Opium War: Relationship Between Great Britain And China

Great Britain and China have a long history together with economic, religious, and political interactions. From 1792 to 1900, Great Britain had been interacting with trade, but Great Britain had been limited to the Forbidden City. China eventually went into isolation and began to separate itself completely until Great Britain had shown its Industrial Superiority in the 1800s. Another thing that sparked in the 1800 was the Opium war which severely affected Chinese and British relation. British abuse of China’s economic system and constant refusal to stop, sparked this war to start. The British thought of racial superiority was a constant throughout this time which made relationship between the two extremely fragile, and their need of the economic …show more content…
The biggest change was the technological superiority that China felt diminished due to the massive leap that Great Britain took. This forced China into a power struggle and just like Great Britain to China, China had a reliance with Great Britain. They needed new weaponry, power sources, and new ways of travel that the Industrial Revolution gave. This became extremely apparent with the Opium War in which Great Britain abused and cheated the Chinese economic system, sending more than 40,000 chests of Opium into China yearly. This crippled their work force due to the abuse of Opium and the new slump the people felt because of it. With all that going on, China could not do a single thing to stop it. Their military was miniscule in power compared to Great Britain. This sent a realization after the war to China, a realization to industrialize and to improve, to westernize. The Opium War hurt relations between the two countries, but Great Britain and China became closer tied due to the realization for industrialization. Great Britain had the land, and resources for factories, meanwhile Great Britain had the experience and the economic superiority with the new