We saw in chapter two how the British emissary of King George III, Lord McCartney, was rebuffed brusquely by the Ching court, and left frustrated and empty-handed. China's subsequent encounters with the west would be much more violent and costly. This chapter will look at how its tributary system crumbled in the face of Western superior military strength, and how the Chinese learned in the most tragic way the existence of other powerful nations in the world. In order to fully understand Chinese interaction with the West in the 19th century, we need to follow the path of opium, from its production to its consumption across the world. Prior to the 19th century, opium was known as a medicine in China and not as a recreational drug. Even though opium sale was banned, it was widely smuggled into the country. The British East India Company, which dominated Western trade with China, permitted its select committee of private traders to sell opium. And the American's were also engaged in the trade by 1804. And the price of opium dropped as production increased in India. Because of the tremendous Western demand for Chinese tea, silk, porcelain and other decorative objects, there was a serious trade imbalance from the West to China. As the Chinese were not interested in buying Western products, such as cotton, woolen goods, furs, and clocks. However, the British East Indian Company found that it could grow opium in India, sell it in China, and return to Britain with not only tea, silk, porcelain, but also silver. In this triangular trade, opium became the most valuable single commodity trade of the 19th century. By the 1830's opium addiction had become widespread in the Chinese army, at court, and in the homes of the wealthy. And silver was draining out of China at the rate of 9 million silver taels a year. A tael is about 37 grams. Inflation occurred, prices collapsed, peasants who paid taxes in metals suffered extreme hardship and unrest abounded. The Emperor Daoguang held the debate on legalizing or banning opium, and decided to ban the drug. As a result in 1838, the Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu destroyed the opium stock at the port of Canton and placed the British merchants under arrest. The British responded with force and the first Opium War from 1839 to 1842 ensued. The Qing lost soundly as its military preparation was no match for the British. In the Treaty of Nanjing, China ceded the Island of Hong Kong to the British in perpetuity and paid a heavy fine. Over the next six decades, the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia, and Japan extracted more demands from China by either threatening or waging war. And the Qing capitulated again and again by negotiating a series of unequal treaties. China not only paid hundreds of millions of taels of silver and ceded it's territories such as Korea, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Taiwan, but lost control of the key elements of it's commercial, social and foreign policies. The Americans imposed a treaty of Wanghia in 1844, obtained a most favorite nation clause, and inserted extra territoriality right for its citizens. From the point of view of the Chinese, no matter which nationality, all foreigners seemed to enjoy special privileges, and to be above the law. Foreigners were able to sell opium, to live in specially designated areas under their own laws, and to preach Christianity. These treaties forever demolished their tributary system that formed the basis of China's foreign relations over thousands of years. While there were conservatives at court, who were in denial about China's weakness, other intellectuals began to realize that China was in big trouble. Chen Duxiu, the future founder of the Chinese Communist Party, wrote in his Anhui vernacular paper in 1904, ten years ago, when I was home studying, all I knew was to eat and sleep. At most, in order to honor my family, I'd read a few essays and hope to bluff my way into a few degrees. Who knew what a country was and what it had to do with me. Then, in 1895, I first heard of Japan and that it beat our China. And came 1900, when countries called England, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, America, Austria and Japan, joined their troops and beat China again. That's when I realized that I was part of China and that my country's rise and decline had to do with all of our welfare. I had to be 20 to know there was such a thing as a country. What a shame it is. China in the 19th century was beset with internal rebellions, natural disasters and external threat. As a result, young men in the coastal regions of Canton and Fujian went abroad to look for a better living. About 370,000 young Chinese men came to the United States starting with the Gold Rush in California in 1848. After the gold rush, they found work on railroads, plantations, factories, laundromats and even as house boys. Their industriousness and willingness to settle for lower wages, as well as strange customs and distinctive appearance, made them targets of discrimination and persecution. To investigate the living conditions of their oversee subjects, in 1868 the Qing government hired a retiring American diplomat, Anson Burlingame, as its envoy to the United States. This was still in the tradition of playing the barbarians against one another. Burlingame signed a treaty on behalf of China with the US. Recognizing the right of citizens of both countries through immigration and emigrations and the reciprocal rights of residents' religion and access to schools. But the anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States was such that Congress declared the Chinese to be aliens ineligible for citizenship in 1870. From there, a series of laws were passed in an effort to keep out the Chinese. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was the first immigration law in the United States and banned all Chinese except for merchants, teachers, students and diplomats to enter the country. The act was not revoked until 1943. As aliens, the Chinese did not have any legal protection in the United States. They were targets of mob lynching, murder,and discrimination. News about their compatriots� mistreatment in America led to an anti-American boycott in China in 1905. The movement began in Shanghai and Kanton, and spread to over 20 cities and lasted for over a year. The Chinese translator of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ling Shu, saw the American enslavement of African Americans as a warning of what could happen to China if it did not become stronger. Opium was the lucrative trade that drove the Western powers to use force to open up China. As China suffered the fate of a semi-colonial state as a result of Western imperialism, its citizens faced discrimination and persecution when searching for a better life abroad. The next chapter, will examine its belated effort to modernize.
