topic 7.2 land Empire's 1750 to 1870 China so when we last left the Ching dynasty in China they had after gain control of China rejected Western attempts to further trade they were allowing one trading point to each foreign market now back when we talked about this I mentioned that this strategy worked pretty well for the Chinese until the late 18th century when the British found themselves deep in a trading debt to the Chinese and wanted to open more trading ports to try to remedy this the Chinese however were not particularly interested in this in 1793 the Chinese emperor qianlong declared quote our celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance there's therefore no need to import the manufacturers of outside barbarians but just over a century later 1912 China's long-established Imperial state had completely collapsed the country had transformed from a central presence in the global economy to a weak independent participant in a European dominated world system when you consider the history of China this is a pretty stunning reversal of fortune and so the question we want to ask is how did it happen first of all like the Europeans the Chinese experienced an almost unbelievably large growth in population in 1685 the population of China was a hundred billion by 1853 it had more than quadrupled to 430 million but unlike in Europe this had not been accompanied by industrialization or the adoption of new agricultural techniques meaning that food production was unable to keep up with new population growth leading to famine and widespread unrest among the peasantry moreover Shing expansion while significant hadn't generated anything like the wealth and resources that Europe's overseas empires had the result of all this was too much pressure on the land shrinking farm sizes unemployment poverty and starvation also failing to keep pace with explosive population growth the centralized Empire kradic state did not expand rapidly enough the state was therefore increasingly unable to act efficiently putting such essential functions as tax collection flood control and social welfare all in jeopardy gradually centralized power was lost to provincial officials and local aristocrats corruption was endemic in these local governments and harsh treatment of peasants was common finally European military pressure and economic penetration became an increasing problem for the dynasty and one that they had no way of successfully combating economic penetration into China came primarily in the form of the import of opium from Great Britain by the end of the 18th century Britain had become China's largest foreign trading partner British companies purchased vast amounts of Chinese tea as well as luxuries like silks porcelain and other decorative items because of this Britain like I've been saying found itself facing a mounting trade deficit to China while the Chinese had lots of stuff that the British wanted the British had little of interest to the Chinese this meant that the British were forced to pay for a great deal of their Chinese exports in silver bullion rather than in other trade goods the exportation of opium to China in large quantities would reverse this trend and eventually led to the opium wars of the 19th century so I'm assuming that you all know what opium is but just in case you don't it is produced from poppies and had for a long time been used for medicinal purposes in small amounts as a pain reliever or a sleep aid and that sort of thing opium also happens to be highly addictive meaning that selling opium in large quantities was a highly profitable business with a ravenous consumer base I mean this is what happens when you sell addictive drugs so British merchants would find an enormous growing and profitable market in this highly addictive drug British ships began landing supplies of opium in China in the late 1700s opium became more available and more afford Boal to all levels of Chinese society at this point even to the working classes smoking opium for a long time had been the hobby of rich men and emperors but opium smoking soon flourished at all social levels Chinese towns and cities had numerous opium dens where thousands of men lingered and spent their days in a drug-induced stupor by the 1830s over 25,000 chests each containing 130 to 160 pounds of opium were arriving in China each year now the Chinese government objected to the sale of opium for numerous reasons first of all they were well aware of this addictive qualities and those who were addicted to opium or brenards completely incapacitated by their addiction they couldn't work they couldn't support their families and so the growth of the opium trade they knew would lead to the destabilization and decline of Chinese society and its economy they also understood that the sale of opium would begin to leech the all-important silver from the Chinese economy creating further economic instability finally as we've already seen the Chinese government despised the British and Europeans more generally as barbaric and decidedly did not want to allow them more access to their country and so the government in Beijing would attempt to ban the use and importation of opium on several occasions but these restrictions were generally difficult to enforce and the British generally ignored them in 1839 the Chinese emperor decided to crack down on this problem once and for all and took steps to ban the trade of opium within Chinese borders including seizing more than 2.6 million pounds of British opium without offering the British any compensation these actions of the Chinese government would launch the first of the two opium wars as Britain objected pretty strenuously to all of these measures during the opium war which lasted between 1839 and 1841 Chinese forces heavily outnumbered the British but they lacked Britain's naval strength and artillery firepower and so we're pretty comprehensively defeated this defeat resulted in a humiliating treaty by 1841 the Treaty of Nanking the Qiang regime was forced to grant Britain status as a most favored nation giving it precedence over other foreign powers and the region around the Pearl River Delta now the location of Hong Kong was ceded to British control entirely but the British were not satisfied with this result and in the 1850s began demanding further privileges regarding trade with China especially the legalization of the opium trade and this led to the Second Opium War which began in 1856 and wrapped up sometime around 1860 this time with allied support from the United States and France the British forced the Chinese to agree to yet another humiliating treaty the Treaty of T ensign signed in 1860 removed the last significant barriers to forward imperialism in China the nation's ports were thrown open to foreign ships opium use and importation was legalized restrictions on Christianity were removed and all foreigners were permitted to travel freely around China foreign governments were permitted to establish diplomatic compounds in the imperial capital in Beijing for the first time right in the midst of this global humiliation for China a peasant rebellion broke out triggered by starvation and government inaction and began to signal the beginning of the end for the Ching dynasty between 1850 and 1860 for more or less simultaneous to the Second Opium War the Taiping rebellion represented the culmination of China's internal crisis the uprisings leaders thoroughly disenchanted with the dynasty rejected traditional Chinese culture and instead adopted a unique form of Christianity led by a man named Hong Zhu Kuan who proclaimed himself to be the younger brother of Jesus who had been sent to cleanse the world of demons and establish eight heavenly kingdom of great peace these revolutionaries were not interested in restoring traditional any society they wanted something entirely new taking a cue from the Marxist and socialist ideas swirling around Europe they sought the abolition of private property but this was not a pro-western rebellion the revolutionaries also sought the moral renewal of Chinese society beginning with an end to opium smoking furthermore they wanted to industrialize China they wanted to build railroads and start newspapers introduced public education and that sort of thing they even promoted the Equality of women ultimately although the Taiping rebels were able to establish a small corner of China as their temporary heavenly kingdom the lack of organization among the rebels along with some limited Western military support allowed provincial military leaders of China though this is the local military and not the Ching dynasty to ultimately crush the rebellion in 1864 but the salvation of the dynasty in 1864 also meant that it continued to become weaker at the expense of local authorities more immediately we know that the massive destruction of the Civil War seriously disrupted China's already struggling economy historians estimate that between 20 to 30 million people were killed during the course of the Taiping uprising which will make it the most costly conflict of the entire 19th century and this would be obviously a very unfortunate moment for their encounter with industrialized Europe so internally China was struggling and externally they found themselves largely at the mercy of other foreign powers by the end of the Second Opium War the doors to China long shut were now essentially thrown open and foreign diplomats officials traders and missionaries poured into the country through the second half of the 19th century the most aggressive of the foreign imperialist powers like Britain France Germany Russia and Japan negotiated with regional officials and warlords to construct their own spheres of influence in China foreign merchants and agents came to exert strong influence if not outright control over government and Commerce in these regions the growth of these spheres of influence created essentially a patchwork of different foreign enclaves within China's borders that functioned almost like a colony although ching rulers retain their sovereignty and control the national government in reality much of China was under foreign control and many observers believe that this was just the beginning stages of an invention disintegration of China into several discrete colonies each controlled by a different foreign power so as the 19th century came to an end China found itself divided exploited by foreign interests and plagued by corrupt officials the Ching dynasty lacked the political will national authority popular support and military strength required to respond to these challenges