he also reasoned forcefully on moral ground, trying to persuade the English monarch that he naturally would not
wish to ask of others what he himself did not want. The letter was, in effect, an ultimatum made by Commissioner Lin
on behalf of the Qing emperor to the English monarch,
delivering the unmistakable message that he and the Qing
government were determined to ban the selling and smoking of opium once and for all and at any cost.
After drafting and revising the letter, Commissioner Lin
asked his assistant and English missionaries and merchants
to translate it into English and present it to the British
king who was actually Queen Victoria, whose reign had
begun in 1837. Lin also circulated the letter as a public
announcement to the Western merchants in Guangzhou.
In the end, the letter was not delivered to the queen as he
had intended, nor was his hope for a peaceful solution to
the opium problem realized. Instead, the so-called First
Opium War broke out in 1840, which ended in the Qing
Dynasty’s defeat and Lin’s dismissal.
Context
From the late seventeenth century onward, international trade and commerce gained more and more importance
in the West. The demand for tea and porcelain from China
Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to Queen Victoria”
and for spices and indigo from India motivated many Europeans, especially the Dutch, Portuguese, and English, to
establish trade depots or factories in Asia. The success of
the emergent Industrial Revolution in England also fueled
the English ambition to sell manufactured products in Asia
in exchange for Asian goods. But most Asians, especially the
Chinese, were simply uninterested in reciprocating trade
with Western Europe. In 1793 Lord George Macartney, the
first British ambassador to China, approached Emperor
Qianlong and presented King George III’s wish to establish
diplomatic relations and expand trade between Britain and
China. The emperor, however, firmly rejected all the
requests made by the British embassy on the grounds that
China had always been a self-sufficient country and that it
had neither need for nor interest in foreign goods. At the
time, any foreign trade with the West was administered
through the Canton System, in which Western merchants
were allowed to sell their goods in Guangzhou only through
the Cohong (or Gonghang) merchants, who were the Chinese middlemen. Hoping to change the system and expand
trade, Europeans continued to send embassies to China
the Dutch in 1795, the Russians in 1806, and the British
again in 1816 all to no avail.
The Europeans repeatedly sent emissaries to China
because they wanted to sell more goods to the Chinese in
order to balance the growing trade deficit incurred through
the purchase of Chinese goods, especially tea. Through the
eighteenth century, tea imports in Britain had risen
sharply; from 1784 to 1785 they grew to over fifteen million pounds, from just over two pounds a century or so earlier. The British East India Company, which handled the
nation’s trade with China, began to grow tea in India in the
1820s but would not ship tea to Britain until 1858. Therefore, through the mid-nineteenth century almost all tea
had to be imported from China. Between 1811 and 1819,
British imports from China totaled over £72 million, of
which tea was worth £70 million.
Aside from diplomatic efforts, the British also searched
for and found an alternative to the currency of silver for the
purchase of tea and other Chinese goods: opium. Just as
Lord Macartney was pleading with Emperor Qianlong for
the establishment of trade relations, British merchants discovered this different and illicit way to address the mount-
933
Time Line
934
1600
■
December 31
The British East
India Company
is founded.
1760
■
The Canton
System is
established,
forbidding direct
access to trade
in China by
foreign
merchants.
1820
■
October 3
Emperor
Daoguang
ascends to the
Qing dynastic
throne in China.
1834
■
The monopoly
of the British
East India
Company on
trade with the
Far East ends.
1837
■
June 20
Queen Victoria
ascends to the
British throne.
1838
■
Commissioner
Lin Zexu is sent
by Emperor
Daoguang to
Guangdong to
halt the sale of
opium.
1839
■
Lin Zexu writes
an open letter to
Queen Victoria,
urging a
peaceful
resolution to the
opium trade.
■
The First Opium
War breaks out.
ing trade deficit with China. They began selling opium to
the Chinese even though it had been banned by Emperor
Yongzheng, Emperor Qianlong’s father, as early as 1729.
Thanks to opium sales, the silver inflow to China dropped
from over 26.6 million taels between 1801 and 1810 to
under 10 million taels between 1811 and 1820, or by about
63 percent. Later, as opium addiction spread rapidly in
China, silver began to flow out of the country to the West,
especially Britain; between 1821 and 1830 China paid out
2.3 million taels. And from 1831 to 1833, a period of merely three years, China paid an astonishing 9.9 million taels.
During the 1830s, therefore, Qing China began to suffer
seriously from the trade deficit with the West. The economic
toll of the growing opium sales and addiction in China was
twofold. First, as opium sales grew, sales in other areas of
trade dropped as a result. In his early career as governor of
Jiangsu Province, Lin Zexu observed that Chinese merchants
could sell only half of what they used to sell a decade or two
earlier. Second, the outflow of silver caused a financial crisis
in the country by altering the exchange rate between silver
and copper, which was used in people’s daily transactions.
The shortage of silver caused its value to appreciate, which
aggravated the tax burden on the people, because in paying
tax they had to exchange copper cash for silver. In the eighteenth century a string of 1,000 copper cash was equal to 1
tael of silver. By the early nineteenth century 1 tael of silver
was worth 1,500 copper cash, and in the mid nineteenth
century it was worth 2,700 copper cash.
While opium does have medicinal use, relieving pain and
allaying emotional distress, it is an addictive drug. Once the
habit is formed, the withdrawal symptoms can include
“extreme restlessness, chills, hot flushes, sneezing, sweating, salivation, running nose, and gastrointestinal disturbances such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.” Furthermore, “there are severe cramps in the abdomen, legs, and
back; the bones ache; the muscles twitch; and the nerves
are on edge. Every symptom is in combat with another. The
addict is hungry, but he cannot eat; he is sleepy, but he cannot sleep” (Chang, p. 17). There can be little wonder, then,
that ever since Emperor Yongzheng banned its consumption
in the early eighteenth century, opium has remained contraband in China. During the early nineteenth century, when
opium smoking spread across social strata and addicts numbered in the millions, many observers grew alarmed, especially scholar-officials, who presented a number of “memorials” to Emperor Daoguang, urging him to adopt harsh
measures against the smuggling and selling of the drug. Lin
Zexu was one, and arguably the most eloquent, among these
scholar-officials. In one of his memorials, he argued vehemently that “if we continue to pamper it [opium smoking],
a few decades from now we shall not only be without soldiers to resist the enemy, but also in want of silver to provide an army” (Chang, p. 96). Others suggested legalizing
the drug to curb its abuse, but the proposal was rejected by
the emperor, who regarded opium as an evil poison.
There is no source directly explaining why opium smoking which entails first heating opium paste over a flame and
then smoking it through a long-stemmed pipe became so
Milestone Documents in World History
Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to Queen Victoria”
Time Line
1842
■
August 29
The Treaty of
Nanjing is
signed, ending
the First Opium
War as well as
the Canton
System.
1850
■
February 25
Emperor
Daoguang dies.
■
March 9
Emperor Xianfeng
ascends to the
Qing throne.
1856
■
The Second
Opium War
breaks out, to
last for four
years.
1858
■
August 2
Under the Act
for the Better
Government of
India, the British
East India
Company’s
functions are
transferred to
the Crown.
1874
■
January 1
The British East
India Company
closes its
business
operations.
Milestone Documents
popular among the Chinese beginning in the late eighteenth
century. Speculation holds that it might have had something
to do with tobacco smoking, imported from Latin America in
the previous century. When tobacco smoking was first introduced to mainland China by soldiers who returned from a
campaign in Taiwan, opium and tobacco were mixed and
smoked together. As opium’s therapeutic effects were
revealed, it gained in popularity, especially among people who
struggled with boredom or stress, such as eunuchs, wealthy
women, petty clerks, and examination takers. As time went
on, the habit of opium smoking spread to the leisure and
working classes alike for social relaxation. To abet sales, merchants prepared detailed accounts of means of consumption
in simple language, available to anyone who could read.
Nor has a convincing explanation been put forth for why,
despite the repeated edicts from the emperor and the government, opium smoking became so unstoppable in China.
Aside from the persistence of Western merchants in selling
the drug, it was generally believed that the Qing government had by then become corrupt and hence ineffective in
executing imperial orders. When a new imperial edict was
issued in 1813 banning opium smoking altogether, it was
actually quite harsh in punishing both smokers and sellers.
If caught, a smoker could be sentenced to one hundred
blows of the bamboo stick and forced to wear a heavy wooden collar in public for a month. Afraid of the severe consequences, the Cohong merchants who had monopolized the
trade with the Europeans ceased involvement, at least in
public. But small dealers quickly took their place, approaching European merchants directly in swift boats and then
distributing the drug through networks of local trade.
Apparently, this was a risky practice; to ensure its success,
both European merchants and Chinese dealers bribed officials for their connivance. Some officials even exploited the
trade by enforcing a fee per chest of opium. Whenever a
new anti-opium edict was issued from the central government, local officials, rather than carry it out, would increase
the fee for enriching themselves.
The British East India Company also played a dubious
role in the opium trade, to say the least. Some of its officials
did have qualms about smuggling the drug into China; the
company stopped sales at one point, only to allow their
resumption shortly after. For the company, the establishment of a long-standing opium monopoly in the Bengal
region was a major success of the British conquest of India.
In the 1780s the British East India Company took control
of opium sales and production in the English-controlled
areas of India. Shortly thereafter, the company also monopolized the trade with China. Hence, the company’s opium
production in India coincided with its intensified trade with
China. In light of the huge deficits it had incurred in buying tea from China, the company clearly had major incentive to engage in opium production, if not directly in its selling. In fact, thanks to the company’s excellent management
of its opium monopoly in India, Indian opium was regarded
by both dealers and smokers as representing high quality.
The profits made by the company through opium sales
would be directly used to purchase tea. A triangular trade
network, from Britain to India, India to China, and China
to Britain, thus formed. The company first bought (nominally) opium in India, selling it to private merchants, or
“country traders,” for smuggling into China; the merchants
then used the silver gained to buy tea, porcelain, and other
goods to sell back in Britain. This network helped to support
the entire British position in the Far East, especially the ruling of India. Thanks to opium, the company and the British
government not only corrected the earlier deficits in their
China trade but also reaped a good fortune.
The success of the British East India Company in monopolizing and profiting from the trade with China caused envy
935
The East India Company ruled British India from East India House until 1858.
among others. By 1834 the company’s monopoly of the trade
came to an end, and the trade’s being open to all comers
resulted in the rise of opium sales. In 1832 China imported
more than twenty-three thousand chests of opium (with each
chest containing between 130 and 160 pounds); the figure
rose to thirty thousand chests in 1835 and to forty thousand
chests in 1838. These increases drove Western merchants to
chafe more blatantly at the Canton System, the Qing government’s means of control of foreign trade, in the hope of prying open China’s door to the West, and merchants’ actions
were broadly sanctioned by the British government. After the
end of the British East India Company’s monopoly, British
merchants in China were represented by the superintendent
of trade. A government official, the superintendent often
refused to deal with the Cohong merchants, demanding
instead that he communicate directly with Qing officials. The
clash over opium sales thus became not simply a matter
between the Qing government and Western merchants but
rather one between Qing China and Great Britain.
About the Author
Born in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, in 1785, Lin Zexu
excelled in his study of the Chinese classics and in the civil
936
(© Museum of London)
service examinations; he earned the jinshi (“presented scholar”) degree in 1811 and subsequently became a member of
the Hanlin Academy, a prestigious institution of Confucian
learning in Beijing, the dynasty capital. Lin then launched a
successful career in government, serving in a range of posts
in various provinces. His commitment to high moral standards and integrity earned him the epithet of “Lin the Blue
Sky.” Prior to becoming the imperial commissioner, Lin was
the governor-general of Hunan and Hubei in 1837; in this
post he launched a vigorous campaign against opium smoking. He also repeatedly memorialized the emperor for taking
tough measures against opium sales. As commissioner, Lin
assembled scholars to compile the book Sizhouzhi (Treatise
on Four Continents), an effort to establish and disseminate
knowledge about Europe and the world. After Western merchants refused to obey his orders to surrender illicit opium,
he blockaded their enclave and eventually confiscated and
destroyed 2.6 million pounds of opium. The British government retaliated by sending a fleet to China, and the British
prevailed in battle. Angry over Lin’s action for its leading to
military conflict and defeat, Emperor Daoguang dismissed
him and exiled him to Xinjiang. Lin was later reinstated,
however, and ordered to deal with other difficult situations.
He died while traveling to Guangxi to administer a campaign
against the Taiping Rebellion in 1850.
Milestone Documents in World History
Explanation and Analysis of the Document
Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to Queen Victoria”
937
Milestone Documents
Lin Zexu’s letter to the British Crown starts by singing
praises to the Qing emperor for his grace and benevolence.
These praises reflect the long-entrenched Chinese notion
that China was the center of the world, or the “Zhongguo”
(Central Country/Middle Kingdom) in the cosmos. Out of
courtesy, Lin acknowledges in the second paragraph that
Britain is also a historical country with an honorable tradition. Yet this acknowledgment, too, builds on the Sinocentric conception of the world; he commends the “politeness
and submissiveness” of the British in delivering tributes
and offering “tributary memorials” to the ruler of the Celestial Empire China. He also deems that the British have
benefited considerably from these activities, a point he will
stress again later in the letter.
Paragraphs 3 5 directly address the problem that
prompted Lin to seek communication with the ruler of
Britain: the smuggling and selling of opium in China by
British merchants. Lin describes how his emperor is enraged
by the harm to the Chinese people caused by opium smoking and how he has been dispatched by the emperor to put
an end to the practice. He explains the punishment for the
Chinese who smoke and sell opium and notes that were his
emperor not so graceful, the same punishment could be
extended to British sellers. Lin had recently confiscated a
large amount of opium through the help of Charles Elliot,
the British superintendent of trade; his reporting this serves
as a warning because, as he reveals, the Qing Dynasty had,
in fact, promulgated new regulations, whereby if any Briton
was found selling opium, he would receive the same punishment as would a Chinese. Indeed, a major reason for Lin’s
writing and circulating this letter was to inform and warn the
British and other foreign merchants about the new regulations. In order to carry them out, he needed the help of the
British ruler, who “must be able to instruct the various barbarians to observe the law with care.”
In seeking to secure the aid of the British ruler, Lin
resorts to moral suasion in paragraphs 6 8. This is consistent with the teaching of Confucianism and Lin’s own character. His central argument draws on the Confucian precept
that, as phrased in paragraph 8, “naturally you would not
wish to give unto others what you yourself do not want.” But
in exercising this moral exhortation, Lin shows his limited as
well as mistaken knowledge about his adversary, and his mistakes invariably undercut the effect of his argument. He first
assumes that the sale and smoking of opium are forbidden in
Britain, which was erroneous, for most British then considered opium no more harmful to humans than alcohol. Second, he believes tea and rhubarb to be indispensable to the
health of the British, which was wrong, even though tea
drinking had become a national habit in Britain. Third, he
states that without Chinese silk, other textiles could not be
woven; this was clearly inaccurate. But even with these
seemingly egregious mistakes, Lin makes a strong point: The
British needed Chinese goods more than the Chinese did
British goods, so how could the British repay the benefits
from and benevolence of the Chinese by selling them the
poisonous drug? In paragraph 6 he asks passionately, “Where
is your conscience?” It would have been hard for the British
Crown to counter this line of argument.
After asking such acute questions, Lin softens his tone
in paragraph 9. He writes that perhaps the British ruler was
unaware that some wicked British subjects have been
involved in opium smuggling in China, since in the British
homeland, because of the king’s (that is, the queen’s) “honorable rule,” no opium is produced. He thus asks the British
ruler to extend the edict against planting opium from
Britain to India and to grow the “five grains” in its stead.
This plea is also made on the moral ground that for such a
virtuous course of action, “heaven must support you and the
spirits must bring you good fortune.” Lin’s notion that the
“five grains” are essential to humans and his belief in both
“Heaven” and “spirits” are distinctly Chinese.
Paragraphs 10 12 offer further explanation of the new
regulations from the imperial court by which the same punishments will be extended to the British if they continue
ignoring Lin’s anti-opium orders and policy. Central to these
explanations is an idea of jurisdiction that Lin takes for
granted (as do many sovereign nations today): A foreigner
who lives in another country must obey the laws of that
country rather than the laws of his own. That is, Lin repudiates the extraterritorial rights that the British then demanded from the Qing Dynasty and which they later obtained
through the First Opium War. Lin’s refusal of such privilege
in this letter does not draw on international law but follows
the same Confucian principle that you would not do unto
others what you yourself do not want done unto you, the line
of reasoning he used before. He asks the English ruler, “Suppose a man of another country comes to England to trade,
he still has to obey the English laws; how much more should
he obey in China the laws of the Celestial Dynasty?”
Before he actually carried out the new orders to punish
opium sellers with “decapitation or strangulation” Lin
wanted to exercise caution, which was why he decided to
write the letter in the first place. In paragraph 12, he again
reminds the reader of the kindness of his emperor. When
informed of the new regulations, Charles Elliot requested an
extension, Lin writes. After Lin forwarded the request to the
emperor, the emperor, out of “consideration and compassion,” actually agreed to grant the extension with additional
months of leeway. Lin thus hails his ruler’s “extraordinary
Celestial grace.” Yet with the benefit of hindsight, historians
may also interpret this “grace” as a sort of reluctance on the
part of the Qing ruler to confront the British militarily. In
other words, although the emperor ordered Lin to halt
opium sales in Guangzhou and Guangdong, he was not
ready to risk war with the British. If Lin’s letter amounted to
a last-ditch effort to solve the opium problem peacefully, this
approach was indeed favored and sanctioned by the emperor. It was said that Lin memorialized Emperor Daoguang
sometime in July 1839, enclosing in the memorial the letter
that he had drafted for the English ruler. On August 27,
Emperor Daoguang approved it. Lin then asked others to
translate it into English, publicized it around Guangzhou,
and looked for messengers to deliver it to Britain.
Illustration of an opium den in London
938
(© Museum of London)
Milestone Documents in World History
“
Essential Quotes
Milestone Documents
“The wealth of China is used to profit the barbarians. That is to say, the
great profit made by barbarians is all taken from the rightful share of
China. By what right do they then in return use the poisonous drug to
injure the Chinese people? … Let us ask, where is your conscience?”
(Paragraph 6)
“To digest clearly the legal penalties as an aid to instruction has been a
valid principle in all ages. Suppose a man of another country comes to
England to trade, he still has to obey the English laws; how much more
should he obey in China the laws of the Celestial Dynasty?”
(Paragraph 10)
“The fact is that the wicked barbarians beguile the Chinese people into a
death trap.… He who takes the life of even one person still has to atone for
it with his own life; yet is the harm done by opium limited to the taking of
one life only? Therefore in the new regulations, in regard to those
barbarians who bring opium to China, the penalty is fixed at decapitation
or strangulation. This is what is called getting rid of a harmful thing on
behalf of mankind.”
(Paragraph 11)
In concluding his letter, Lin makes another perhaps
the strongest request to the English monarch, asking the
latter to take the responsibility of urging British subjects to
observe Chinese laws and mores and cease the opium trade.
Lin demands that the monarch, after receiving the letter,
inform him and the Qing government of the means by
which the trade will be stopped. Since Queen Victoria (most
likely) did not even see the letter, Lin’s request/demand
went completely ignored.
Audience
The intended recipient of this letter was Queen Victoria, who was crowned monarch of the United Kingdom in
1837; she would also become the first Empress of India
under the British Raj in 1876, and she retained both of
these royal titles until her death in 1901. The last monarch
of the House of Hanover, the queen was brought up speaking German, French, and English. She married off all of
Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to Queen Victoria”
”
her nine children throughout Europe. During her reign,
Great Britain saw the success of the Industrial Revolution
and the establishment of the British Empire around the
world. The Victorian era was marked by progress, prosperity, and power for Great Britain, which became one of the
most formidable global empires in modern history.
Since the letter, before it made its way to Britain and
appeared in the London Times, was first circulated and
publicized in Guangzhou among the Westerners there,
they were hence also its targeted audience. These Westerners included officials such as the British superintendent of trade, Charles Elliot, and his assistants; most, however, were merchants from Europe and America, with the
British apparently constituting the majority. As “country
traders,” they at first obtained licenses for purchasing and
selling Indian opium from the British East India Company on a select basis. After 1834, when the company’s
monopoly on trade in China ended, the countries where
the traders came from multiplied, and the sources where
they acquired the opium also diversified. Both of these
939
factors exacerbated the opium problem on the eve of the
First Opium War.
Impact
Since Lin Zexu failed to accomplish the delivery of the
letter to the British ruler and thus failed to secure the latter’s cooperation in ceasing opium sales, he stepped up his
anti-opium campaign. After the British merchants refused
to pledge not to sell opium, he expelled them from Macao,
as they had been from Guangzhou. The British retreated to
Hong Kong, then a small fishing island, where they were
harried by the local Chinese. Having lost their opium and
fearing for their lives, the merchants lobbied the British parliament for compensation and protection. Lord Palmerston,
the foreign minister, dispatched a fleet of sixteen warships
carrying four thousand mariners and over five hundred guns
to China. Instead of engaging the Qing forces commanded
by Lin in Guangdong, the fleet sailed north, where they
seized Zhoushan. This led Emperor Daoguang to dismiss
Lin and replace him with Qishan, a trusted Manchu official
who negotiated an agreement with Charles Elliot in January
1841. Through the agreement the Chinese were to, among
other provisions, cede Hong Kong and pay six million taels
of silver as indemnity to the British. The British fleet consequently returned to the south.
However, the war was not over. Dissatisfied with the
agreement, Lord Palmerston fired Charles Elliot, and
Henry Pottinger, the new superintendent of trade, resumed
war. After losing several cities to the British, the Qing
Dynasty pursued peace, which resulted in the signing of
the Treaty of Nanjing on August 29, 1842. Ratified ten
months later by Queen Victoria and Emperor Daoguang,
the treaty stipulated that the Qing Dynasty open five port
cities for trade, cede Hong Kong, and pay a total of thirtynine million taels of silver to the British. It also officially
ended the Canton System. Ironically, the opium trade is
not mentioned in the treaty, except in the statement that of
the total indemnity amount, six million taels were to com-
Questions for Further Study
1. For many years, the United States has been engaged in a “war on drugs,” attempting both to curtail demand
for illegal drugs and to interdict smuggling of illegal drugs into the United States. The limited successes of this war
have prompted many Americans to call for the legalization of certain drugs, yet exporting nations show little interest in stopping drug production. In what ways does the drug situation in the contemporary United States parallel
that of China in the nineteenth century?
2. Lin Zexu’s letter never reached the hands of its intended audience, the British monarch, Queen Victoria. In
what way, then, can the letter be regarded as a “milestone” document? Put differently, in what ways did Lin Zexu’s
letter represent a crucial turning point in relations between the West and Asia, specifically China?
3. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, business enterprises such as the British East India Company were often instruments of both commerce and a nation’s foreign policy. In what sense did British merchants in
China represent British foreign policy with regard to China as well as India? Why did England dispatch its navy to
China in response to the actions and policies of the Chinese on their own soil?
4. The dissension between the Chinese and the British that led to the First Opium War was in part the result of
a failure of diplomacy. In the early nineteenth century, the history, culture, religion, language, politics, and traditions
of Britain and China were so different that the two nations found it difficult to find common ground for communication. In what ways does Lin Zexu’s letter—and, indeed, the entire controversy surrounding it—demonstrate this
failure of understanding and diplomacy? What could either side have done, if anything, to preserve its interests and
yet reduce the possibility of armed conflict? Do you see any conflicts in the modern world that parallel this conflict
between East and West in the nineteenth century?
5. In the nineteenth century, Asians, especially the Chinese, showed little interest in trade relations with the West,
despite the efforts of several European countries to establish such relations. Why were the Chinese so resistant to
trade with the West?
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Milestone Documents in World History
Further Reading
■
Articles
Gelber, Harry G. Opium, Soldiers and Evangelicals: Britain’s
1840 42 War with China, and Its Aftermath. Houndmills, Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Madancy, Joyce A. The Troublesome Legacy of Commissioner Lin:
The Opium Trade and Opium Suppression in Fujian Province,
1820s to 1920s. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
2004.
Polachek, James M. The Inner Opium War. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1992.
Zheng, Yangwen. The Social Life of Opium in China. Cambridge,
U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
■
Web Sites
Kwong, Luke S. K. “The Chinese Myth of Universal Kinship and
Commissioner Lin Zexu’s Anti-Opium Campaign of 1839.” English
Historical Review 123, no. 505 (December 2008): 1470 1503.
Chrastina, Paul. “Emperor of China Declares War on Drugs.”
Future Opioids Web site.
http://www.opioids.com/opium/opiumwar.html.
Newman, R. K. “Opium Smoking in Late Imperial China: A
Reconsideration.” Modern Asian Studies 29, no. 4 (October 1995):
765 794.
“The Opium War and the Opening of China.”
http://historyliterature.homestead.com/files/extended.html.
Q. Edward Wang
Wang, Dong. “The Discourse of Unequal Treaties in Modern
China.” Pacific Affairs 76, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 399 425.
■
Books
Chang, Hsin-pao. Commissioner Lin and the Opium War. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964.
Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to Queen Victoria”
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Milestone Documents
pensate the losses of the opium sellers. Other Western
nations followed suit in seeking such agreements. As they
concluded similar and sometimes more-detailed treaties
with the Qing, the benefits and privileges granted were also
extended to the British, including the contested “extraterritorial rights.” Thus, after the First Opium War, the Qing
Dynasty lost most of its control of China’s commercial,
social, and foreign policies. As such, the war ushered in a
new era of Chinese history, to be marked by the further
intrusion of Western powers and by the continuous Chinese struggle against colonialism and imperialism.
Document Text
Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to
Queen Victoria”
A communication: magnificently our great
Emperor soothes and pacifies China and the foreign
countries, regarding all with the same kindness. If
there is profit, then he shares it with the peoples of
the world; if there is harm, then he removes it on
behalf of the world. This is because he takes the
mind of heaven and earth as his mind.
The kings of your honorable country by a tradition handed down from generation to generation
have always been noted for their politeness and submissiveness. We have read your successive tributary
memorials saying, “In general our countrymen who
go to trade in China have always received His
Majesty the Emperor’s gracious treatment and equal
justice,” and so on. Privately we are delighted with
the way in which the honorable rulers of your country deeply understand the grand principles and are
grateful for the Celestial grace. For this reason the
Celestial Court in soothing those from afar has
redoubled its polite and kind treatment. The profit
from trade has been enjoyed by them continuously
for two hundred years. This is the source from which
your country has become known for its wealth.
But after a long period of commercial intercourse,
there appear among the crowd of barbarians both good
persons and bad, unevenly. Consequently there are
those who smuggle opium to seduce the Chinese people and so cause the spread of the poison to all
provinces. Such persons who only care to profit themselves, and disregard their harm to others, are not tolerated by the laws of heaven and are unanimously
hated by human beings. His Majesty the Emperor
upon hearing of this is in a towering rage. He has especially sent me, his commissioner, to come to Kwangtung, and together with the governor-general and governor jointly to investigate and settle this matter.
All those people in China who sell opium or
smoke opium should receive the death penalty. If we
trace the crime of those barbarians who through the
years have been selling opium, then the deep harm
they have wrought and the great profit they have
usurped should fundamentally justify their execution
according to law. We take into consideration, however the fact that the various barbarians have still
known how to repent their crimes and return to their
allegiance to us by taking the 20,183 chests of opium
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from their store ships and petitioning us, through
their consular officer [Charles] Elliot, to receive it. It
has been entirely destroyed and this has been faithfully reported to the Throne in several memorials by
this commissioner and his colleagues.
Fortunately we have received a specially extended
favor from His Majesty the Emperor, who considers
that for those who voluntarily surrender there are
still some circumstances to palliate their crime and
so for the time being he has magnanimously excused
them from punishment. But as for those who again
violate the opium prohibition, it is difficult for the
law to pardon them repeatedly. Having established
new regulations, we presume that the ruler of your
honorable country, who takes delight in our culture
and whose disposition is inclined towards us, must
be able to instruct the various barbarians to observe
the law with care. It is only necessary to explain to
them the advantages and disadvantages and then
they will know that the legal code of the Celestial
Court must be absolutely obeyed with awe.
We find that your country is sixty or seventy thousand li from China. Yet there are barbarian ships that
strive to come here for trade for the purpose of making a great profit. The wealth of China is used to
profit the barbarians. That is to say, the great profit
made by barbarians is all taken from the rightful
share of China. By what right do they then in return
use the poisonous drug to injure the Chinese people?
Even though the barbarians may not necessarily
intend to do us harm, yet in coveting profit to an
extreme, they have no regard for injuring others. Let
us ask, where is your conscience? I have heard that
the smoking of opium is very strictly forbidden by
your country; that is because the harm caused by
opium is clearly understood. Since it is not permitted
to do harm to your own country, then even less
should you let it be passed on to the harm of other
countries how much less to China! Of all that
China exports to foreign countries, there is not a single thing which is not beneficial to people: they are
of benefit when eaten, or of benefit when used, or of
benefit when resold: all are beneficial. Is there a single article from China which has done any harm to
foreign countries? Take tea and rhubarb, for example: the foreign countries cannot get along for a sin-
Milestone Documents in World History
Document Text
Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to Queen Victoria”
India under your control such as Bengal, Madras,
Bombay, Patna, Benares, and Malwa has opium been
planted from hill to hill and ponds have been opened
for its manufacture. For months and years work is
continued in order to accumulate the poison. The
obnoxious odor ascends, irritating heaven and frightening the spirits. Indeed you, O King, can eradicate
the opium plant in these places, hoe over the fields
entirely, and sow in its stead the five grains. Anyone
who dares again attempt to plant and manufacture
opium should be severely punished. This will really be
a great, benevolent government policy that will
increase the common weal and get rid of evil. For this,
Heaven must support you and the spirits must bring
you good fortune, prolonging your old age and extending your descendants. All will depend on this act.
As for the barbarian merchants who come to
China, their food and drink and habitation are all
received by the gracious favor of our Celestial Court.
Their accumulated wealth is all benefit given with
pleasure by our Celestial Court. They spend rather
few days in their own country but more time in Canton. To digest clearly the legal penalties as an aid to
instruction has been a valid principle in all ages.
Suppose a man of another country comes to England
to trade, he still has to obey the English laws; how
much more should he obey in China the laws of the
Celestial Dynasty?
Now we have set up regulations governing the
Chinese people. He who sells opium shall receive the
death penalty and he who smokes it also the death
penalty. Now consider this: if the barbarians do not
bring opium, then how can the Chinese people resell
it, and how can they smoke it? The fact is that the
wicked barbarians beguile the Chinese people into a
death trap. How then can we grant life only to these
barbarians? He who takes the life of even one person
still has to atone for it with his own life; yet is the
harm done by opium limited to the taking of one life
only? Therefore in the new regulations, in regard to
those barbarians who bring opium to China, the
penalty is fixed at decapitation or strangulation. This
is what is called getting rid of a harmful thing on
behalf of mankind.
Moreover we have found that in the middle of the
second month of this year Consul Elliot of your
nation, because the opium prohibition law was very
stem and severe, petitioned for an extension of the
time limit. He requested a limit of five months for
India and its adjacent harbors and related territories,
and ten months for England proper, after which they
would act in conformity with the new regulations.
Milestone Documents
gle day without them. If China cuts off these benefits with no sympathy for those who are to suffer,
then what can the barbarians rely upon to keep
themselves alive? Moreover the woolens, camlets,
and longells of foreign countries cannot be woven
unless they obtain Chinese silk. If China, again, cuts
off this beneficial export, what profit can the barbarians expect to make? As for other food stuffs, beginning with candy, ginger, cinnamon, and so forth, and
articles for use, beginning with silk, satin, chinaware,
and so on, all the things that must be had by foreign
countries are innumerable. On the other hand, articles coming from the outside to China can only be
used as toys. We can take them or get along without
them. Since they are not needed by China, what difficulty would there be if we closed the frontier and
stopped the trade? Nevertheless our Celestial Court
lets tea, silk, and other goods be shipped without
limit and circulated everywhere without begrudging
it in the slightest. This is for no other reason but to
share the benefit with the people of the whole world.
The goods from China carried away by your country not only supply your own consumption and use,
but also can be divided up and sold to other countries, producing a triple profit. Even if you do not sell
opium, you still have this threefold profit. How can
you bear to go further, selling products injurious to
others in order to fulfill your insatiable desire?
Suppose there were people from another country
who carried opium for sale to England and seduced
your people into buying and smoking it; certainly
your honorable ruler would deeply hate it and be bitterly aroused. We have heard heretofore that your
honorable ruler is kind and benevolent. Naturally
you would not wish to give unto others what you
yourself do not want. We have also heard that the
ships corning to Canton have all had regulations
promulgated and given to them in which it is stated
that it is not permitted to carry contraband goods.
This indicates that the administrative orders of your
honorable rule have been originally strict and clear.
Only because the trading ships are numerous,
heretofore perhaps they have not been examined
with care. Now after this communication has been
dispatched and you have clearly understood the
strictness of the prohibitory laws of the Celestial
Court, certainly you will not let your subjects dare
again to violate the law.
We have further learned that in London, the capital of your honorable rule, and in Scotland (Su-kolan), Ireland (Ai-lan), and other places, originally no
opium has been produced. Only in several places of
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Document Text
Now we, the commissioner and others, have memorialized and have received the extraordinary Celestial
grace of His Majesty the Emperor who has redoubled
his consideration and compassion. All these who
within the period of the coming one year (from England) or six months (from India) bring opium to
China by mistake, but who voluntarily confess and
completely surrender their opium, shall be exempt
from their punishment. After this limit of time, if
there are still those who bring opium to China then
they will plainly have committed a wilful violation and
shall at once be executed according to law, with
absolutely no clemency or pardon. This may be called
the height of kindness and the perfection of justice.
Our Celestial Dynasty rules over and supervises
the myriad states, and surely possesses unfathomable
spiritual dignity. Yet the Emperor cannot bear to execute people without having first tried to reform them
by instruction. Therefore he especially promulgates
these fixed regulations. The barbarian merchants of
your country, if they wish to do business for a prolonged period, are required to obey our statutes
respectfully and to cut off permanently the source of
opium. They must by no means try to test the effectiveness of the law with their lives. May you, O King,
check your wicked and sift your vicious people
before they come to China, in order to guarantee the
peace of your nation, to show further the sincerity of
your politeness and submissiveness, and to let the
two countries enjoy together the blessings of peace.
How fortunate, how fortunate indeed! After receiving
this dispatch will you immediately give us a prompt
reply regarding the details and circumstances of your
cutting off the opium traffic. Be sure not to put this
off. The above is what has to be communicated. This
is appropriately worded and quite comprehensive.
Glossary
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camlets
fabrics made of silk and wool
Canton
Guangzhou
Kwangtung
Guangdong
li
a Chinese unit of measure for distance, which has varied over the course of history but
is now considered to be 1,640 feet.
longells
often spelled “long ells,” twilled woolen fabrics woven in long pieces
memorials
statements made to a government, often accompanied by petitions for action
Milestone Documents in World History
1842
Treaty of Nanjing
“ The Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of Six Millions of Dollars
as the value of Opium which was delivered up at Canton.”
Overview
The Treaty of Nanjing ended the Opium
War of 1839 1842 and created the framework for a new commercial and diplomatic
relationship between Great Britain and the
Qing Empire of China. By demanding that
China open new ports, fix regular tariffs on
imports and exports, and abolish the merchant guild, or “Cohong,” system of commerce, the treaty
rectified for the British what they considered to be longstanding problems in their dealings with the Chinese. In
the immediate sense, then, the Treaty of Nanjing provided
a legal and enforceable means of maintaining a “harmonious” relationship between China and Great Britain.
In a larger sense the 1842 treaty did far more than settle
a trade dispute. It opened a new chapter in the history of
global power and provided a template for the dominance of
Western trading nations in East Asia for roughly a century. As
the first of many “unequal” treaties between modern mercantile nations and traditional East Asian societies, the Treaty of
Nanjing ushered in an era of “treaty diplomacy,” a euphemism for economic and political exploitation that defined the
contours of Western imperialism in East Asia and confirmed
the supremacy of the modern commercial state worldwide. In
general, the unequal treaties were characterized by the imposition of demands for treaty ports in the host country; the creation of zones in the host country where foreign nationals
could live, work, and worship; the establishment of consulates in the treaty cities; the control over tariffs; and
extraterritoriality, which refers to the right claimed by foreign
nationals to remain under the legal jurisdiction of their home
countries, even while living and working abroad. In cases in
which military operations were required to enforce a treaty,
indemnities paid by the host country to the dominant power
were also commonly included.
The historical irony of the unequal treaty concept is that
the Western powers invariably used the rhetoric of “equality” to seek greater economic opportunities in Asia. However, for the Asian powers involved, these treaties were signed
under duress and often without full knowledge of the complex mechanisms of modern economics, trade, and finance
that formed the basis of these treaties and that had become
Treaty of Nanjing
the operating assumptions of Western maritime powers
since the early modern period. In seeking fair and equal
treatment from the Qing Empire (1644 1911), the British
wound up using the terms of the Treaty of Nanjing to control Chinese economic life and, by extension, to determine
the course of Chinese political life as well. The practice of
influencing the politics of a dependent nation by controlling its economy, commonly referred to by historians as
“indirect imperialism” or “semicolonialism,” was arguably
born with the Treaty of Nanjing.
Context
At the end of the seventeenth century, China’s contact
with Europeans was limited mostly to waterfront trade with
British, Dutch, and Portuguese merchants in a few cities
on China’s southeastern coast. The port cities of Canton
(Guangzhou), Amoy (Xiamen) and Zhoushan had been
open to foreign trade since 1683 and were fairly independent in the way they conducted their affairs. Foreign trade
was managed by a guild of merchant brokerage firms called
the Cohong. The individual firms, or Hong, were licensed
by the Qing Empire to buy and sell merchandise and
worked through an imperial trade supervisor (the Hoppo)
to ensure that the court received its revenues. The enforcement of commercial regulations and tariff payments by the
Hong was irregular and usually self-serving, frustrating
Western traders.
At the turn of the eighteenth century, Great Britain was
the dominant European trading power in China, and its
merchants became strident in their demands for greater
access to Chinese markets and regulation of the arbitrary
practices of the Cohong. The British East India Company,
which owned the British monopoly on Asian trade, asked
repeatedly for standardized tariffs and tried to secure for its
employees the right to reside in China and to receive treatment equal to their Chinese counterparts. The Chinese
government refused such petitions and generally showed
little willingness to cooperate with foreigners. In 1741
HMS Centurion, commanded by George Anson, put into
Canton after sustaining damage at sea. Anson’s efforts to
get his ship repaired turned into a bureaucratic nightmare.
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Time Line
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1683
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The Qing
Empire lifts
restrictions on
maritime trade,
allowing
foreigners to
trade in selected
ports on the
southeastern
coast of China.
1720
■
Merchants in
Canton form
trade guilds
called Cohong.
The Cohong,
supervised by
Hoppo (imperial
trade superintendents), are
licensed to
conduct
commerce with
foreign powers.
■
The British
begin to export
Indian opium to
China on a
small scale.
1729
■
Opium is
declared
contraband by
the Yongzheng
Emperor, with
exceptions for
medicinal use.
1741
■
Commodore
George Anson
of the British
navy sails into
Canton for
repairs after a
storm at sea,
only to suffer a
series of delays,
frustrations, and
refusals.
Anson’s report
to the British
government
generates
awareness of
the problems
encountered by
British ships in
China.
In 1759 an East India Company trader named James Flint
asked the Chinese government to reform corrupt Hong
practices and to open additional ports in northern China.
In response, Qing officials sentenced Flint to three years in
prison and placed even greater constraints on maritime
trade. After 1760 the Chinese rigidly enforced the “Canton
system,” which restricted all foreign trade to the port of
Canton and then allowed it only during the “trading season” between October and March.
As prodigious consumers of Chinese porcelains, silks,
and tea especially tea and as proponents of the modern
ideal of free trade, the British came to consider the Canton
system intolerably restrictive. Besides being shackled by
managed trade, the British were also being bled by Hong
brokers of their precious silver reserves. By 1800 British
merchants were paying £3.6 million in silver for Chinese
tea. The great imbalance of silver payments represented an
enormous burden to a treasury already strapped with the
administration of a growing empire.
With the hope of stopping the silver drain and fixing the
structural problems of the Canton system, the British government sent Lord George Macartney to China in 1793 to
negotiate a comprehensive trade agreement. The British
hoped to persuade the Chinese to purchase more British
manufactured goods and to open an embassy in Beijing.
The Macartney mission turned out to be a colossal failure.
Macartney violated protocol by refusing to kowtow (bow
down) before Emperor Qianlong, and the Chinese made
clear that they had no particular desire for British manufactured goods. In what has become one of the most
famous rejections in history, Qianlong refused Macartney
all his requests and sent the British delegation home. Nevertheless, the relationship between Great Britain and
China would change quickly and dramatically. Fewer than
fifty years after Macartney was rebuffed by the Qing court,
British ships were attacking Chinese cities at will and dictating the terms of surrender. The opium trade would bring
about this radical reversal in power.
Undaunted by Qianlong’s refusal, the British decided
that if the Chinese did not want British products, they
would find a suitable replacement. As an alternative to manufactured goods, the British turned to opium. Because the
British East India Company was governing India by 1800, it
also controlled India’s poppy fields and could produce as
much opium as it needed. Opium use had been illegal in
China since 1729, but in the 1760s the British began smuggling small amounts of the drug into Canton. After the
Macartney mission, the British began to increase their shipments. Between 1760 and 1830 the number of chests sold
in China went from fewer than one thousand to more than
twenty thousand per year, and it is estimated that by 1838,
there were nearly two million Chinese addicts. When the
Hong were ordered by Qing officials to ban all opium transactions in Canton, the British simply moved the enterprise
offshore to Lintin Island. In time, besides creating a public
health crisis, the opium trade created an economic crisis as
well. Not only were the British able to redress the imbalance
of payments, but they also had forced the Chinese into cir-
Milestone Documents in World History
Time Line
1759
■
James Flint of
the British East
India Company
asks the Qing
imperial court to
address the
extortion, bribes,
and other
corrupt
practices of the
Canton Hong
and for an
expansion of
trading rights.
1760
■
The Canton
system is
formalized,
restricting all
foreign trade to
the waterfront
of Canton
(Guangzhou)
during the
“trading season”
between
October and
March.
1770s
■
British sales of
opium in China
surpass one
thousand chests
per year.
1780s
■
The British East
India Company
suffers huge
deficits in the
silver-for-tea
trade in China.
1793
■
September
Lord George
Macartney meets
with Emperor
Qianlong to try to
expand trading
and diplomatic
rights with China.
Macartney’s
efforts to
persuade the
Chinese to
purchase more
manufactured
goods are
unsuccessful.
About the Author
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, was the
foreign secretary of Great Britain during the Opium War. In
this capacity he directed foreign policy for Queen Victoria,
whose signature ratified the treaty, and he was the immediate superior of Sir Henry Pottinger, who signed as the
British plenipotentiary. Lord Palmerston was, in a practical
sense, the “author” of this document, if not the architect of
the Opium War itself. A living emblem of British imperialism, Palmerston spent nearly sixty years in public life promoting the cause of British imperial power. He began his
career as a conservative Tory, but coming of age in postNapoleonic Europe, a time of dynamic political change, he
came to embrace the spirit of nineteenth-century modernity, including its assumptions that economic efficiency and
political reform were the keys to modern state power. At the
height of his career, his thinking was more classically liberal than traditionally conservative, and his approach to the
cultivation of Great Britain’s strength was both rational and
practical. Palmerston’s reformist sentiments occasionally
came into conflict with his imperial aspirations. In the
1830s, as the conflict between the Qing court and British
trade merchants began to escalate over the issue of opium
trading, Palmerston was less than enthusiastic about supporting merchants who violated Chinese laws. This position
Treaty of Nanjing
Milestone Documents
cumstances in which they were the ones bleeding silver.
This situation worsened after 1834, when the British government lifted the East India Company’s monopoly and new
British “entrepreneurs,” competing with Americans,
brought even more opium into China. By 1836 the
Daoguang Emperor was desperate for a solution.
In 1838 the emperor appointed an imperial commissioner, Lin Zexu, to “fix” the opium problem. Commissioner Lin
employed a number of tactics: moral exhortations, stiff punishments, confiscations of opium and pipes, and even a letter to Queen Victoria asking her to bring moral pressure to
bear upon the scourge of opium selling. None of these
measures was completely successful. Finally, Lin went after
the source of the problem: the British traders in Canton,
who were known to have stockpiled opium chests in their
waterfront factories. When the British refused to turn over
an opium merchant named Lancelot Dent to Commissioner Lin, Lin ordered the confiscation and destruction of
three million pounds of opium, shut down the waterfront
entirely, and ordered the British out of Canton.
Lin’s actions were interpreted by the merchants as an
affront to free trade, a theft of private property, and an insult
to the British Crown. So incensed were the British that they
sent a punitive expedition of sixteen warships to China in the
summer of 1840. In a series of one-sided engagements along
the Chinese coast between 1840 and 1842, British naval and
amphibious forces overwhelmed the Chinese defenses. In
1842, as steam-powered warships anchored in the Chang
River threatened to destroy the city of Nanjing, the Qing
accepted the British terms of surrender.
949
Time Line
1800
The Qing court
passes an edict
against the
import and
the domestic
production of
opium.
1821
■
The Qing court
again attempts to
stop opium trade
by refusing to let
the Hong handle
the product. As a
result, bulk
transactions of
opium are moved
offshore to Lintin
Island.
1834
■
The British East
India Company
loses its
monopoly on
Asian trade, and
more private
merchants enter
the illicit opium
trade.
■
The British East
India Company
replaces company
officials with royal
officials, putting
more pressure on
China to open
diplomatic relations.
1839
950
■
■
March–May
Commissioner Lin
Zexu, appointed
to remedy the
opium problem,
begins to rail
publicly against
opium use
and orders
punishments for
users and sellers
of the drug.
Calling for an end
to the opium
trade, he
confiscates three
million pounds of
opium from
British merchants
and bans all
foreign trade.
changed quickly when Commissioner Lin began arresting
British subjects and confiscating British property in 1839.
Palmerston made the decision to deploy a naval task force
against China and was persistent in pressing for a settlement that optimized Britain’s interests.
Explanation and Analysis of the Document
The Treaty of Nanjing was signed on August 29, 1842. It
opens with a standard diplomatic preamble from the dominant signatory, Queen Victoria, who, along with her “Good
Brother the Emperor of China,” presented this treaty to posterity. This verbiage, while fairly common according to the
standards of the day, is remarkable considering that fewer
than fifty years earlier, Victoria’s predecessor, King George
III, had been dismissed as a minor “barbarian” king by
Daoguang’s predecessor, Qianlong. That the signing took
place aboard HMS Cornwallis, a British warship anchored
in the Chang River, only added to the ponderous symbolism
of the dramatic reversal in power between the British and
Chinese empires in the previous half century. The preamble
names the Chinese plenipotentiaries Qiying and Yilibu
(called Keying and Elepoo in the document and spelled a
variety of ways in historical writings) of the Qing court and
Pottinger of Great Britain. An additional participant in the
treaty was England’s Queen Victoria, who signed the treaty
and added above her signature and seal a passage in which
she pledged that Great Britain would “sincerely and faithfully perform and observe all and singular the things which
are contained and expressed in the Treaty.”
◆
Article I
Article I presents the formulaic pledges of peace and
friendship between the rival nations that are standard in modern treaties but that strike the contemporary reader as ironic
if not hypocritical, knowing that the British would have razed
Nanjing had their friends, the Chinese, not accepted the
terms. It is important to realize that the British, operating
from their own standpoint of Enlightenment rationalism, did
not insist on “peace and friendship” with any sense of irony.
It was an accepted truth that no society remaining in a “barbarous” state could hope to attain any long-term historical
satisfaction, and the British believed that they were bringing
enlightenment to a backward civilization.
◆
Article II
Article II names the five treaty ports Canton
(Guangzhou), Amoy (Xiamen), Foochow-fu (Fuzhou), Ningpo (Ningbo), and Shanghai and it provided for the establishment of foreign quarters and consulates in each city. This
article is significant because it ended, for the British, one of
the more irksome practices of the Canton system. It allowed
foreign citizens and their families to live in China legally for
the first time in history. It also demanded that British royal
trade representatives serve as intermediaries between the
merchants and Chinese trade officials. This situation had
been a source of confusion after the British East India Com-
Milestone Documents in World History
pany lost its monopoly. When the customary lines of communication between British company men and Hong merchants became unavailable, the Qing court experienced
unwelcome pressure to deal equally with British officials.
Time Line
■
May
The British trade
superintendent
Charles Elliot
seeks help from
his government
on how to
respond to
Commissioner Lin.
The decision is
made to send
a punitive naval
expedition
to obtain
“satisfaction”
from China.
1842
■
August 29
The Treaty of
Nanjing ends
the two-yearlong Opium War
between China
and Great
Britain.
◆
Article III
Article III provided for the cession of Hong Kong to the
British Crown. By 1842 Hong Kong had already been occupied by the British for several years. With the closing of Canton and Lintin Island by Commissioner Lin, British traders
established a haven on the sparsely populated island. During
an abortive peace attempt made in 1841 by the British trade
superintendent Charles Elliot and the Qing official Qishan,
Hong Kong had been offered as part of the settlement. That
agreement was vetoed by both the Qing emperor, who
thought it too generous, and Lord Palmerston, who thought
it insufficient. Palmerston was especially dismayed that
Elliot had agreed to accept such a worthless island. In retrospect, the acquisition of Hong Kong was one of the greatest
triumphs in British imperial history. Within several decades
the island was transformed into a bustling entrepôt, and in
the twentieth century it became an international center for
manufacturing, transportation, finance, and culture.
Although the treaty gave Hong Kong to Britain “in perpetuity,” the legal status of the Crown colony would change over
the years. In 1860 the British acquired additional territory in
neighboring Kowloon and in 1898 even more land; these
lands became designated as the “New Territories.” In 1898
the New Territories were leased to Great Britain for ninetynine years. All of this territory, including Hong Kong itself,
was returned to China in 1997.
◆
Article IV
Article IV called for China to reimburse Britain for opium
that had been confiscated and destroyed in 1839 by Commissioner Lin. Aside from this article, there are no other direct
references to opium anywhere in the treaty, which is unusual
considering the fact that the treaty ended an “opium” war.
The problem was that opium trade was not legal before or
after the war, and the war did not end the trade. Neither the
British nor the Chinese were willing to treat opium as legitimate commerce, and contraband opium trafficking would
continue until the Chinese Communist Party put an end to it
in the early 1950s. This article reiterates that what was really at stake in this war was commercial and diplomatic power.
It also indicates that the British possessed the extraordinary
leverage to demand reimbursement for a product that was not
legal in China or Great Britain. The reimbursement was
assessed at $6 million, payment of which was rendered in
Mexican dollars, a silver coin of reliable quality that was recognized as world currency in the 1800s.
◆
Article V
Article V ended the traditional Hong system that had
vexed the British for so many years. The Cohong, or merchant guild, was now powerless to interfere with free trade
in the treaty ports. British merchants operating in these
cities claimed the right to do business with anybody they
Treaty of Nanjing
Milestone Documents
1839
chose. The article also required the Chinese government to
pay an additional $3 million to cover the debts of Hong merchants who were in arrears to British merchants. The reason for this stipulation was that while the Canton system
was in practice, the Qing court often used Cohong assets as
an imperial cash reserve. When the Hong were required to
make “contributions” to the court, they were often unable
to purchase the commodities that the British had contracted to export. It was not uncommon for the British merchants themselves to cover the Hong on their wholesale
purchases so that they could leave with their cargoes.
◆
Article VI
Article VI demanded indemnities for the costs Britain
had incurred fighting the Opium War. From the perspective of the post World War II warfare, in which the victor
generally pays for the reconstruction of defeated nations, it
seems difficult to imagine a day in which the conquering
nation “sent the bill” to the conquered. Nevertheless, this
practice was usual in nineteenth-century diplomacy. With
thinking rooted firmly in the old mercantilist imperialism
of the eighteenth century, it seemed prudent to keep a vanquished people poor; saddling them with war costs and
punitive indemnities made it possible to retain them as
captive markets. The ultimate folly of burdening the
defeated nation with the costs for the war seems to have
been one of the great lessons of the World War I, when a
global depression made it impossible for nations to make
their monetary reparations without causing hyperinflation
or when forcing them to do so inadvertently triggered international lawlessness. The present-day practice of having
951
Illustration of an attack by the Chinese on a British boat in Canton River during the Opium War
952
(Library of Congress)
Milestone Documents in World History
Milestone Documents
A tea warehouse in Canton
(© British Library Board All Rights Reserved 10977)
nations rebuild conquered enemies for the purpose of
drawing them back into an allied economic bloc may also
be an ultimately self-serving strategy, but it is undeniably
more humane.
◆
Articles VII–IX
Article VII established the repayment schedule and
interest for the $21 million total in indemnities and reimbursements that China had to pay. Article VIII demanded
the release of all British prisoners. This clause refers not
only to British and Indian military personnel who may have
been captured during the war but also to those traders who
were incarcerated in the Canton factories during Commissioner Lin’s initial shutdown of the contraband trade. Article IX required amnesty for all Chinese who may have collaborated or done business with the British during the
Opium War. The British factories employed large numbers
of Chinese subjects, many of whom were persecuted as
contraband traders during the seizure.
◆
Article X
Article X provided for the publication of fixed tariffs
(“duties” or “customs” fees) on imports and exports. The
control of tariffs was a vital element of nineteenth-century
diplomacy; what made these treaties unequal was the fact
that they ensured that tariffs favored the winner. For states
Treaty of Nanjing
that measured their national power in terms of balances of
trade, the motive behind imperialism was to secure markets
for their domestic manufactured products while reducing
the costs of goods purchased abroad. Under the Canton
system, it was impossible to predict how Hong brokers
might have manipulated customs duties on imports (British
goods) or inflated the price of products intended for export
(Chinese goods). Requiring the Chinese to adhere to published tariff rates (and in the decades to come, dictating
those tariff rates) was the signal achievement of the
unequal treaties. It guaranteed the British easy and predictable access to foreign markets.
On the matter of transit duties, which were the fees
paid by secondary merchants to bring goods from the port
city into the interior, the British demanded here that the
Chinese set an upper limit on these fees to keep British
goods competitive outside the port cities. The final sentence of Article X contains the words “which shall not
exceed.” To make sense, this passage has to be supplemented with the “Declaration respecting Transit Duties,” which
is added near the end of the document, after the signature
of the Chinese officials. The declaration states that British
merchants are obligated to pay “fair and regular tariff of
export and import customs and other dues.” It goes on to
say that after those customs and dues have been paid,
goods could be transferred to Chinese merchants, who
953
“
Essential Quotes
“The Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of Six Millions of Dollars as
the value of Opium which was delivered up at Canton in the Month of
March 1839.”
(Article IV)
“The Government of China having compelled the British Merchants
trading at Canton to deal exclusively with certain Chinese Merchants
called Hong Merchants (or Cohong) … agrees to abolish that practice in
future at all Ports where British Merchants may reside, and to permit them
to carry on their mercantile transactions with whatever persons they please.”
(Article V)
”
“The Government of Her Britannic Majesty having been obliged to send
out an Expedition to demand and obtain redress for the violent and unjust
Proceedings of the Chinese High Authorities towards her Britannic
Majesty’s Officer and Subjects, the Emperor of China agrees to pay the
sum of Twelve Millions of Dollars.”
(Article VI)
again have to pay transit duties to transport the goods. Article X left open the amount of those duties. The added declaration simply concludes that duties “shall not exceed the
present rates, which are upon a moderate scale.”
Nanjing but would leave a token force until all payments
were made and the treaty ports were operational. Article XIII
activated the treaty immediately on the authority of the signing plenipotentiaries, recognizing that it would take time for
each nation’s sovereign to ratify the treaty personally.
◆
Article XI
Article XI required that British and Chinese officials
communicate as equals, avoiding derogatory terms and
according due respect to each other’s offices. Under the
Canton system, British East India officers had had no
access to Chinese officials, and as the diplomatic
exchanges between Britain and China from the Macartney
mission forward show, British officials were treated as tributary barbarians. The historical irony of the insistence on
“equality” is that the treaty was manifestly unequal. The
lesson of power is vividly clear: As long as one possesses the
firepower to destroy an enemy, one can claim as much
respect as one demands, suggesting that equality is the last
thing a nation employing superior force is actually seeking.
◆
Articles XII and XIII
Article XII states that once Great Britain received its first
installment of indemnities, it would withdraw forces from
954
Audience
The audience for this treaty was the Chinese officials,
merchants, and city magistrates whose lives would be
altered forever by the presence of newly enfranchised foreign traders in their midst. It took some time before the
reality of the treaty diplomacy sank into the urban populations of the treaty cities, and several skirmishes were
fought even after the treaty was signed. The reality, though,
was that the foreigners were in China to stay and that
resistance against them would be answered by force. Of
course, the treaty was also addressed to posterity and world
opinion, and the commercial powers of the West paid very
close attention, using the Treaty of Nanjing as their own
model for unequal treaties that would be imposed on East
Asian nations until the end of World War II.
Milestone Documents in World History
Impact
Questions for Further Study
1. Trace the history of Great Britain’s relationship with China using the Treaty of Nanjing, Qianlong’s Letter to
George III, and Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to Queen Victoria.”
2. Treaties such as the Treaty of Nanjing are generally accounted as unequal, allowing commercial nations such
as Great Britain to dominate colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. How was Great Britain—and other European powers—able to achieve such dominance? If the treaty was unequal, why did China not simply expel the
British?
3. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British East India Company, a private, commercial enterprise, assumed what could almost be characterized as governmental control in countries such as China and India.
Using the Treaty of Nanjing and Queen Victoria’s Proclamation concerning India, explain how the East India Company was able to achieve this position.
4. How did the Treaty of Nanjing contribute to the implosion of imperial China?
5. In one sentence, explain to an interested listener what the Opium War was. In one more sentence, explain why
the war was important.
Treaty of Nanjing
955
Milestone Documents
The Treaty of Nanjing redefined world diplomacy and
helped set the stage for the emergence of the “new imperialism” of the late nineteenth century. It is not the case
that the terms, or even the categories of terms, were new
to the world or to China. As recently as 1835, the Chinese
had voluntarily granted extraterritoriality, a consulate, and
rights to control tariffs to Quqon (Kokand), a central Asian
tributary state that sought these privileges in its dealings
with the Chinese-controlled city of Kashgar (Kashi). The
substantive difference between this famous settlement
and the unequal treaties after 1842 was the degree to
which China granted or was forced to grant these particular rights. While only the most pessimistic of Chinese
would have believed that China was surrendering its
autonomy to the maritime states of the West, the Western
powers had no doubt that they were, and should be, controlling the conversation. Officials from the United States,
France, and Russia studied the Treaty of Nanjing carefully and rushed to present their own versions to the Chinese
government for signing soon after the treaty was ratified.
The American-sponsored Treaty of Wangxia and the
French-sponsored Treaty of Huangpu (Whampoa), both
signed in 1844, were based on the Treaty of Nanjing and
were even more complete in their demands. Not only did
each of these treaties specify terms for extraterritoriality,
which the Nanjing Treaty did not, but they also demanded
“most favored nation” status, meaning that the United
States and France would automatically receive any trade
privileges granted by China to other nations in the future.
Great Britain received extraterritoriality and most-favorednation status in the supplementary Treaty of the Bogue,
signed in 1843.
For the rest of the nineteenth century, all Western powers operating in East Asia would impose unequal treaties
on their new “friends” in the Pacific. The 1858 Treaty of
Tianjin (Tientsin), among Great Britain, the United States,
Russia, France, and China; the 1861 Commercial Treaty,
between Prussia and China; and the 1896 Li-Lobanov
Treaty (also called the Sino-Russian Secret Treaty),
between Russia and China are only three in a long list of
treaties that systematically reduced the Qing Empire to the
status of semicolonialism. Perhaps the most humiliating of
all was the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki (also known as the
Treaty of Maguan), in which a modernized Japan adopted
the role of the Western power, imposing its own unequal
terms on China after its victory in the Sino-Japanese War.
In the domain of domestic politics, the Treaty of Nanjing demonstrated the weakness of the Manchu Qing rulers
and precipitated a permanent legitimacy crisis for the Qing
Dynasty. Less than a decade after the signing, the Taiping
Rebellion would shake China to its foundations. This massive insurrection, informed by explosive antiforeign and
anti-Qing sentiment, ended only with the help of foreign
intervention, strengthening the hands of the treaty powers.
Subsequent treaties would sap China of its sovereignty, and
rebellions would plague the dynasty for the next sixty years.
In many ways the Treaty of Nanjing marked the beginning
of the end of imperial China, destroying the legitimacy of
the Qing Dynasty and sending it into a downward spiral
from which it would never recover.
Further Reading
■
Articles
Fairbank, John King, and Merle Goldman. China: A New History,
2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2006.
Downs, Jacques M. “American Merchants and the China Opium
Trade, 1800 1840.” Business History Review 42 (Winter 1968):
418 442.
Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China, 2nd ed. New
York: W. W. Norton, 1999.
Wang, Dong. “The Discourse of Unequal Treaties in Modern
China.” Pacific Affairs 76, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 399 425.
Waley-Cohen, Joanna. The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in
Chinese History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.
Zheng, Yangwen. “The Social Life of Opium in China, 1483 1999.”
Modern Asian Studies 37, no. 1 (February 2003): 1 39.
■
■
Books
Fairbank, John King. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The
Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842 1854. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1953.
956
Web Sites
“The Opium War and Foreign Encroachment.” Columbia University Web site.
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/modern/opium.htm.
Eric Cunningham
Milestone Documents in World History
Document Text
Victoria, by the Grace of God, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender
of the Faith, etc., etc., etc. To All and Singular to
whom these Presents shall come, Greeting!
Whereas a Treaty between Us and Our Good
Brother the Emperor of China, was concluded and
signed, in the English and Chinese Languages, on
board Our Ship the Cornwallis, at Nanking, on the
Twenty-ninth day of August, in the Year of Our Lord
One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty-two, by the
Plenipotentiaries of Us and of Our said Good Brother, duly and respectively authorized for that purpose;
which Treaty is hereunto annexed in Original.
Treaty
Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, and His Majesty the
Emperor of China, being desirous of putting an end
to the misunderstandings and consequent hostilities
which have arisen between the two Countries, have
resolved to conclude a Treaty for that purpose, and
have therefore named as their Plenipotentiaries, that
is to say: Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain
and Ireland, Henry Pottinger, Bart., a Major General
in the Service of the East India Company, etc., etc.;
And His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of China, the
High Commissioners Keying, a Member of the Imperial House, a Guardian of the Crown Prince and
General of the Garrison of Canton; and Elepoo, of
Imperial Kindred, graciously permitted to wear the
insignia of the first rank, and the distinction of Peacock’s feather, lately Minister and Governor General
etc., and now Lieutenant-General Commanding at
Chapoo: Who, after having communicated to each
other their respective Full Powers and found them to
be in good and due form, have agreed upon, and concluded, the following Articles:
◆
Article I.
There shall henceforward be Peace and Friendship between Her Majesty the Queen of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and His
Majesty the Emperor of China, and between their
respective Subjects, who shall enjoy full security and
Treaty of Nanjing
Milestone Documents
Treaty of Nanjing
protection for their persons and property within the
Dominions of the other.
◆
Article II.
His Majesty the Emperor of China agrees that
British Subjects, with their families and establishments, shall be allowed to reside, for the purpose of
carrying on their Mercantile pursuits, without
molestation or restraint at the Cities and Towns of
Canton, Amoy, Foochow-fu, Ningpo, and Shanghai,
and Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, etc.,
will appoint Superintendents or Consular Officers,
to reside at each of the above-named Cities or
Towns, to be the medium of communication between
the Chinese Authorities and the said Merchants, and
to see that the just Duties and other Dues of the Chinese Government as hereafter provided for, are duly
discharged by Her Britannic Majesty’s Subjects.
◆
Article III.
It being obviously necessary and desirable, that
British Subjects should have some Port whereat they
may careen and refit their Ships, when required, and
keep Stores for that purpose, His Majesty the
Emperor of China cedes to Her Majesty the Queen
of Great Britain, etc., the Island of Hongkong, to be
possessed in perpetuity by Her Britannic Majesty,
Her Heirs and Successors, and to be governed by
such Laws and Regulations as Her Majesty the
Queen of Great Britain, etc., shall see fit to direct.
◆
Article IV.
The Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of
Six Millions of Dollars as the value of Opium which
was delivered up at Canton in the month of March
1839, as a Ransom for the lives of Her Britannic
Majesty’s Superintendent and Subjects, who had
been imprisoned and threatened with death by the
Chinese High Officers.
◆
Article V.
The Government of China having compelled the
British Merchants trading at Canton to deal exclusively with certain Chinese Merchants called Hong
Merchants (or Cohong) who had been licensed by
the Chinese Government for that purpose, the
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Emperor of China agrees to abolish that practice in
future at all Ports where British Merchants may
reside, and to permit them to carry on their mercantile transactions with whatever persons they please,
and His Imperial Majesty further agrees to pay to the
British Government the sum of Three Millions of
Dollars, on account of Debts due to British Subjects
by some of the said Hong Merchants (or Cohong),
who have become insolvent, and who owe very large
sums of money to Subjects of Her Britannic Majesty.
◆
Article IX.
The Emperor of China agrees to publish and
promulgate, under His Imperial Sign Manual and
Seal, a full and entire amnesty and act of indemnity,
to all Subjects of China on account of their having
resided under, or having had dealings and intercourse with, or having entered the Service of Her
Britannic Majesty, or of Her Majesty’s Officers, and
His Imperial Majesty further engages to release all
Chinese Subjects who may be at this moment in confinement for similar reasons.
◆
Article VI.
The Government of Her Britannic Majesty having
been obliged to send out an Expedition to demand
and obtain redress for the violent and unjust Proceedings of the Chinese High Authorities towards
Her Britannic Majesty’s Officer and Subjects, the
Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of Twelve
Millions of Dollars on account of the Expenses
incurred, and Her Britannic Majesty’s Plenipotentiary voluntarily agrees, on behalf of Her Majesty, to
deduct from the said amount of Twelve Millions of
Dollars, any sums which may have been received by
Her Majesty’s combined Forces as Ransom for Cities
and Towns in China, subsequent to the 1st day of
August 1841.
◆
Article VII.
It is agreed that the Total amount of Twenty-one
Millions of Dollars, described in the three preceding
Articles, shall be paid as follows:
Six Millions immediately.
Six Millions in 1843. That is: Three Millions on
or before the 30th of the month of June, and Three
Millions on or before the 31st of December.
Five Millions in 1844. That is: Two Millions and
a Half on or before the 30th of June, and Two Millions and a half on or before the 31st of December.
Four Millions in 1845. That is: Two Millions on
or before the 30th of June, and Two Millions on or
before the 31st of December; and it is further stipulated that Interest at the rate of 5 per cent per
annum shall be paid by the Government of China on
any portions of the above sums that are not punctually discharged at the periods fixed.
◆
Article VIII.
The Emperor of China agrees to release unconditionally all Subjects of her Britannic Majesty
(whether Natives of Europe or India) who may be in
confinement at this moment, in any part of the Chinese Empire.
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◆
Article X.
His Majesty the Emperor of China agrees to establish at all the Ports which are by the 2nd Article of this
Treaty to be thrown open for the resort of British Merchants, a fair and regular Tariff of Export and Import
Customs and other Dues, which Tariff shall be publicly notified and promulgated for general information,
and the Emperor further engages, that when British
Merchandise shall have once been paid at any of the
said Ports the regulated Customs and Dues agreeable
to the Tariff, to be hereafter fixed, such Merchandise
may be conveyed by Chinese Merchants, to any
Province or City in the interior of the Empire of China
on paying a further amount as Transit Duties which
shall not exceed [see Declaration respecting Transit
Duties below] on the tariff value of such goods.
◆
Article XI.
It is agreed that Her Britannic Majesty’s Chief
High Officer in China shall correspond with the Chinese High Officers, both at the Capital and in the
Provinces, under the term “Communication.” The
Subordinate British Officers and Chinese High Officers in the Provinces under the terms “Statement” on
the part of the former, and on the part of the latter
“Declaration” and the Subordinates of both Countries
on a footing of perfect equality. Merchants and others
not holding official situations and, therefore, not
included in the above, on both sides, to use the term
“Representation” in all Papers addressed to, or intended for the notice of the respective Governments.
◆
Article XII.
On the assent of the Emperor of China to this
Treaty being received and the discharge of the first
installment of money, Her Britannic Majesty’s Forces
will retire from Nanking and the Grand Canal, and
will no longer molest or stop the Trade of China. The
Military Post at Chinhai will also be withdrawn, but
the Islands of Koolangsoo and that of Chusan will
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Document Text
◆
Article XIII.
The Ratification of the Treaty by Her Majesty the
Queen of Great Britain, etc., and His Majesty the
Emperor of China shall be exchanged as soon as the
great distance which separates England from China
will admit; but in the meantime counterpart copies
of it, signed and sealed by the Plenipotentiaries on
behalf of their respective Sovereigns, shall be mutually delivered, and all its provisions and arrangements shall take effect.
Done at Nanking and Signed and Sealed by the
Plenipotentiaries on board Her Britannic Majesty’s
ship Cornwallis, this twenty-ninth day of August,
1842, corresponding with the Chinese date, twentyfourth day of the seventh month in the twenty-second Year of Taou Kwang.
(L.S.) Henry Pottinger, Her Majesty’s Plenipotentiary
[Signatures of Chinese Plenipotentiaries]
Declaration respecting Transit Duties.
Whereas by the Xth Article of the Treaty between
Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, and His Majesty the
Emperor of China, concluded and signed on board
Her Britannic Majesty’s ship Cornwallis, at Nanking,
on the 29th day of August, 1842. … it is stipulated
and agreed, that His Majesty the Emperor of China
shall establish at all the ports which, by the 2nd Article of the said Treaty, are to be thrown open for the
resort of British merchants, a fair and regular tariff
of export and import customs and other dues, which
tariff shall be publicly notified and promulgated for
general information; and further, that when British
merchandise shall have once paid, at any of the said
ports, the regulated customs and dues, agreeable to
the tariff to be hereafter fixed, such merchandise
may be conveyed by Chinese merchants to any
province or city in the interior of the Empire of
China, on paying a further amount of duty as transit
duty; And whereas the rate of transit duty to be so
levied was not fixed by the said Treaty; Now, therefore, the undersigned Plenipotentiaries of Her Britannic Majesty, and of His Majesty the Emperor of
China, do hereby, on proceeding to the exchange of
the Ratifications of the said Treaty, agree and
declare, that the further amount of duty to be so
levied on British merchandise, as transit duty, shall
not exceed the present rates, which are upon a moderate scale; and the Ratifications of the said Treaty
are exchanged subject to the express declaration and
stipulation herein contained.
In witness whereof the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed the present declaration, and have
affixed thereto their respective seals.
Done at Hong-Kong, the 26th day of June, 1843
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continue to be held by Her Majesty’s Forces until the
money payments, and the arrangements for opening
the Ports to British Merchants be completed.
(L.S.) Henry Pottinger
[Seal and signature of Chinese Plenipotentiary]
We, having seen and considered the Treaty aforesaid, have approved, accepted, and confirmed the
same in all and every one of its Articles and Clauses,
as We do by these Presents approve, accept, confirm,
and ratify it for Ourselves, Our Heirs, and Successors: Engaging and Promising upon Our Royal Word,
that We will sincerely and faithfully perform and
observe all and singular the things which are contained and expressed in the Treaty aforesaid, and
that We will never suffer the same to be violated by
any one, or transgressed in any manner, as far as it
lies in Our Power.
For the greater Testimony and Validity of all
which, We have caused the Great Seal of Our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to be
affixed to these Presents, which We have signed with
Our Royal Hand.
Given at Our Court at Windsor Castle, the Twenty-eighth day of December, in the Year of Our Lord
One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty-two, and in
the Sixth Year of Our Reign.
(Signed) Victoria R.
Glossary
Chapoo
a seaport in present-day Zhejiang Province
Chinhai
a port in present-day South Korea
Sign Manual
the handwritten signature of the emperor of China
Treaty of Nanjing
959