So here's where I tell you that there are in fact different flavors of imperialism during the period 1750 to 1900. In this video we're going to have a little taste of economic imperialism. If you're ready to get them brain cows milks. Let's get to it. So one thing you really need to understand in this period is that imperialism involves more than just industrial powers showing up with their fancy machine guns and taking over people's crap physically.
No, full-blown colonization is pretty costly, and when you've got a massive, honking empire across the world, you might need to find another way to exploit non-industrial powers that's a little easier on the wall. And that's where we get economic imperialism, which by definition describes the act of one state extending control over another state by economic means. And I can see it in your eyes.
You want an example. Well, good news, baby! I I got two for you.
The first major example of economic imperialism during this period is the influence of Britain and France in China, which led to a series of conflicts known as the Opium Wars. Now if you've been paying attention since the beginning of this course, you'll remember that China has always been kind of a big deal. I mean, the word China literally means something like Middle Kingdom, which is to say, by Chinese reckoning, they were at the center of the whole dang world. And for much of world history, that was true. But during this period, China went from the center of world power to the edges.
And there were a lot of reasons for that, but chief among them was their failure to industrialize which left them vulnerable to other industrial powers. And speaking of which, here come the British. Oh, and by the way, let me just mention real quick that if you need help getting an A in your class and a 5 on your exam in May, you might want to check out my AP World Heimler review guide. It's got everything you need to study, every required piece of content and skill in this course, and it's the fastest way to get it all down.
So, you know, if that's something you're into, link in the description. Anyway, for a long time, the Chinese restricted British traders to a single trading port, and that caused significant problems for Britain, not least of which was a major trade imbalance between the two states. You see, although Chinese goods like silk and porcelain, most of all tea, were in high demand in Britain, there was very little demand in China for British-made goods. So that means that British silver was piling up in China, but no Chinese silver was making its way back to Britain. And so, faced with this dire situation, Britain did what any rational country would do.
They got their best minds together to innovate and create products that the Chinese would love in order to rectify that imbalance. And if you believe what I just said, then this is clearly your first time here at Heimler's History, and if so, I'm glad to have you here, but seriously, that is not what happened. No, the British went ahead and increased their colonial production of opium in India and illegally exported it to China. And just so you know, opium is a highly addictive and destructive drug, like it's the great grandpappy of heroin, which is, to put it mildly, a life-ruiner. And so because it was so addictive, more and more of the Chinese population was getting hooked on it, and wouldn't you know it, the Chinese silver started pouring into the British coffers.
Well, not surprisingly, the Qing officials were not fans of their people getting addicted to the old dopium, and therefore banned further import of the drug and even seized and destroyed opium shipments in the British trading port in Canton. And the British were like, how dare you prevent us from profiting off the loss of consciousness, coma, and possible death of your people. And so in retaliation, the British showed up in force and that began the first conflict of the Opium Wars in which Britain taught China the great lesson of the age, namely industrialized military might wins every time. So the British defeated and humiliated the Chinese, whose hand was forced to sign a very unequal treaty known as the Treaty of Nanjing, which opened several new trading ports to the British.
And that gave Britain enormous economic influence over the Chinese. But then things just kept getting worse for China after that. In the middle of the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty began to weaken and fracture for all kinds of reasons, but a major reason was the Taiping Rebellion in the middle of the 19th century.
It was a religious movement among ethnic Hans that sought to get rid of the foreign Manchu rulers of the Qing Dynasty. And long story short, it was pretty dang successful. successful for about 15 years. But ultimately, the Qing military crushed the rebellion, but not without spending metric buttloads of money and causing the deaths of something like 20 to 30 million people.
And so with all that going on, Qing rulers didn't exactly have the time or attention or money to think about industrializing, which, as we're about to see, is going to cause a big problem. So yeah, the Qing remained in power, but things were a little unstable, and that would be fine just as long as some outside industrial powers didn't come in again to take advantage of that weakness. But, you know.
They did. Specifically the British and the French. And that leads us to the Second Opium War, the French joining the British and defeating the Chinese, which again would lead to further unequal treaties and even more trading ports open to Western powers. And ultimately, seeing that China could not withstand industrialized powers, several Western Europeans nations as well as Russia and Japan had carved China up into various spheres of influence in which China was dominated economically by these various powers.
And that is what we mean by economic imperialism. Those industrialized powers didn't colonize China like they did India or Algeria or whatever, but they still had a lot of power. still made the Chinese economy subservient to their own interests. Okay, now one more shorter example of economic imperialism, and this time it occurred in the Americas, namely Argentina.
So throughout the 19th century, British businesses and banks invested heavily in Argentina in order to improve its infrastructure, including the construction of thousands of miles of railroads. And were they doing that to be nice? Don't be crazy.
No, several British businesses were interested in setting up operations to extract and export raw materials from Argentina. And so to that end, construction of a modern trading port in Buenos Aires was completed, which, since it was funded by British firms, was located close to their factories, which led to an increase in exports to Britain and an increasing economic dependence on British investment. Boom, economic imperialism strikes again.
And finally, the last thing you need to understand about economic imperialism was the reorganization of colonial economies in order to focus on trade in commodities. Now, a commodity is any good that can be bought and sold. sold on a market. And you might remember from the last video that we talked a good deal about how imperial powers organized the economies of many of their colonial holdings in order to focus on one or maybe a handful of exports that those imperial parents demanded.
For example, cotton grown as cash crops in India and Egypt were exported to Britain and other European countries, which made those colonial economies dependent on external demand for those raw materials. Or another example, imperial powers that held colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa organized their economies for palm oil extraction. And all in all, the trend of the age was to shape the world economy in order to give imperial powers in Europe and the US a distinct economic advantage to the detriment of the colonial populations themselves. Okay, click here to keep reviewing for Unit 6, and click here to grab my AP World Heimler Review Guide, which is going to help you get an 8 in your class and a 5 on your exam in May.
And you know, maybe it's going to make all your dreams come true. Anyway, glad we got to hang out, and I'll catch you on the flip-flop. Heimler out.