The Opium Wars: China In The Mid-19th Century

China is one of the world’s most dominant countries but this was not always the case. At the start of the 19th century, China was a struggling country that had problems in terms of keeping domestic stability intact and earning respect from other countries around the world. These problems and many more all culminated into a weaker China that was easily dominated by Western powers such as the United Kingdom and the United States but also the successfully westernized Japan. While the West was advancing technologically, China stagnated and eventually fell behind as a country which was brought to light during the Opium Wars. Through brute force, the United Kingdom was able to coerce the Chinese into numerous trade agreements1. This weakness exhibited

Despite this, China would eventually stagnate and falter off as a country while the West would still strive for greater heights technologically. This discrepancy in power between the West and China was only truly revealed, however, through the mid-19th century wars between China and the West, and in particular the United Kingdom and France, called the Opium Wars . The Opium Wars were two wars between the Chinese Qing dynasty, which ruled from 1644 to 1912 , and many Western countries, namely the United Kingdom, France, and the United States and these conflicts resulted in China being forced to grant trading rights and extraterritoriality to the Western powers. These two wars resulted in very humiliating and demoralizing losses for China and to make matters worse, China having to follow the demands of the Western powers only brought about more shame to the country. After China’s loss to the United Kingdom in the First Opium War, the first of the “unequal treaties” were introduced which caused China to become even weaker as a country because it had to submit to the whims of the West. They were deemed unequal by the Chinese due to the fact that these treaties always favored the Western powers in question while always being at the detriment of the of the Chinese

This is because of the Chinese government opting to not trade with the Western powers in general as China had considered itself a self-sufficient country. Trade with the West was limited to one port being Canton, a seaport city in China, and one trading good being silver since the YEAR INSERT and up until YEAR INSERT, the West had to comply with the Chinese since they could not do anything to get their way. Due to the smuggling by the United Kingdom, widespread addiction was caused throughout China and this, of course, caused outrage in the Qing dynasty which lashed out against the circulation of the opium. In 1839, Chinese officials confiscated a shipment of opium that the United Kingdom had sent and were planning on selling in Canton. After the incident, the United Kingdom declared war on China due to their loss of opium at the Chinese hands which caused China to vehemently refuse to reimburse the United Kingdom for the opium. This war was embarrassing defeat after embarrassing defeat of the Chinese by the British and it was brought to a close by the first of the unequal treaties, the Treaty of Nanking. With the signing of this treaty, the United Kingdom was fully compensated of the opium that was seized previously and the United Kingdom was granted a multitude of