Opium War Analysis

“Catastrophe, riots, factories blowing up, armies in flight, flood - the ear can detect a whole apocalypse in the starry night of the human body (Cocteau).” China is the human body of this metaphor, as Cocteau points out the destruction and chaos opium can cause in the body of man; it does the same to the well-being of China during the early to mid eighteen-hundreds. The aim of this paper is to discuss a key issue in which plagued China in their opposition to opium trade leading up to and during the Opium War. While there are many important issues related to China’s opium problem, the scope of this paper will be strategic errors. It is important to note that if improvements were made in this field, it does not guarantee that the

foreigners (mainly the British) could have been stopped in their pursuit to control the Canton port and trade in China as a whole.
As stated in Peter C. Perdue, “The First Opium War: The Anglo-Chinese War of 1839-1842,” opium use began long before the Opium War, however the increased volume of consumption began when Britain colonized and began cultivation in India on page one.. Singapore, a city located on the Malaya Peninsula would have served as an exceedingly useful location for China to establish communication, watch points or a Naval base for the Chinese as the British, in order to transport their opium from India, had to sail past it to access the Chinese Sea; the Chinese sea in turn lead passed the outer Islands such as Macao into the port of Canton where most foreign opium was brought. Evidence supporting the strategic use of Singapore is illustrated by Arthur Waley in The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958) on page 48 where he states “On May 4th he (John Abraham Douglas) arrived at Singapore, where he landed his opium…” One can see that if any of the afore mentioned actions had been taken, the Chinese may have benefitted in ways such as receiving information about British maneuvers and being able to report this information to Emperor Tseng allowing China to be more prepared or surrounding British ships once they had entered the Chinese Sea. This may have enabled them to board outnumbered British ships and cease the opium. It is relevant to note that the importance of Singapore is again mentioned in Governor-General Lin Zhexu’s diary where he discusses how foreign ships after being denied access to Canton, took their Opium to Singapore to trade for other items. The lack of initiative to reach out to Singapore shows a strategic error of China due to the major upside that establishing a connection would have provided, while the cost to reach out to Singapore would have been relatively low; this would have required one boat and a negotiator.
Further devastating strategic errors are of Lin Zhexu’s volition.

This is not in any way meant to cast him in a negative light as one can see the immense amount of effort Zhexu invested to eradicate Opium use in China. This in fact relates to the topic of command which will be examined later. As to Lin Zhexu’s strategic error, he spent much of his time post Opium War scouring China in search of Opium abusers, dealers and those who stored it rather than attacking the problem at the source, which was the importation of it. He is cited being criticized by Chi-San who remarked “Instead of organizing a wholesale massacre of opium smokers...the proper course would be to take efficient steps to prevent import of opium (Waley, 121).” Zhexu, who was undoubtedly an intelligent man, became so focused on stopping the use of opium by his people and wrapped up in sadly to say less significant details that he became negligent in his attempts to stop the English from bringing opium in by any means. An unfortunate, but noteworthy example of this comes from his relentless attempts to force the English to hand over the alleged murderer of Lin Wei-His, which is pointed out in the text, that it would be impossible to conclude that the man died of the wounds suffered. This is because no medical professional had examined the body, there were multiple attackers involved and that a healthy man would have not succumbed to these types of injuries (61). Lin’s hard pressed attempt to seek the

cliché eye for an eye brand of justice takes away from the importance the other part of the “guarantee” which would prevent British ships from bringing opium into the Canton port nonetheless all of China (74). These may seem like insignificant details; however one must be cautious in making such statements. Understanding that Lin’s inability to focus on crucial components in the three conditions of settlement demonstrates a major strategic error. His unwillingness to accept the counter offers made by Captain Elliot such as searching the ship for opium which would have given Lin access to British ships is documented as “On the same day he wrote to Elliot totally rejecting the idea of a search of the ships in lieu of a guarantee (Waley, 79).” With access to the ships, his men could have gathered useful Intel, insight to their technology and ultimately, if the ship was clear of opium, would have brought revenue back to the Chinese citizens and government.
The final and most noteworthy of the strategic errors can be evaluated from a militaristic viewpoint.

The Chinese Military with a special emphasis on their Navy lagged behind the British, which was clearly evident. An appropriate instance of a strategic error can be found in the text “…astonishing divers who could walk about the bottom of the sea and remain hidden all night. They were also supposed to be able, when submerged, to pierce holes in the bottoms of ships and sink them (Waley, 115).” This tactic seemed to be very unsuccessful; the divers could never actually dive down to sink the ships. Lin is quoted further down on page 115 stating that it would be a good idea to continue these divers even though they were unable to sink ships in order to keep them from the British, in fear that they would be used to transport opium. As harsh as it may seem, this was a complete waste of resources, time and money; three things China did not have a surplus of. The inability of the leaders to properly divvy resources for useful projects was a major strategic error. This unfortunately was not the only of its kind. Following this, the change of hands of the Cambridge which originally was a British warship that was next bought by Delano, an American man and eventually was sold to the Chinese as cited by Waley on page 86 of his book was a valiant idea, however proved to be a strategic error. The Cambridge was purchased to serve as a model for other naval ships (Prof. Oakes, “Opium

War Lecture).” The plan was carried out and ships were built based of the ex-British warship, however no Chinese sailors were capable of or controlling such a ship. This overall turned out to be a strategic error due to the waste of money spent on buying a ship that in the end served minimal purpose for the time-being as in addition to the waste of resources and time spent building the ship. The final example, in terms of this paper appeals to a more basic understanding of military necessities, training of troops and advancement of weapons. It is seen in Lin’s diary that he visited many training sights of the Chinese military and it seems that while moderate effort was applied to train troops, it was done in a strategically weak way. One instance in which weak training strategy can be observed is in the text that follows “Lin went to watch tests in shooting arrows on horseback (Waley, 124).” At this time, ground warfare was occurring infrequently as most of the fighting was still at sea. This quote also demonstrates an example in the lack of advanced weaponry. While the British had muskets, the Chinese were still using bow and arrow which was justified by Lin by stating that “There was indeed a one way in which the musket…was then inferior to the bow: it could not be used if it was raining (Waley, 52).” These instances of strategic error greatly impacted the Chinese ability of success.
In conclusion, while these errors may have harmed China’s ability to prevent the opium trade or sustain a major resistance it must all be put into perspective. Had the British simply agreed to no longer transport opium into China and signed the guarantee, it is a great possibility the situation would have never escalated to that. The continuing push of the British to move their opium into port was strictly about money and greed, as Lin Zhexu puts it “Unfortunately their appetites are insatiable, the more they get, the more they demand (Waley, 119).”