HISTORY OF EAST

ASIA IN 20 CENTURY
TH
CHINA IN THE 20TH CENTURY
 ANTIQUITY AND CONTINUITY OF THE CHINESE CIVILIZATION

A GIGANTIC AND COLOSSAL EASTERN ASIAN COUNTRY

The oldest civilization to reach the climax of knowledge, art, and skill.

The Shang Dynasty (c. 1600-1028 BC)

The Chou Dynasty (c.1028-257 BC) Golden Age, Confucius, Lao

Tzu
The Contending States (481-256 BC)
The Ch’in Dynasty (256-207 BC)
The Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD)
 Contd.
Dark Age (220-580 AD)
The Sui Dynasty (580-618 AD)
The T’ang Dynasty (618-906 AD) Gunpowder,
Competitive Exam
The Period of 5 Dynasties (906-960 AD.)
The Sung Dynasty (960-1279 AD)
Mangol Epoch (1280-1368 AD)
Ming Epoch (1368-1644 AD)
Manchu Dynasty (1644 AD-1912 AD)
 Confucius & Lao Tzu
• China's best-known philosopher, Confucius (Chinese: K'ung Tz[)u], was one of
these scholars. He was born in 551 B.C. in the feudal state Lu in the present
province of Shantung.
• In eighteenth-century Europe Confucius was the only Chinese philosopher held in
regard; in the last hundred years, the years of Europe's internal crisis, the
philosopher Lao Tz[)u] steadily advanced in repute, so that his book was
translated almost a hundred times into various European languages. According to
the general view among the Chinese, Lao Tz[)u] was an older contemporary of
Confucius; recent Chinese and Western research (A. Waley; H.H. Dubs) has
contested this view and places Lao Tz[)u] in the latter part of the fourth century
B.C., or even later. Virtually nothing at all is known about his life; the oldest
biography of Lao Tz[)u], written about 100 B.C., says that he lived as an official
at the ruler's court and, one day, became tired of the life of an official and
withdrew from the capital to his estate, where he died in old age.
FEATURES
• Political Tradition, Cultural Tradition, Uniform Script, and Language
• Kuo Chiya - Nation Family
• Celestial Empire
• Other regions known as Hu (Barbaric), Peripheral Countries, China as
the middle kingdom
• Kow-tow- despised foreigners, Seclusion
Map of China
 Contact with outside world

• Practically closed to the Europeans for a long period

• In the ancient period contact was through the silk trade
• In the modern period China remained isolated
• Geographical Exploration pushed the Europeans toward exploring new trade
routes and destinations.
• Portuguese- Macau (16th Century)
• Dutch- Formosa (17th Century)
• British- Canton (17th Century)
• Foreigners were regarded as unwelcome intruders, hamperd their trade
through heavy taxes.
OPIUM WARS
stacking room” in an opium factory in Patna, India. On the shelves are
balls of opium that were part of Britain’s trade with China.
• trade between China and the West took place within the confines of the Canton System, based in the
southern Chinese city of Guangzhou (also referred to as Canton). In the year 1757, the Qing emperor
ordered that Guangzhou/Canton would be the only Chinese port that would be opened to trade with
foreigners, and that trade could take place only through licensed Chinese merchants. This effectively
restricted foreign trade and subjected it to regulations imposed by the Chinese government.
• For many years, Great Britain worked within this system to run a three country trade operation: It shipped
Indian cotton and British silver to China, and Chinese tea and other Chinese goods to Britain
• In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the balance of trade was heavily in China’s favour. One major reason
was that British consumers had developed a strong liking for Chinese tea, as well as other goods like
porcelain and silk. But Chinese consumers had no similar preference for any goods produced in Britain.
Because of this trade imbalance, Britain increasingly had to use silver to pay for its expanding purchases of
Chinese goods.
• In the late 1700s, Britain tried to alter this balance by replacing cotton with opium, also grown in India. In
economic terms, this was a success for Britain; by the 1820s, the balance of trade was reversed in Britain’s
favour, and it was the Chinese who now had to pay with silver.
• By the early 19th century, more and more Chinese were smoking British opium as a recreational drug. But
for many, what started as recreation soon became a punishing addiction: many people who stopped
ingesting opium suffered chills, nausea, and cramps, and sometimes died from withdrawal. Once addicted,
people would often do almost anything to continue to get access to the drug.
• The Chinese government recognized that opium was becoming a serious social problem and, in the year
1800, it banned both the production and the importation of opium. In 1813, it went a step further by
outlawing the smoking of opium and imposing a punishment of beating offenders 100 times.
• In response, the British East India Company hired private British and American traders to transport the drug
to China. Chinese smugglers bought the opium from British and American ships anchored off the Guangzhou
coast and distributed it within China through a network of Chinese middlemen. By 1830, there were more
than 100 Chinese smugglers’ boats working the opium trade.
• This reached a crisis point when, in 1834, the British East India Company lost its monopoly over British
opium. To compete for customers, dealers lowered their selling price, which made it easier for more
people in China to buy opium, thus spreading further use and addition.
• In less than 30 years—from 1810 to 1838—opium imports to China increased from 4,500 chests (the large
containers used to ship the drug) to 40,000. As Chinese consumed more and more imported opium, the
outflow of silver to pay for it increased, from about two million ounces in the early 1820s to over nine million
ounces a decade later. In 1831, the Chinese emperor, already angry that opium traders were breaking local
laws and increasing addiction and smuggling, discovered that members of his army and government (and
even students) were engaged in smoking opium.
• The emperor called for a debate to deal with the issue:
Pragmatic approach: Opium trade to be legalized and taxed
Another approach (Lin ZEXU): Opium trade is a moral issue and to be eliminated by all means.
 Lin Zexu won the debate. In 1839, he arrived in Guangzhou (Canton) to supervise the ban on the opium
trade and to crack down on its use. He attacked the opium trade on several levels. For example, he wrote an
open letter to Queen Victoria questioning Britain’s political support for the trade and the morality of pushing
drugs. More importantly, he made rapid progress in enforcing the 1813 ban by arresting over 1,600 Chinese
dealers and seizing and destroying tens of thousands of opium pipes. He also demanded that foreign
companies (British companies, in particular) turn over their supplies of opium in exchange for tea. When the
British refused to do so, Lin stopped all foreign trade and quarantined the area to which these foreign
merchants were confined.
• The antagonism between the two sides increased in July when some drunken British sailors killed a Chinese
villager. The British government, which did not wish its subjects to be tried in the Chinese legal system,
refused to turn the accused men over to the Chinese courts.
• Peace negotiations proceeded quickly, resulting in the Treaty of Nanjing, signed on August 29. By its
provisions, China was required to pay Britain a large indemnity, cede Hong Kong Island to the British
(the handover of Hong Kong back to China would not occur until 1997), and increase the number of treaty
ports where the British could trade and reside from one (Canton) to five.
• Among the four additional designated ports was Shanghai, and the new access to foreigners there marked
the beginning of the city’s transformation into one of China’s major commercial entrepôts.
• The British Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue (Humen), signed October 8, 1843, gave British
citizens extraterritoriality (the right to be tried by British courts) and most-favoured-nation status (Britain
was granted any rights in China that might be granted to other foreign countries). Other Western countries
quickly demanded and were given similar privileges.
Treaty of Nanking
29 August 1842
Second Opium War
• The Nanking Treaty increased the desire of the British. Their victory and the feeling of superior strength
made them secure more and more concessions.
• More ports to be opened. All Europeans to be treated equally.
• Taiping Rebellion (1850-64) made the situation worse in China. It exposed the weakness of the
government.
• the British, seeking to extend their trading rights in China, found an excuse to renew hostilities. n early
October 1856 some Chinese officials boarded the British-registered ship Arrow while it was docked in
Canton, arrested several Chinese crew members (who were later released), and allegedly lowered the
British flag. Later that month a British warship sailed up the Pearl River estuary and began bombarding
Canton, and there were skirmishes between British and Chinese troops. Trading ceased as a stalemate
ensued. In December Chinese in Canton burned foreign factories (trading warehouses) there, and
tensions escalated.
• The French decided to join the British military expedition, using as their excuse the murder of a French
missionary in the interior of China in early 1856.
• The treaties of Tianjin, signed in June 1858, provided residence in Beijing for foreign envoys
• the opening of several new ports to Western trade and residence, the right of foreign travel in
the interior of China, and freedom of movement for Christian missionaries.
• In further negotiations in Shanghai later in the year, the importation of opium was legalized.
• They further wanted to ratify the treaty. In August 1860 a considerably larger force of warships
and British and French troops destroyed the Dagu batteries, proceeded upriver to Tianjin, and, in
October, captured Beijing and plundered and then burned the Yuanming Garden, the emperor’s
summer palace. Later that month the Chinese signed the Beijing Convention, in which they
agreed to observe the treaties of Tianjin and also ceded to the British the southern portion of
the Kowloon Peninsula adjacent to Hong Kong.