The History Book

255

The port of Canton, in southern

China, was initially the only trading

port open to Western merchants. After

the two opium wars, Europe was given

exclusive access to many more.

See also: Stephenson’s Rocket enters service 220–25 ■ The construction of the Suez Canal 230–35 ■

The Siege of Lucknow 242 ■ The Meiji Restoration 252–53 ■ The Taiping Rebellion 265 ■ The Long March 304–05

CHANGING SOCIETIES

Less than 70 years before, Britain

had sent an embassy to China to

open trade talks, only to be rebuffed.

Late 18th-century Qing China was

the richest, most populous, and

most powerful country in the world,

and it could afford its complacency.

By the mid-19th century, however,

the nation was effectively bankrupt,

racked by famines and revolts,

and increasingly exploited and

humiliated by the West.

Uprisings and revolts

China’s problems were internal

as much as external. A swelling

population—100 million in 1650,

300 million in 1800, 450 million

in 1850—provoked recurring

famines. Between 1787 and 1813,

there were three major uprisings.

Its border provinces, conquered

at huge expense in the 17th and

18th centuries, were in a near-

permanent state of unrest.

In 1850, the Taiping Rebellion

erupted across central China,

resulting in the death of as many

as 20 million people. When it was

finally put down, in 1864, it was

only after Western intervention. The

Qing dynasty, its administration

increasingly ineffective, had

essentially lost control of China.

The West intrudes

It was this growing turmoil that

the West exploited, weakening

China further in the process. The

first, modest trading concessions

China had agreed to stipulated that

all Chinese goods be paid for in

silver. However, from the early

19th century, European traders,

mostly by bribing officials, were

increasingly able to use opium,

cheaply grown in India, to pay for

goods. By the 1820s, 5,000 chests of

opium a year were entering China.

The Chinese attempt to end

the opium trade and its debilitating

effects led to a crushing defeat in

the First Opium War of 1839–42,

with the European powers, Britain

above all, extracting substantial

trading concessions. It was

Western insistence in 1856 that

these concessions be extended

that led to the Second Opium War,

concluded in 1860 by the Peking

Convention. By 1900, a string

of Western trading ports were

scattered along the Chinese coast.

Britain, France, Japan, and Russia

now all controlled what had been

Chinese tributary states on its

borders. China, wracked by turmoil,

was effectively disintegrating. ■

The Boxer Rebellion

In the turmoil of late 19th-

century China, it was inevitable

that efforts would be mounted

to end the growing dominance

of the West. The imperial

government in Beijing made a

last-ditch attempt at reform on

Western lines, but the chaos

came to a head in 1899 with the

Boxer Rebellion, mounted by the

Militia United in Righteousness,

a semi-secret society composed

mostly of young men. Its goal,

to be achieved in part thanks to

their deluded belief that they

were invulnerable to Western

weapons, was the overthrow

of all Western interests.

The rebellion was variously

supported and opposed by

the imperial court, uncertain

whether it represented a means

of salvation or would merely

provoke Western reprisals.

The latter proved to be the

case. An eight-nation military

alliance, including Japan,

was sent into China against

the Boxers, and by September

1901 the rebellion had been

crushed, amid scenes of

indiscriminate violence.

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