The Opium Wars
Britain forces China open for the opium trade, and for the first time in two thousand years the Qing empire has to submit to an outside power.
In 1839 the Qing commissioner at Canton burns the opium that British merchants bring in from India against the ban. Britain answers with war; steamships and guns settle the matter in three years, and by the treaty of 1842 China opens five ports, cedes Hong Kong and pays an indemnity. A second war in 1856–1860, now with France, ends with the sacking of the summer palace outside Beijing and further concessions: foreigners gain the right to live, trade and preach throughout the country and to be tried under their own laws. The empire that for centuries had held itself the middle of the world is opened by force; in China the count of the 'century of humiliation' is kept from this time.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the Treaty of Nanking of 1842 and the Conventions of Peking of 1860 — the opening of the ports, Hong Kong and the foreigners' rights
Scholarship
- studies of nineteenth-century China — the course of both wars and the count of the 'century of humiliation'
Basis: documents and evidence.