Chinese Opium War Analysis

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At the start of the 19th century, the Ming rulers were afraid of the Manchus uprising, so they tried to appease the tribes, while keeping them at odds with one another. This failed and eventually, the Manchu tribes banded together to overthrow the Ming dynasty and created the Qing dynasty. And, although the Chinese had trade routes that were established, but they didn’t really need anything from others, but rather had goods that other nations desired. The Qing saw China as superior to Britain and Britain themselves knew this fact and desperately asked China to open up trade with them. The Qianlong emperor responded with two edicts stating the conditions of any foreign country trading with China which imposed unfair trading regulations and …show more content…
Once opium addiction was becoming a widespread social problem throughout all of China, Lin Tse-Hsu wrote a letter to the British Queen to put an end to this trade. However, she never received the letter. Lin Tse-Hsu then went to Canton to attempt at negotiating with the English merchants to end the importation of opium into China. However, they weren’t cooperative, so he destroyed all of their opium, which was followed by immediate military action. This is when the first Opium war starts. But as China was lacking in weapons, they lost even though they had more soldiers, causing their signing of the unfair Treaty of Nanking. It basically states that the Qing empire is to pay for the losses in the war, give the Britain the island of Hong Kong, and provide them with 5 ports (Canton, Amoy, Foochow-fu, Ningpo, Shanghai) for them to trade without the Hongs. Also, the British citizens who committed crime had to be released from the prison, and have immunity against the Chinese laws. Furthermore, the importation of Opium was not banned, thus leading to a second Opium war in which the Chinese lost once …show more content…
He asked for feedback on what he should change. While the foreigners were in China and while the five reformers were travelling, they all made very close observations and studied them. With these observations, reformers Feng Guifen, Liang Qichao, Chu Chengbo, and Kang Youwei conclusively believed that China should adopt Western ideas. Although they all have different ideas on how this should be done, all five reformers are able to agree on the fact that things need to change in China in order to keep it from deteriorating. If China develops, it will develop into a better, stronger country, but they are holding on to their past which holds them back from doing so. Speaking up and mentioning these topics had major consequences even though the emperor was the one who had asked for it. In 1900, led by the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, a secret Chinese organization, the boxers started a rebellion which became known as the Boxer rebellion. They practised the art of shadow boxing which they thought would make them able to withstand bullets, which was not the case when they actually went to war. Their goal was to rid China of all foreigners and Christianity. The rebellion failed even though the boxers outnumbered the foreign troops by a large sum due to the lack of weapons technology. The Boxer Protocol officially ended the rebellion in

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