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824 Milestone Documents in World History

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Qianlong’s Letter to George III 825

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93Qianlong’s Letter to George III

“ My capital is the hub and centre about which all quarters of the globe revolve.”

sioning the letter exchange between George III and Emper-or Qianlong. First, during the second half of the eighteenthcentury the Industrial Revolution was well under way andwas playing an increasingly important role in shapingBritish foreign policy. Propelled by the British desire forraw materials and new markets, British foreign policybecame more and more colonialist and expansionist. Hav-ing won the Seven Years’ War (1756 1763), the Britishbegan to establish their colonial empire around theworld a drive that continued despite the later loss of theNorth American colonies in the American Revolution.Indeed, to some extent, this loss may have served to deep-en the English craving to seek compensations elsewhere.Second, the eighteenth century was an era of explorationand discovery. Even as Britain was dispatching the Macart-ney mission to China, it was beginning to expand its hold-ings in Canada, India, and Australia. Little wonder, then,that among Macartney’s retinue were botanists, artists, andcartographers. The embassy thus was both a diplomaticmission and a voyage of discovery; as the former realized aneconomic interest, the latter showed a curiosity for first-hand knowledge of the mysterious Far East. Born andraised in Northern Ireland, George Macartney, who wascreated Viscount Macartney of Dervock right before hisdeparture, was regarded as the best available diplomat andadministrator to fill the post, because he had had experi-ence dealing with Catherine the Great of Russia, anotherdespotic ruler.

The third and perhaps most immediate reason forBritain’s desire to secure diplomatic relations with Chinawas that though the English trade with China would not beformally established until the early eighteenth century, thattrade was nevertheless quickly increasing in importance.Throughout the seventeenth century, for example, teadrinking had gradually become a national habit in England,generating a strong demand for expanded trade with China.Indeed, according to Jonathan Spence, “by 1800, the EastIndia Company was buying over 23 million pounds ofChina tea at a cost of £3.6 million” (p. 122). Between 1660and 1700 the East India Company had made attempts toestablish a factory in the provincial capital of Guangzhou(known in English as Canton) and elsewhere, but to noavail. By 1710 English merchants were trading regularly in

Overview

Arguably the earliest communicationbetween a monarch of China and the rulerof a European country, Qianlong’s letter toGeorge III was the official response to LordGeorge Macartney’s mission, sponsored bythe British East India Company in cooper-ation with the British government, to

secure diplomatic relations and improved trade conditionswith the Qing Dynasty. From its establishment in 1600, theBritish East India Company was a major exporter of silk,tea, porcelain, and lacquerware from China to England andthe rest of Europe. Beginning in the mid-eighteenth centu-ry, the East India Company also attempted to sell Englishand European goods, most of them manufactured prod-ucts, to China in order to offset a mounting trade deficit.Before the Macartney embassy, the company had sentemissaries to China, hoping to broaden trade relations andgain better access to the Chinese market. None of themwas successful.

It was in this context that Lord Macartney undertookhis mission. Unlike his predecessors, he was permitted toenter the Qing palaces in Beijing and elsewhere, have anaudience with the Qing emperor Qianlong and his confi-dent Heshen, and present George III’s letter to the emper-or. None of this had been achieved before. But in the endMacartney failed to realize the goals set by the governmentand the East India Company for his embassy. Consideringhimself to be the ruler of the “central country,” at the timethe richest and most powerful in the world, Emperor Qian-long rejected all of Macartney’s requests. Nor did theemperor think that a small maritime kingdom located sev-eral thousand miles away was a force deserving his atten-tion and concern. Little did he know that all this was tochange in about a half century.

Context

Several factors prompted the British East India Compa-ny and the British government to launch the Macartneyembassy to seek diplomatic contact with Qing China, occa-


Guangzhou, but their activities were straitjacketed by theCanton System imposed by the Qing Dynasty in 1760. Bysponsoring the Macartney embassy, the company hoped,through diplomacy, to circumvent the Canton System andother Qing governmental regulations and gain direct accessto Chinese goods.

The Qing Dynasty was not completely disinterested inforeign trade and the profit it generated. Although Emper-or Qianlong forcefully rejected Macartney’s requests forexpanded trade, the Qing court reaped handsome customsrevenue from seaborne foreign commerce in certain portsalong the coast. This stood in stark contrast to the policy ofits predecessor, the Ming Dynasty (1368 1644), whichduring the early fifteenth century was known for launchingstupendous maritime expeditions that reached the easternand southeastern coasts of Africa. But from the time of themid-Ming, troubled by piracy, the dynasty resumed its pol-icy of haijin, or “coastal clearance,” forbidding the Chineseto sail into the sea and foreign merchants to come ashore.The Qing rulers continued this “sea ban” policy, though fora different reason to prevent the recuperation of theremaining Ming forces that had been active along the coastand in Taiwan. After Emperor Kang Xi, the dynasty’s sec-ond and perhaps most able ruler, had pacified the coastalregions in 1683, he lifted the ban on overseas trade. Ironi-cally, it was during Emperor Qianlong’s reign that the seaban was greatly relaxed, giving rise to the Cohong, a mer-chant guild that gradually gained a monopoly, authorizedby the Qing government, on trading with Western mer-chants. The Cohong thus became a core agency in theCanton System, which helped put overseas trade under thedirect control of both the provincial government and thecentral government’s Ministry of Revenue. The CantonSystem was aimed at delimiting foreign trade and exploit-ing its income for the Qing court.

While Emperor Qianlong showed interest in foreigntrade, he was clearly not ready to expand it to the extentdesired by the British. The Qing was founded by theManchus, a nomadic group and an ethnic minority thathad arisen originally in Manchuria, today’s NortheastChina. After replacing the Ming Dynasty, the Manchurulers quickly adopted a policy of presenting themselves asthe legitimate successors of the Ming imperial realm. Ineconomic terms, this meant that the Qing continued thetraditional emphasis on agricultural development, one thathad been in place for two millennia. Like the Ming andmost of its predecessors, the Qing considered itself politi-cally and ideologically the owner of the Central Country(Zhongguo, or “Middle Kingdom”), an undisputed center ofcivilization in the world and one that radiated its culturalinfluence to the surrounding regions. All this was reflectedin the practice of the entrenched “tributary system” thatthe Qing had inherited from its predecessors in managingrelations with its neighbors. Under this system, it wasassumed that uncultured neighboring barbarians would beattracted to China and would be transformed by Chineseculture. The Chinese ruler would show compassion for for-eign emissaries. In Emperor Qianlong’s era, these “tribu-

1600 ■ December 31The East IndiaCompany isestablished bycharter andsoon becomes amajor traderwith the IndianSubcontinentand the Orient.

1644 ■ The Manchusfound the QingDynasty, orEmpire of theGreat Qing.

1683 ■ The Qing, underEmperor Kangxi,unify the wholecountry bydefeatingvarious forces inSouth China,Tibet, andTaiwan.

1736 ■ EmperorQianlongascends thethrone.

1760 ■ The QingDynastyimposes theCanton Systemto control tradein China.

■ October 25King George IIIascends the throneof England.

1763 ■ February 10The Treaty ofParis is signed,ending theSeven Years’War andestablishingBritain’sdominance ofmost coloniesoutside Europe.

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tary states” could be found not only in today’s Korea, Viet-nam, Burma, and Thailand but also in parts of Russia, theNetherlands, and Portugal.

Compared with the Russians, who had established anecclesiastical mission in Beijing, and the Portuguese, whohad held Macao as their enclave, the British were latecom-ers in seeking a relationship with Qing China. However,powered by the raging Industrial Revolution, this nation ofjust eight million compared with 330 million in QingChina began to sense that they represented the burgeon-ing great power in the world. This sentiment was evident inthe instructions given by Henry Dundas, the home secre-tary of the British Government, to Lord Macartney:

1. to negotiate a treaty of commerce and friendship andto establish a resident minister at the court of Qianlong;

2. to extend British trade in China by opening new portswhere British woolens might be sold;

3. to obtain from China the cession of a piece of land oran island nearer to the tea- and silk-producing area thanGuangzhou, where British merchants might reside the wholeyear and where British jurisdiction could be exercised;

4. to abolish the existing abuses in the Canton Systemand to obtain assurances that they would not be revived;

5. to create new markets in China for British productshitherto unknown, such as hardware; and

6. to open Japan and Vietnam to British trade by meansof treaties.

The nature and scope of these charges suggest that theBritish government hoped to attain much more from theircontact with the Chinese than had been accomplished byother Europeans. Most important, they wanted their coun-try to be treated as an equal by the Qing ruler. LordMacartney intended to show the Chinese that a new powerhad been born in the West.

Steam-driven vessels would indeed bring the Englishclose to the Chinese shore and deliver a serious blow totheir empire in the mid-nineteenth century. But EmperorQianlong did not foresee this. After all, the Qing Dynasty,from the time of its founding in the mid-seventeenth cen-tury and until the time of Qianlong, had stood undefeatedin all the wars it had fought with its enemies. The emperorwas willing to show his compassion for, or even “cherish,”the visit of an embassy from afar, especially one offeringbelated congratulations for his eightieth birthday and pre-senting tribute to his Celestial Empire. But he was uninter-ested in anything beyond that, let alone in any notion oftreating the British as equals.

On September 14, 1793, a year after departing fromLondon, Macartney and his retinue were received by theemperor at Rehe, a Qing summer palace north of Beijing.As he presented King George III’s letter to Qianlong,Macartney is said to have knelt on one knee, as if he werebeing received by his king, though he omitted kissing theemperor’s hand. Macartney and his associates denied thatthey ever performed kowtow (which required bending bothknees) at the Qing court, but new scholarship reveals thatwhile the Chinese ministers were performing the kowtowon one or two other occasions, prostrating their bodies and

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1760s ■ A series ofinventions in cottonspinning arepatented in Britain,propelling theexpansion of itstextile industry andsparking interest inacquiring silk andother fabrics fromChina.

1780s ■ James Wattsimproves thedesign of thesteam engine, alandmark eventin the IndustrialRevolution andone that led toadvances inoceangoingvessels.

1792 ■ SeptemberThe British EastIndia Company andBritish governmentdispatch LordGeorge Macartneyas ambassador toChina fordeveloping tradeand diplomaticrelations with theQing Empire, wherehe remains until1794.

1793 ■ September 14Macartneypresents a letterfrom George IIIto EmperorQianlong,seeking tosecurediplomaticrelations andimproved tradeconditions withQing China.

■ October 3Emperor QianlongsummonsMacartney to hiscourt and tendershis reply to KingGeorge’s letter.

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poems and essays in Chinese and was a patron of an ambi-tious ten-year bibliographic project known as the FourTreasuries (Siku quanshu), the avowed aim of which was tocull, catalog, and abstract all existing books. The study ofChinese Confucian culture, in the form of “evidentiallearning” an intellectual trend of the Qing period thatemphasized an empirical approach to the understanding ofConfucian classics flourished.

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

After he presented King George III’s letter to EmperorQianlong on September 14, 1793, Lord Macartney did notreceive a reply until October 3, when he and his assistantwere ushered into Beijing’s Forbidden City and asked togenuflect before the scroll that represented the emperor’srejoinder. In fact, Qianlong’s response had been readysince September 22. Indeed, Qing court documents revealthat the letter had been drafted as early as July 30 and hadbeen submitted to Emperor Qianlong on August 3, morethan six weeks before King George III’s letter was evendelivered. In other words, the failure of the British missionto establish trade and diplomatic relations was “inevitablefrom the outset” (Peyrefitte, p. 288). Nevertheless, Macart-ney’s omitting to kneel on both knees when he delivered hisking’s requests to the emperor apparently had served totoughen the letter’s tone in rejecting these requests. As animperial edict, Qianlong’s response was written in classicalChinese and rendered into Latin by Jesuit missionaries.Next, the embassy drafted an English summary of the Latintranslation, erasing any trace of offensive and condescend-ing phrases. Neither of these texts has survived. The letterexists today only in abridged versions.

◆ Paragraphs 1–6In the first two paragraphs, Emperor Qianlong politely

acknowledges the effort by King George III to send a diplo-matic mission, which he interprets as a “desire to partakeof the benefits of our civilisation.” He delights in the factthat the mission was sent to congratulate him on theanniversary of his birthday. In return for this friendly ges-ture and for the mission’s gifts (which he regards as trib-utes), the emperor informs King George that he has shownhis generosity by personally meeting the embassy and treat-ing them with presents and banquets.

In the next four paragraphs, the emperor proceeds to thefirst important issue: rejecting the embassy’s request toestablish a diplomatic residency in Beijing and denying Eng-lish merchants permission to travel and trade freely in thecountry. His reasons are three: First, drawing perhaps onthe experience of the Jesuit missions, the emperor cites thehistorical precedent that once a European was permitted tolive in China, he then would be expected to adopt the Chi-nese way of life and would be forbidden to return home.This would not suit the goal that the diplomatic residencyhoped to achieve. Second, the emperor suggests that thereis nothing wrong with the Canton System of managing and

knocking their foreheads on the ground, the British alsoknelt on both knees and bowed their heads to the ground.Thus, scholars differ in their reading and interpretation ofthe sources regarding the kowtow ritual. Despite this, mostof them seem to agree that even if the English, or Macart-ney, had followed the usual ritual in meeting EmperorQianlong, it would not have altered their mission’s out-come the emperor would still have rejected theirrequests. For though the Qing court delighted in profitingfrom tea, silk, lacquer, and porcelain exports to Europe,such things remained luxurious and therefore peripheral totheir agriculture-based economy.

About the Author

Emperor Qianlong was born Hongli, the fourth son ofEmperor Yongzheng, in 1711. Qianlong was his reignname, and he would not take it until he assumed thethrone of the empire. In imperial China, members of theupper class usually had several names for difference occa-sions. The name given by the parents was used strictlywithin the family. Emperors had a reign name because, outof deference, no one outside the family was supposed touse his given name. Qianlong was the fourth emperor ofthe Qing Dynasty, and his reign which began in 1736 andended officially in 1795 (though he remained in poweruntil his death in 1799) was the longest in the dynasty,representing its heyday. Among the emperor’s many accom-plishments was the acquisition of a huge territory in thenorthwest, known as Xinjiang, or “New Territory,” whichdoubled what was then China’s territory. Under Qianlong’srule, the population experienced a boom, attesting to thevibrancy of the economy.

Besides being an able administrator, Emperor Qianlongwas a cultural dilettante. He penned a great number of

1796 ■ Emperor Jiaqingascends thethrone.

1799 ■ EmperorQianlong dies.

1820 ■ January 29George III dies.

1839 ■ The First OpiumWar begins.

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controlling trade with the Europeans, and he refuses toalter it to accommodate the English request that a residentdiplomat be allowed to direct English trade with China. Heasks, “If each and all [Europeans] demanded to be repre-sented at our Court, how could we possibly consent?” areflection of the historical reality that tributary missionsfrom foreign lands would remain in China for no more thanseveral months. It likewise suggests that although theemperor was aware that Europe comprised many nations,he did not know that diplomatic residence had become a

common practice among them. Of course, knowing wouldalmost certainly not have altered his judgment: Qianlongwas quite confident that China’s “ceremonies and code oflaws” were superior to those of the Europeans.

This sense of cultural superiority stands as Qianlong’sthird reason for dismissing the English request. He tells theking that he believes that even if the English envoy “wereable to acquire the rudiments of our civilisation, you couldnot possibly transplant our manners and customs to youralien soil.” Considering himself to be the ruler of a superior

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Seals belonging to the Qianlong Emperor (Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D C Anonymous gift, F1978 51a-f)


civilization occupying the center of the universe, the emper-or makes it clear to King George that if he permits certaintrade with the English, it is because he wants to bestowgrace and extend friendship to a foreign nation, for “we pos-sess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingen-ious, and have no use for your country’s manufactures.”

◆ Paragraphs 7 and 8These paragraphs explain the emperor’s refusal to expand

trade with the English. They begin with a similar acknowl-edgment, only now in a somewhat more condescendingtone. Noting King George’s interest in seeking to “come intotouch with our converting influence” and his “respectfulspirit of submission,” the emperor informs the king that hehas reciprocated with “the bestowal of valuable presents.”

The emperor continues to explain somewhat haughtilyto the English king why he is forced to reject his emissary’srequests. The emperor sees the proposal to expand tradeand bypass the Cohong as a violation of the existent prac-tice, which he considers impeccable. Such a request, ifgranted, would set a “bad example” for other nations. Thus,he not only wanted his ministers to educate the embassyabout the rules of his empire but also ordered them toarrange departure for the embassy.

◆ Paragraphs 9–12The next four paragraphs address Macartney’s detailed

requests for gaining access to the Chinese market, whichinclude setting facilities for assisting English ships in portcities other than Xiamen (“Aomen” in the document); estab-lishing a merchant repository in Beijing, the Qing capital;allowing English merchants to reside on a small island nearZhoushan (“Chusan”); and gaining them a residential com-pound in the city of Guangzhou (“Canton”). The emperorrejects all of these requests because he considers the estab-lished Cohong system the best way to handle foreign trade.Specifically, he states that the port city Xiamen, located insoutheastern China, is the most ideal geographic location fora merchant repository because it is “near to the sea.” Moreimportant, it was where the Cohong ran its operation bywhich the Qing Dynasty controlled and contained trade withthe West. The emperor regards the request for merchant res-idence and repository as an infringement on the empire’s ter-ritorial integrity. But in doing so, he has to explain why theRussians were granted such a facility in Beijing. Although hisanswer is hardly persuasive, it is nevertheless unequivocal:“The accommodation furnished to them [the Russians] wasonly temporary.” He underscores the fact that his dynastyrestricts the movement of foreigners when he says that theyhave never been allowed “to cross the Empire’s barriers andsettle at will amongst the Chinese people.”

In responding to the request for an island nearZhoushan where merchants could reside and warehousegoods, the emperor is unequivocal that it would set up an“evil example.” He asks how he could comply with suchrequests from other nations. The same argument is appliedto the request for a site in Guangzhou. If he allows theEnglish to gain such a privilege, then other European

nations would seek the same, which he regards as danger-ous, for “friction would inevitably occur between the Chi-nese and your barbarian subjects.” In the same spirit, hesees that this permission would invariably expand theircontacts with the Chinese people.

◆ Paragraphs 13 and 14The next two paragraphs deal with issues related to tax

and tariff. One of the major reasons for the English govern-ment to send the Macartney mission to China was to seek,in modern language, a “most favored nation status” forBritain. This status would reduce duties and tariffs levied byQing China on English merchandise. Emperor Qianlongalso rejects these requests. As before, he does so by stressingthe issue of equality. As he puts it, he does not want to “makean exception in your case” lest the principle of equality exer-cised by the Qing court in managing foreign trade be violat-ed. Yet what lurks beneath this seemingly grand reason is hisrefusal to make any changes to the existing Cohong system.

◆ Paragraph 15The next paragraph, denying the request to conduct mis-

sionary activities in China, offers a glimpse into the emper-or’s mindset regarding cultural exchange in general and hisrecalcitrant attitude toward managing overseas trade in par-ticular. Although he does not denigrate Christianity, heclearly regards the Chinese moral system as superior. Hedescribes how this system was established from time imme-morial and how it has been religiously observed by genera-tions of Chinese. He reminds the king that Europeans pres-ent in China are prohibited from preaching their religion tohis subjects. This explanation was consistent with the poli-cy instituted in the early eighteenth century by EmperorKangxi Emperor Qianlong’s much-loved grandfather inthe wake of the Rites Controversy, which essentially forbadeChristian missionaries from proselytizing the Chinese.

◆ Paragraph 16Having rejected all of the requests “wantonly” made by

the Macartney embassy on behalf of King George III,Emperor Qianlong concludes his letter by blaming LordMacartney and not the king himself for entertaining and pre-senting such “wild ideas and hopes.” Even if the king weresomewhat involved, the emperor writes, it was out of igno-rance and innocence; he assumes that King George III “hadno intention of transgressing [Qing dynasty regulations].” Hegoes on to deliver a stern warning to King George III: If theBritish government persists in pursuing those proposals, itand its emissaries will face severe punishments. “Trembling-ly obey and show no negligence!” he tells the king.

Audience

Emperor Qianlong’s letter was, first and foremost,addressed to the king of England, George III. Although hewrote as one monarch to another, Qianlong was issuing aresponse in the form of an “imperial edict.” He was placing


himself on a quite different footing. Although Qianlong was,in a sense, having his own “audience” with the British king,his condescending tone was that of a superior. King George,as the intended recipient, would have been unlikely to havereceived the letter in the spirit in which it was offered. Wedo not know, however, whether the letter was ever delivered.

The more immediate audience for the emperor’s letterwas Lord McCartney and his embassy. Written in classicalChinese, the letter had first to be translated by Jesuit mis-sionaries into Latin and then by the embassy into English.The embassy was concerned enough about the language toerase any trace of offensive and condescending phrases.Macartney wrote of the event in his journal, where hedescribes being received at the palace by the First Minister,

but without the usual graciousness and with a certain con-straint. Later, when high officials of the court delivered theletter itself to him at home, Macartney comments that fromtheir manner it had become clear that the Chinese wantedthe British embassy to leave. He does not remark on thecontents of the letter itself. In early 1794 Macartney sailedfor home, disappointed that his mission had failed.

Impact

In response to King George’s request for broadening tradeand bettering diplomatic relations, Emperor Qianlong wrotehis letter in the form of an imperial edict, explaining in detail

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Essential Quotes

“

”

“As to your entreaty to send one of your nationals to be accredited tomy Celestial Court and to be in control of your country’s trade with

China, this request is contrary to all usage of my dynasty andcannot possibly be entertained.”

(Paragraph 3)

“How can our dynasty alter its whole procedure and system of etiquette,established for more than a century, in order to meet your individual views?”

(Paragraph 4)

“Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim in view, namely, to maintaina perfect governance and to fulfil the duties of the State: strange and costly

objects do not interest me.”(Paragraph 5)

“My capital is the hub and centre about which all quarters of theglobe revolve.”

(Paragraph 10)

“Ever since the beginning of history, sage Emperors and wise rulers havebestowed on China a moral system and inculcated a code, which fromtime immemorial has been religiously observed by the myriads of my

subjects. That has no hankering after heterodox doctrines.”(Paragraph 15)


how and why he would not grant such a request. The emper-or wanted to tell the English king how ignorant he was aboutthe magnificence of the Chinese Empire and how improperhis request was. However, we are unsure whether LordMacartney actually delivered Emperor Qianlong’s letter toKing George. Hence, we do not know King George’s reac-tion. In other words, whatever the emperor’s intention was inwriting the letter, it did not have the intended impact.

This first communication between the Qing emperor ofChina and the king of England was not entirely fruitless.Although George Macartney failed in his diplomatic mis-sion to open the door to British trade with China, he wasmore successful in his voyage of discovery. During his six-month sojourn in China he made careful and detailedobservations of the country in his journal, as did some ofother members in the embassy. Their portrayal of the Chi-nese as a stubborn and superstitious people and the QingDynasty as a backward-looking empire, uninterested inchange and novelty, eventually altered the more positiveimage of China in the European mind generated by theJesuits’ writings and by the philosophes. Instead, Macartneyand his assistants were convinced that to change China “theeffort required would be superhuman and that violencecould someday be necessary” (Peyrefitte, p. 541). Violencewas indeed used in the First Opium War of 1839 1842.

Further Reading

■ ArticlesEsherick, Joseph. “Cherishing Sources from Afar.” Modern China24, no. 2 (April 1998): 135 161.

. “Tradutore, Traditure, A Reply to James Hevia.” Modern China24, no. 3 (July 1998): 328 332.

Gillingham, Paul, “The Macartney Embassy to China.” HistoryToday 43, no. 11 (November 1993): 28 34.

Hevia, James H. “Postpolemical Historiography: A Response toJoseph W. Esherick,” Modern China 24, no. 3 (July 1998): 319 327.

■ BooksCranmer-Byng, J. L., ed. An Embassy to China: Being the JournalKept by Lord Macartney during his Embassy to the Emperor Ch’ien-lung, 1793 1794. St. Claire Shores, Mich.: Scholarly Press, 1972.

Hevia, James H. Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual andthe Macartney Embassy of 1793. Durham, N.C.: Duke UniversityPress, 1995.

Peyrefitte, Alain. The Collision of Two Civilizations: The BritishExpedition to China in 1792 4, trans. Jon Rothschild. Hammer-smith, U.K.: Harvill, 1993.

Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China. New York: W. W.Norton, 1990.

Q. Edward Wang

Questions for Further Study

1. The British East India Company was a private corporation, but during the eighteenth century and into the nine-

teenth century it represented a projection of British imperial power in Asia and thus became a governing power.

How and to what extent was the company able to achieve this goal?

2. Why was China such an important market for Great Britain? What economic reasons did Great Britain have

for strengthening trade relations with China?

3. To what extent did cultural differences between China and England lead to the Chinese emperor’s rejection of

King George III’s proposal? What specific cultural practices in China influenced Qianlong’s response to King George?

4. Qianlong rejected out of hand every one of Britain’s proposals. What do you believe was the underlying rea-

son for his refusal even to entertain the possibility of agreeing to any of these proposals?

5. Compare and contrast Qianlong’s Letter to King George III with Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to Queen Victoria,”

written less than four decades later in 1839. Did the later letter suggest any advances in relations between Great

Britain and China, or was China still “closed” to Britain and its trading goals?


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Document Text

Qianlong’s Letter to George III

You, O King, live beyond the confines of manyseas, nevertheless, impelled by your humble desire topartake of the benefits of our civilisation, you havedispatched a mission respectfully bearing yourmemorial. Your Envoy has crossed the seas and paidhis respects at my Court on the anniversary of mybirthday. To show your devotion, you have also sentofferings of your country’s produce.

I have perused your memorial: the earnest termsin which it is couched reveal a respectful humility onyour part, which is highly praiseworthy. In consider-ation of the fact that your Ambassador and hisdeputy have come a long way with your memorialand tribute, I have shown them high favour and haveallowed them to be introduced into my presence. Tomanifest my indulgence, I have entertained them ata banquet and made them numerous gifts. I havealso caused presents to be forwarded to the NavalCommander and six hundred of his officers andmen, although they did not come to Peking, so thatthey too may share in my all-embracing kindness.

As to your entreaty to send one of your nationalsto be accredited to my Celestial Court and to be incontrol of your country’s trade with China, thisrequest is contrary to all usage of my dynasty andcannot possibly be entertained. It is true that Euro-peans, in the service of the dynasty, have been per-mitted to live at Peking, but they are compelled toadopt Chinese dress, they are strictly confined totheir own precincts and are never permitted toreturn home. You are presumably familiar with ourdynastic regulations. Your proposed Envoy to myCourt could not be placed in a position similar tothat of European officials in Peking who are forbid-den to leave China, nor could he, on the other hand,be allowed liberty of movement and the privilege ofcorresponding with his own country; so that youwould gain nothing by his residence in our midst.

Moreover, our Celestial dynasty possesses vastterritories, and tribute missions from the dependen-cies are provided for by the Department for TributaryStates, which ministers to their wants and exercisesstrict control over their movements. It would bequite impossible to leave them to their own devices.Supposing that your Envoy should come to ourCourt, his language and national dress differ from

that of our people, and there would be no place inwhich to bestow him. It may be suggested that hemight imitate the Europeans permanently resident inPeking and adopt the dress and customs of China,but, it has never been our dynasty’s wish to forcepeople to do things unseemly and inconvenient.Besides, supposing I sent an Ambassador to reside inyour country, how could you possibly make for himthe requisite arrangements? Europe consists of manyother nations besides your own: if each and alldemanded to be represented at our Court, how couldwe possibly consent? The thing is utterly impractica-ble. How can our dynasty alter its whole procedureand system of etiquette, established for more than acentury, in order to meet your individual views? If itbe said that your object is to exercise control overyour country’s trade, your nationals have had full lib-erty to trade at Canton for many a year, and havereceived the greatest consideration at our hands.Missions have been sent by Portugal and Italy, pre-ferring similar requests. The Throne appreciatedtheir sincerity and loaded them with favours, besidesauthorising measures to facilitate their trade withChina. You are no doubt aware that, when my Can-ton merchant, Wu Chao-ping, was in debt to the for-eign ships, I made the Viceroy advance the moniesdue, out of the provincial treasury, and ordered himto punish the culprit severely. Why then should for-eign nations advance this utterly unreasonablerequest to be represented at my Court? Peking isnearly two thousand miles from Canton, and at sucha distance what possible control could any Britishrepresentative exercise?

If you assert that your reverence for Our Celestialdynasty fills you with a desire to acquire our civilisation,our ceremonies and code of laws differ so completelyfrom your own that, even if your Envoy were able toacquire the rudiments of our civilisation, you could notpossibly transplant our manners and customs to youralien soil. Therefore, however adept the Envoy mightbecome, nothing would be gained thereby.

Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim inview, namely, to maintain a perfect governance andto fulfil the duties of the State: strange and costlyobjects do not interest me. If I have commanded thatthe tribute offerings sent by you, O King, are to be


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accepted, this was solely in consideration for thespirit which prompted you to dispatch them fromafar. Our dynasty’s majestic virtue has penetratedunto every country under Heaven, and Kings of allnations have offered their costly tribute by land andsea. As your Ambassador can see for himself, we pos-sess all things. I set no value on objects strange oringenious, and have no use for your country’s manu-factures. This then is my answer to your request toappoint a representative at my Court, a request con-trary to our dynastic usage, which would only resultin inconvenience to yourself. I have expounded mywishes in detail and have commanded your tributeEnvoys to leave in peace on their homeward journey.It behoves you, O King, to respect my sentimentsand to display even greater devotion and loyalty infuture, so that, by perpetual submission to ourThrone, you may secure peace and prosperity foryour country hereafter. Besides making gifts (ofwhich I enclose an inventory) to each member ofyour Mission, I confer upon you, O King, valuablepresents in excess of the number usually bestowedon such occasions, including silks and curios a listof which is likewise enclosed. Do you reverentlyreceive them and take note of my tender goodwilltowards you! A special mandate.

You, O King, from afar have yearned after theblessings of our civilisation, and in your eagerness tocome into touch with our converting influence havesent an Embassy across the sea bearing a memorial.I have already taken note of your respectful spirit ofsubmission, have treated your mission with extremefavour and loaded it with gifts, besides issuing amandate to you, O King, and honouring you with thebestowal of valuable presents. Thus has my indul-gence been manifested.

Yesterday your Ambassador petitioned my Minis-ters to memorialise me regarding your trade withChina, but his proposal is not consistent with ourdynastic usage and cannot be entertained. Hitherto,all European nations, including your own country’sbarbarian merchants, have carried on their tradewith our Celestial Empire at Canton. Such has beenthe procedure for many years, although our CelestialEmpire possesses all things in prolific abundanceand lacks no product within its own borders. Therewas therefore no need to import the manufactures ofoutside barbarians in exchange for our own produce.But as the tea, silk and porcelain which the CelestialEmpire produces, are absolute necessities to Euro-pean nations and to yourselves, we have permitted,as a signal mark of favour, that foreign hongs should

be established at Canton, so that your wants mightbe supplied and your country thus participate in ourbeneficence. But your Ambassador has now put for-ward new requests which completely fail to recognisethe Throne’s principle to ‘treat strangers from afarwith indulgence,’ and to exercise a pacifying controlover barbarian tribes, the world over. Moreover, ourdynasty, swaying the myriad races of the globe,extends the same benevolence towards all. Your Eng-land is not the only nation trading at Canton. If othernations, following your bad example, wrongfullyimportune my ear with further impossible requests,how will it be possible for me to treat them with easyindulgence? Nevertheless, I do not forget the lonelyremoteness of your island, cut off from the world byintervening wastes of sea, nor do I overlook yourexcusable ignorance of the usages of our CelestialEmpire. I have consequently commanded my Minis-ters to enlighten your Ambassador on the subject,and have ordered the departure of the mission. But Ihave doubts that, after your Envoy’s return he mayfail to acquaint you with my view in detail or that hemay be lacking in lucidity, so that I shall now proceedto take your requests seriatim and to issue my man-date on each question separately. In this way youwill, I trust, comprehend my meaning.

(1) Your Ambassador requests facilities for shipsof your nation to call at Ningpo, Chusan, Tientsinand other places for purposes of trade. Until nowtrade with European nations has always been con-ducted at Aomen, where the foreign hongs are estab-lished to store and sell foreign merchandise. Yournation has obediently complied with this regulationfor years past without raising any objection. In noneof the other ports named have hongs been estab-lished, so that even if your vessels were to proceedthither, they would have no means of disposing oftheir cargoes. Furthermore, no interpreters are avail-able, so you would have no means of explaining yourwants, and nothing but general inconvenience wouldresult. For the future, as in the past, I decree thatyour request is refused and that the trade shall belimited to Aomen.

(2) The request that your merchants may establisha repository in the capital of my Empire for the stor-ing and sale of your produce, in accordance with theprecedent granted to Russia, is even more impractica-ble than the last. My capital is the hub and centreabout which all quarters of the globe revolve. Its ordi-nances are most august and its laws are strict in theextreme. The subjects of our dependencies havenever been allowed to open places of business in


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Peking. Foreign trade has hitherto been conducted atAomen, because it is conveniently near to the sea,and therefore an important gathering place for theships of all nations sailing to and fro. If warehouseswere established in Peking, the remoteness of yourcountry, lying far to the north-west of my capital,would render transport extremely difficult.

Before Kiakhta was opened, the Russians werepermitted to trade at Peking, but the accommodationfurnished to them was only temporary. As soon asKiakhta was available, they were compelled to with-draw from Peking, which has been closed to theirtrade these many years. Their frontier trade atKiakhta is on all fours with your trade at Aomen. Pos-sessing facilities at the latter place, you now ask forfurther privileges at Peking, although our dynastyobserves the severest restrictions respecting theadmission of foreigners within its boundaries, andhas never permitted the subjects of dependencies tocross the Empire’s barriers and settle at will amongstthe Chinese people. This request is also refused.

(3) Your request for a small island near Chusan,where your merchants may reside and goods bewarehoused, arises from your desire to develop trade.As there are neither foreign hongs nor interpreters inor near Chusan, where none of your ships have evercalled, such an island would be utterly useless foryour purposes. Every inch of the territory of ourEmpire is marked on the map and the strictest vigi-lance is exercised over it all: even tiny islets and far-lying sand-banks are clearly defined as part of theprovinces to which they belong. Consider, moreover,that England is not the only barbarian land whichwishes to establish relations with our civilisation andtrade with our Empire: supposing that other nationswere all to imitate your evil example and beseech meto present them each and all with a site for tradingpurposes, how could I possibly comply? This also is aflagrant infringement of the usage of my Empire andcannot possibly be entertained.

(4) The next request, for a small site in the vicini-ty of Canton city, where your barbarian merchantsmay lodge or, alternatively, that there be no longer anyrestrictions over their movements at Aomen, has aris-en from the following causes. Hitherto, the barbarianmerchants of Europe have had a definite localityassigned to them at Aomen for residence and trade,and have been forbidden to encroach an inch beyondthe limits assigned to that locality. Barbarian mer-chants having business with the hongs have neverbeen allowed to enter the city of Canton; by thesemeasures, disputes between Chinese and barbarians

are prevented, and a firm barrier is raised between mysubjects and those of other nations. The presentrequest is quite contrary to precedent; furthermore,European nations have been trading with Canton fora number of years and, as they make large profits, thenumber of traders is constantly increasing. Howwould it be possible to grant such a site to each coun-try? The merchants of the foreign hongs are responsi-ble to the local officials for the proceedings of barbar-ian merchants and they carry out periodical inspec-tions. If these restrictions were withdrawn, frictionwould inevitably occur between the Chinese and yourbarbarian subjects, and the results would militateagainst tile benevolent regard that I feel towards you.From every point of view, therefore, it is best that theregulations now in force should continue unchanged.

(5) Regarding your request for remission orreduction of duties on merchandise discharged byyour British barbarian merchants at Aomen and dis-tributed throughout the interior, there is a regulartariff in force for barbarian merchants’ goods, whichapplies equally to all European nations. It would beas wrong to increase the duty imposed on yournation’s merchandise on the ground that the bulk offoreign trade is in your hands, as to make an excep-tion in your case in the shape of specially reducedduties. In future, duties shall be levied equitablywithout discrimination between your nation and anyother, and, in order to manifest my regard, your bar-barian merchants shall continue to be shown everyconsideration at Aomen.

(6) As to your request that your ships shall pay theduties leviable by tariff, there are regular rules inforce at the Canton Custom house respecting theamounts payable, and since I have refused yourrequest to be allowed to trade at other ports, thisduty will naturally continue to be paid at Canton asheretofore.

(7) Regarding your nation’s worship of the Lord ofHeaven, it is the same religion as that of other Euro-pean nations. Ever since the beginning of history,sage Emperors and wise rulers have bestowed onChina a moral system and inculcated a code, whichfrom time immemorial has been religiously observedby the myriads of my subjects. There has been nohankering after heterodox doctrines. Even the Euro-pean (missionary) officials in my capital are forbid-den to hold intercourse with Chinese subjects; theyare restricted within the limits of their appointed res-idences, and may not go about propagating their reli-gion. The distinction between Chinese and barbarianis most strict, and your Ambassador’s request that

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barbarians shall be given full liberty to disseminatetheir religion is utterly unreasonable.

It may be, O King, that the above proposals havebeen wantonly made by your Ambassador on his ownresponsibility, or peradventure you yourself are igno-rant of our dynastic regulations and had no intentionof transgressing them when you expressed these wildideas and hopes. I have ever shown the greatest con-descension to the tribute missions of all States whichsincerely yearn after the blessings of civilisation, soas to manifest my kindly indulgence. I have evengone out of my way to grant any requests which werein any way consistent with Chinese usage. Above all,upon you, who live in a remote and inaccessibleregion, far across the spaces of ocean, but who haveshown your submissive loyalty by sending this tributemission, I have heaped benefits far in excess of thoseaccorded to other nations. But the demands present-ed by your Embassy are not only a contravention ofdynastic tradition, but would be utterly improductive

of good result to yourself, besides being quiteimpracticable. I have accordingly stated the facts toyou in detail, and it is your bounden duty reverentlyto appreciate my feelings and to obey these instruc-tions henceforward for all time, so that you mayenjoy the blessings of perpetual peace. If, after thereceipt of this explicit decree, you lightly give ear tothe representations of your subordinates and allowyour barbarian merchants to proceed to Chêkiangand Tientsin, with the object of landing and tradingthere, the ordinances of my Celestial Empire arestrict in the extreme, and the local officials, both civiland military, are bound reverently to obey the law ofthe land. Should your vessels touch the shore, yourmerchants will assuredly never be permitted to landor to reside there, but will be subject to instantexpulsion. In that event your barbarian merchantswill have had a long journey for nothing. Do not saythat you were not warned in due time! Tremblinglyobey and show no negligence! A special mandate!

tribute missions persons representing dependent states who appeared before the emperor bearing rareand valuable items as evidence of submission to the Qing Dynasty

Swaying the wide a reflection of the emperor’s belief his geopolitical importance far outweighed that ofworld Great Britain, continental Europe, and the rest of the known world

Glossary

Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to Queen Victoria” 933

18

39Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to

Queen Victoria”

“ The wealth of China is used to profit the barbarians.”

Overview

In 1839, in light of the growing level ofopium addiction in China under the QingDynasty, Emperor Daoguang sent Commis-sioner Lin Zexu to Guangzhou (also calledCanton), Guangdong Province, and orderedhim to stop the smuggling and sale of opiumin China by Western, especially British,

merchants. While negotiating with Charles Elliot, theBritish superintendent of trade, for his cooperation, Linwrote a letter in the traditional “memorial” form to the rulerof Britain expressing China’s desire for peaceful resolutionof the opium trade. He used what limited even mistakenknowledge he had newly acquired about his adversary in thehope of evoking the latter’s sympathy and understanding.Drawing on Confucian precepts as well as historical events,he also reasoned forcefully on moral ground, trying to per-suade the English monarch that he naturally would notwish to ask of others what he himself did not want. The let-ter was, in effect, an ultimatum made by Commissioner Linon behalf of the Qing emperor to the English monarch,delivering the unmistakable message that he and the Qinggovernment were determined to ban the selling and smok-ing of opium once and for all and at any cost.

After drafting and revising the letter, Commissioner Linasked his assistant and English missionaries and merchantsto translate it into English and present it to the Britishking who was actually Queen Victoria, whose reign hadbegun in 1837. Lin also circulated the letter as a publicannouncement to the Western merchants in Guangzhou.In the end, the letter was not delivered to the queen as hehad intended, nor was his hope for a peaceful solution tothe opium problem realized. Instead, the so-called FirstOpium War broke out in 1840, which ended in the QingDynasty’s defeat and Lin’s dismissal.

Context

From the late seventeenth century onward, internation-al trade and commerce gained more and more importancein the West. The demand for tea and porcelain from China

and for spices and indigo from India motivated many Euro-peans, especially the Dutch, Portuguese, and English, toestablish trade depots or factories in Asia. The success ofthe emergent Industrial Revolution in England also fueledthe English ambition to sell manufactured products in Asiain exchange for Asian goods. But most Asians, especially theChinese, were simply uninterested in reciprocating tradewith Western Europe. In 1793 Lord George Macartney, thefirst British ambassador to China, approached EmperorQianlong and presented King George III’s wish to establishdiplomatic relations and expand trade between Britain andChina. The emperor, however, firmly rejected all therequests made by the British embassy on the grounds thatChina had always been a self-sufficient country and that ithad neither need for nor interest in foreign goods. At thetime, any foreign trade with the West was administeredthrough the Canton System, in which Western merchantswere allowed to sell their goods in Guangzhou only throughthe Cohong (or Gonghang) merchants, who were the Chi-nese middlemen. Hoping to change the system and expandtrade, Europeans continued to send embassies to Chinathe Dutch in 1795, the Russians in 1806, and the Britishagain in 1816 all to no avail.

The Europeans repeatedly sent emissaries to Chinabecause they wanted to sell more goods to the Chinese inorder to balance the growing trade deficit incurred throughthe purchase of Chinese goods, especially tea. Through theeighteenth century, tea imports in Britain had risensharply; from 1784 to 1785 they grew to over fifteen mil-lion pounds, from just over two pounds a century or so ear-lier. The British East India Company, which handled thenation’s trade with China, began to grow tea in India in the1820s but would not ship tea to Britain until 1858. There-fore, through the mid-nineteenth century almost all teahad to be imported from China. Between 1811 and 1819,British imports from China totaled over £72 million, ofwhich tea was worth £70 million.

Aside from diplomatic efforts, the British also searchedfor and found an alternative to the currency of silver for thepurchase of tea and other Chinese goods: opium. Just asLord Macartney was pleading with Emperor Qianlong forthe establishment of trade relations, British merchants dis-covered this different and illicit way to address the mount-


ing trade deficit with China. They began selling opium tothe Chinese even though it had been banned by EmperorYongzheng, Emperor Qianlong’s father, as early as 1729.Thanks to opium sales, the silver inflow to China droppedfrom over 26.6 million taels between 1801 and 1810 tounder 10 million taels between 1811 and 1820, or by about63 percent. Later, as opium addiction spread rapidly inChina, silver began to flow out of the country to the West,especially Britain; between 1821 and 1830 China paid out2.3 million taels. And from 1831 to 1833, a period of mere-ly three years, China paid an astonishing 9.9 million taels.

During the 1830s, therefore, Qing China began to sufferseriously from the trade deficit with the West. The economictoll of the growing opium sales and addiction in China wastwofold. First, as opium sales grew, sales in other areas oftrade dropped as a result. In his early career as governor ofJiangsu Province, Lin Zexu observed that Chinese merchantscould sell only half of what they used to sell a decade or twoearlier. Second, the outflow of silver caused a financial crisisin the country by altering the exchange rate between silverand copper, which was used in people’s daily transactions.The shortage of silver caused its value to appreciate, whichaggravated the tax burden on the people, because in payingtax they had to exchange copper cash for silver. In the eigh-teenth century a string of 1,000 copper cash was equal to 1tael of silver. By the early nineteenth century 1 tael of silverwas worth 1,500 copper cash, and in the mid nineteenthcentury it was worth 2,700 copper cash.

While opium does have medicinal use, relieving pain andallaying emotional distress, it is an addictive drug. Once thehabit is formed, the withdrawal symptoms can include“extreme restlessness, chills, hot flushes, sneezing, sweat-ing, salivation, running nose, and gastrointestinal distur-bances such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.” Further-more, “there are severe cramps in the abdomen, legs, andback; the bones ache; the muscles twitch; and the nervesare on edge. Every symptom is in combat with another. Theaddict is hungry, but he cannot eat; he is sleepy, but he can-not sleep” (Chang, p. 17). There can be little wonder, then,that ever since Emperor Yongzheng banned its consumptionin the early eighteenth century, opium has remained contra-band in China. During the early nineteenth century, whenopium smoking spread across social strata and addicts num-bered in the millions, many observers grew alarmed, espe-cially scholar-officials, who presented a number of “memo-rials” to Emperor Daoguang, urging him to adopt harshmeasures against the smuggling and selling of the drug. LinZexu was one, and arguably the most eloquent, among thesescholar-officials. In one of his memorials, he argued vehe-mently that “if we continue to pamper it [opium smoking],a few decades from now we shall not only be without sol-diers to resist the enemy, but also in want of silver to pro-vide an army” (Chang, p. 96). Others suggested legalizingthe drug to curb its abuse, but the proposal was rejected bythe emperor, who regarded opium as an evil poison.

There is no source directly explaining why opium smok-ing which entails first heating opium paste over a flame andthen smoking it through a long-stemmed pipe became so

1600 ■ December 31The British EastIndia Companyis founded.

1760 ■ The CantonSystem isestablished,forbidding directaccess to tradein China byforeignmerchants.

1820 ■ October 3EmperorDaoguangascends to theQing dynasticthrone in China.

1834 ■ The monopolyof the BritishEast IndiaCompany ontrade with theFar East ends.

1837 ■ June 20Queen Victoriaascends to theBritish throne.

1838 ■ CommissionerLin Zexu is sentby EmperorDaoguang toGuangdong tohalt the sale ofopium.

1839 ■ Lin Zexu writesan open letter toQueen Victoria,urging apeacefulresolution to theopium trade.

■ The First OpiumWar breaks out.

Time Line


popular among the Chinese beginning in the late eighteenthcentury. Speculation holds that it might have had somethingto do with tobacco smoking, imported from Latin America inthe previous century. When tobacco smoking was first intro-duced to mainland China by soldiers who returned from acampaign in Taiwan, opium and tobacco were mixed andsmoked together. As opium’s therapeutic effects wererevealed, it gained in popularity, especially among people whostruggled with boredom or stress, such as eunuchs, wealthywomen, petty clerks, and examination takers. As time wenton, the habit of opium smoking spread to the leisure andworking classes alike for social relaxation. To abet sales, mer-chants prepared detailed accounts of means of consumptionin simple language, available to anyone who could read.

Nor has a convincing explanation been put forth for why,despite the repeated edicts from the emperor and the gov-ernment, opium smoking became so unstoppable in China.Aside from the persistence of Western merchants in sellingthe drug, it was generally believed that the Qing govern-ment had by then become corrupt and hence ineffective inexecuting imperial orders. When a new imperial edict wasissued in 1813 banning opium smoking altogether, it wasactually quite harsh in punishing both smokers and sellers.If caught, a smoker could be sentenced to one hundredblows of the bamboo stick and forced to wear a heavy wood-en collar in public for a month. Afraid of the severe conse-quences, the Cohong merchants who had monopolized thetrade with the Europeans ceased involvement, at least inpublic. But small dealers quickly took their place, approach-ing European merchants directly in swift boats and thendistributing the drug through networks of local trade.Apparently, this was a risky practice; to ensure its success,both European merchants and Chinese dealers bribed offi-cials for their connivance. Some officials even exploited thetrade by enforcing a fee per chest of opium. Whenever anew anti-opium edict was issued from the central govern-ment, local officials, rather than carry it out, would increasethe fee for enriching themselves.

The British East India Company also played a dubiousrole in the opium trade, to say the least. Some of its officialsdid have qualms about smuggling the drug into China; thecompany stopped sales at one point, only to allow theirresumption shortly after. For the company, the establish-ment of a long-standing opium monopoly in the Bengalregion was a major success of the British conquest of India.In the 1780s the British East India Company took controlof opium sales and production in the English-controlledareas of India. Shortly thereafter, the company also monop-olized the trade with China. Hence, the company’s opiumproduction in India coincided with its intensified trade withChina. In light of the huge deficits it had incurred in buy-ing tea from China, the company clearly had major incen-tive to engage in opium production, if not directly in its sell-ing. In fact, thanks to the company’s excellent managementof its opium monopoly in India, Indian opium was regardedby both dealers and smokers as representing high quality.The profits made by the company through opium saleswould be directly used to purchase tea. A triangular trade

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network, from Britain to India, India to China, and Chinato Britain, thus formed. The company first bought (nomi-nally) opium in India, selling it to private merchants, or“country traders,” for smuggling into China; the merchantsthen used the silver gained to buy tea, porcelain, and othergoods to sell back in Britain. This network helped to supportthe entire British position in the Far East, especially the rul-ing of India. Thanks to opium, the company and the Britishgovernment not only corrected the earlier deficits in theirChina trade but also reaped a good fortune.

The success of the British East India Company in monop-olizing and profiting from the trade with China caused envy

1842 ■ August 29The Treaty ofNanjing issigned, endingthe First OpiumWar as well asthe CantonSystem.

1850 ■ February 25EmperorDaoguang dies.

■ March 9Emperor Xianfengascends to theQing throne.

1856 ■ The SecondOpium Warbreaks out, tolast for fouryears.

1858 ■ August 2Under the Actfor the BetterGovernment ofIndia, the BritishEast IndiaCompany’sfunctions aretransferred tothe Crown.

1874 ■ January 1The British EastIndia Companycloses itsbusinessoperations.

Time Line


among others. By 1834 the company’s monopoly of the tradecame to an end, and the trade’s being open to all comersresulted in the rise of opium sales. In 1832 China importedmore than twenty-three thousand chests of opium (with eachchest containing between 130 and 160 pounds); the figurerose to thirty thousand chests in 1835 and to forty thousandchests in 1838. These increases drove Western merchants tochafe more blatantly at the Canton System, the Qing govern-ment’s means of control of foreign trade, in the hope of pry-ing open China’s door to the West, and merchants’ actionswere broadly sanctioned by the British government. After theend of the British East India Company’s monopoly, Britishmerchants in China were represented by the superintendentof trade. A government official, the superintendent oftenrefused to deal with the Cohong merchants, demandinginstead that he communicate directly with Qing officials. Theclash over opium sales thus became not simply a matterbetween the Qing government and Western merchants butrather one between Qing China and Great Britain.

About the Author

Born in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, in 1785, Lin Zexuexcelled in his study of the Chinese classics and in the civil

service examinations; he earned the jinshi (“presented schol-ar”) degree in 1811 and subsequently became a member ofthe Hanlin Academy, a prestigious institution of Confucianlearning in Beijing, the dynasty capital. Lin then launched asuccessful career in government, serving in a range of postsin various provinces. His commitment to high moral stan-dards and integrity earned him the epithet of “Lin the BlueSky.” Prior to becoming the imperial commissioner, Lin wasthe governor-general of Hunan and Hubei in 1837; in thispost he launched a vigorous campaign against opium smok-ing. He also repeatedly memorialized the emperor for takingtough measures against opium sales. As commissioner, Linassembled scholars to compile the book Sizhouzhi (Treatiseon Four Continents), an effort to establish and disseminateknowledge about Europe and the world. After Western mer-chants refused to obey his orders to surrender illicit opium,he blockaded their enclave and eventually confiscated anddestroyed 2.6 million pounds of opium. The British govern-ment retaliated by sending a fleet to China, and the Britishprevailed in battle. Angry over Lin’s action for its leading tomilitary conflict and defeat, Emperor Daoguang dismissedhim and exiled him to Xinjiang. Lin was later reinstated,however, and ordered to deal with other difficult situations.He died while traveling to Guangxi to administer a campaignagainst the Taiping Rebellion in 1850.

The East India Company ruled British India from East India House until 1858. (© Museum of London)



Lin Zexu’s letter to the British Crown starts by singingpraises to the Qing emperor for his grace and benevolence.These praises reflect the long-entrenched Chinese notionthat China was the center of the world, or the “Zhongguo”(Central Country/Middle Kingdom) in the cosmos. Out ofcourtesy, Lin acknowledges in the second paragraph thatBritain is also a historical country with an honorable tradi-tion. Yet this acknowledgment, too, builds on the Sinocen-tric conception of the world; he commends the “politenessand submissiveness” of the British in delivering tributesand offering “tributary memorials” to the ruler of the Celes-tial Empire China. He also deems that the British havebenefited considerably from these activities, a point he willstress again later in the letter.

Paragraphs 3 5 directly address the problem thatprompted Lin to seek communication with the ruler ofBritain: the smuggling and selling of opium in China byBritish merchants. Lin describes how his emperor is enragedby the harm to the Chinese people caused by opium smok-ing and how he has been dispatched by the emperor to putan end to the practice. He explains the punishment for theChinese who smoke and sell opium and notes that were hisemperor not so graceful, the same punishment could beextended to British sellers. Lin had recently confiscated alarge amount of opium through the help of Charles Elliot,the British superintendent of trade; his reporting this servesas a warning because, as he reveals, the Qing Dynasty had,in fact, promulgated new regulations, whereby if any Britonwas found selling opium, he would receive the same punish-ment as would a Chinese. Indeed, a major reason for Lin’swriting and circulating this letter was to inform and warn theBritish and other foreign merchants about the new regula-tions. In order to carry them out, he needed the help of theBritish ruler, who “must be able to instruct the various bar-barians to observe the law with care.”

In seeking to secure the aid of the British ruler, Linresorts to moral suasion in paragraphs 6 8. This is consis-tent with the teaching of Confucianism and Lin’s own char-acter. His central argument draws on the Confucian preceptthat, as phrased in paragraph 8, “naturally you would notwish to give unto others what you yourself do not want.” Butin exercising this moral exhortation, Lin shows his limited aswell as mistaken knowledge about his adversary, and his mis-takes invariably undercut the effect of his argument. He firstassumes that the sale and smoking of opium are forbidden inBritain, which was erroneous, for most British then consid-ered opium no more harmful to humans than alcohol. Sec-ond, he believes tea and rhubarb to be indispensable to thehealth of the British, which was wrong, even though teadrinking had become a national habit in Britain. Third, hestates that without Chinese silk, other textiles could not bewoven; this was clearly inaccurate. But even with theseseemingly egregious mistakes, Lin makes a strong point: TheBritish needed Chinese goods more than the Chinese didBritish goods, so how could the British repay the benefitsfrom and benevolence of the Chinese by selling them the

poisonous drug? In paragraph 6 he asks passionately, “Whereis your conscience?” It would have been hard for the BritishCrown to counter this line of argument.

After asking such acute questions, Lin softens his tonein paragraph 9. He writes that perhaps the British ruler wasunaware that some wicked British subjects have beeninvolved in opium smuggling in China, since in the Britishhomeland, because of the king’s (that is, the queen’s) “hon-orable rule,” no opium is produced. He thus asks the Britishruler to extend the edict against planting opium fromBritain to India and to grow the “five grains” in its stead.This plea is also made on the moral ground that for such avirtuous course of action, “heaven must support you and thespirits must bring you good fortune.” Lin’s notion that the“five grains” are essential to humans and his belief in both“Heaven” and “spirits” are distinctly Chinese.

Paragraphs 10 12 offer further explanation of the newregulations from the imperial court by which the same pun-ishments will be extended to the British if they continueignoring Lin’s anti-opium orders and policy. Central to theseexplanations is an idea of jurisdiction that Lin takes forgranted (as do many sovereign nations today): A foreignerwho lives in another country must obey the laws of thatcountry rather than the laws of his own. That is, Lin repudi-ates the extraterritorial rights that the British then demand-ed from the Qing Dynasty and which they later obtainedthrough the First Opium War. Lin’s refusal of such privilegein this letter does not draw on international law but followsthe same Confucian principle that you would not do untoothers what you yourself do not want done unto you, the lineof reasoning he used before. He asks the English ruler, “Sup-pose a man of another country comes to England to trade,he still has to obey the English laws; how much more shouldhe obey in China the laws of the Celestial Dynasty?”

Before he actually carried out the new orders to punishopium sellers with “decapitation or strangulation” Linwanted to exercise caution, which was why he decided towrite the letter in the first place. In paragraph 12, he againreminds the reader of the kindness of his emperor. Wheninformed of the new regulations, Charles Elliot requested anextension, Lin writes. After Lin forwarded the request to theemperor, the emperor, out of “consideration and compas-sion,” actually agreed to grant the extension with additionalmonths of leeway. Lin thus hails his ruler’s “extraordinaryCelestial grace.” Yet with the benefit of hindsight, historiansmay also interpret this “grace” as a sort of reluctance on thepart of the Qing ruler to confront the British militarily. Inother words, although the emperor ordered Lin to haltopium sales in Guangzhou and Guangdong, he was notready to risk war with the British. If Lin’s letter amounted toa last-ditch effort to solve the opium problem peacefully, thisapproach was indeed favored and sanctioned by the emper-or. It was said that Lin memorialized Emperor Daoguangsometime in July 1839, enclosing in the memorial the letterthat he had drafted for the English ruler. On August 27,Emperor Daoguang approved it. Lin then asked others totranslate it into English, publicized it around Guangzhou,and looked for messengers to deliver it to Britain.

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Illustration of an opium den in London (© Museum of London)


In concluding his letter, Lin makes another perhapsthe strongest request to the English monarch, asking thelatter to take the responsibility of urging British subjects toobserve Chinese laws and mores and cease the opium trade.Lin demands that the monarch, after receiving the letter,inform him and the Qing government of the means bywhich the trade will be stopped. Since Queen Victoria (mostlikely) did not even see the letter, Lin’s request/demandwent completely ignored.

Audience

The intended recipient of this letter was Queen Victo-ria, who was crowned monarch of the United Kingdom in1837; she would also become the first Empress of Indiaunder the British Raj in 1876, and she retained both ofthese royal titles until her death in 1901. The last monarchof the House of Hanover, the queen was brought up speak-ing German, French, and English. She married off all of

her nine children throughout Europe. During her reign,Great Britain saw the success of the Industrial Revolutionand the establishment of the British Empire around theworld. The Victorian era was marked by progress, prosper-ity, and power for Great Britain, which became one of themost formidable global empires in modern history.

Since the letter, before it made its way to Britain andappeared in the London Times, was first circulated andpublicized in Guangzhou among the Westerners there,they were hence also its targeted audience. These West-erners included officials such as the British superintend-ent of trade, Charles Elliot, and his assistants; most, how-ever, were merchants from Europe and America, with theBritish apparently constituting the majority. As “countrytraders,” they at first obtained licenses for purchasing andselling Indian opium from the British East India Compa-ny on a select basis. After 1834, when the company’smonopoly on trade in China ended, the countries wherethe traders came from multiplied, and the sources wherethey acquired the opium also diversified. Both of these

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Essential Quotes

“”

“The wealth of China is used to profit the barbarians. That is to say, thegreat profit made by barbarians is all taken from the rightful share ofChina. By what right do they then in return use the poisonous drug toinjure the Chinese people? … Let us ask, where is your conscience?”

(Paragraph 6)

“To digest clearly the legal penalties as an aid to instruction has been avalid principle in all ages. Suppose a man of another country comes toEngland to trade, he still has to obey the English laws; how much more

should he obey in China the laws of the Celestial Dynasty?”(Paragraph 10)

“The fact is that the wicked barbarians beguile the Chinese people into adeath trap.… He who takes the life of even one person still has to atone forit with his own life; yet is the harm done by opium limited to the taking of

one life only? Therefore in the new regulations, in regard to thosebarbarians who bring opium to China, the penalty is fixed at decapitationor strangulation. This is what is called getting rid of a harmful thing on

behalf of mankind.”(Paragraph 11)


factors exacerbated the opium problem on the eve of theFirst Opium War.

Impact

Since Lin Zexu failed to accomplish the delivery of theletter to the British ruler and thus failed to secure the lat-ter’s cooperation in ceasing opium sales, he stepped up hisanti-opium campaign. After the British merchants refusedto pledge not to sell opium, he expelled them from Macao,as they had been from Guangzhou. The British retreated toHong Kong, then a small fishing island, where they wereharried by the local Chinese. Having lost their opium andfearing for their lives, the merchants lobbied the British par-liament for compensation and protection. Lord Palmerston,the foreign minister, dispatched a fleet of sixteen warshipscarrying four thousand mariners and over five hundred gunsto China. Instead of engaging the Qing forces commandedby Lin in Guangdong, the fleet sailed north, where they

seized Zhoushan. This led Emperor Daoguang to dismissLin and replace him with Qishan, a trusted Manchu officialwho negotiated an agreement with Charles Elliot in January1841. Through the agreement the Chinese were to, amongother provisions, cede Hong Kong and pay six million taelsof silver as indemnity to the British. The British fleet conse-quently returned to the south.

However, the war was not over. Dissatisfied with theagreement, Lord Palmerston fired Charles Elliot, andHenry Pottinger, the new superintendent of trade, resumedwar. After losing several cities to the British, the QingDynasty pursued peace, which resulted in the signing ofthe Treaty of Nanjing on August 29, 1842. Ratified tenmonths later by Queen Victoria and Emperor Daoguang,the treaty stipulated that the Qing Dynasty open five portcities for trade, cede Hong Kong, and pay a total of thirty-nine million taels of silver to the British. It also officiallyended the Canton System. Ironically, the opium trade isnot mentioned in the treaty, except in the statement that ofthe total indemnity amount, six million taels were to com-


1. For many years, the United States has been engaged in a “war on drugs,” attempting both to curtail demand

for illegal drugs and to interdict smuggling of illegal drugs into the United States. The limited successes of this war

have prompted many Americans to call for the legalization of certain drugs, yet exporting nations show little inter-

est in stopping drug production. In what ways does the drug situation in the contemporary United States parallel

that of China in the nineteenth century?

2. Lin Zexu’s letter never reached the hands of its intended audience, the British monarch, Queen Victoria. In

what way, then, can the letter be regarded as a “milestone” document? Put differently, in what ways did Lin Zexu’s

letter represent a crucial turning point in relations between the West and Asia, specifically China?

3. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, business enterprises such as the British East India Compa-

ny were often instruments of both commerce and a nation’s foreign policy. In what sense did British merchants in

China represent British foreign policy with regard to China as well as India? Why did England dispatch its navy to

China in response to the actions and policies of the Chinese on their own soil?

4. The dissension between the Chinese and the British that led to the First Opium War was in part the result of

a failure of diplomacy. In the early nineteenth century, the history, culture, religion, language, politics, and traditions

of Britain and China were so different that the two nations found it difficult to find common ground for communi-

cation. In what ways does Lin Zexu’s letter—and, indeed, the entire controversy surrounding it—demonstrate this

failure of understanding and diplomacy? What could either side have done, if anything, to preserve its interests and

yet reduce the possibility of armed conflict? Do you see any conflicts in the modern world that parallel this conflict

between East and West in the nineteenth century?

5. In the nineteenth century, Asians, especially the Chinese, showed little interest in trade relations with the West,

despite the efforts of several European countries to establish such relations. Why were the Chinese so resistant to

trade with the West?


pensate the losses of the opium sellers. Other Westernnations followed suit in seeking such agreements. As theyconcluded similar and sometimes more-detailed treatieswith the Qing, the benefits and privileges granted were alsoextended to the British, including the contested “extraterri-torial rights.” Thus, after the First Opium War, the QingDynasty lost most of its control of China’s commercial,social, and foreign policies. As such, the war ushered in anew era of Chinese history, to be marked by the furtherintrusion of Western powers and by the continuous Chi-nese struggle against colonialism and imperialism.

Further Reading

■ ArticlesKwong, Luke S. K. “The Chinese Myth of Universal Kinship andCommissioner Lin Zexu’s Anti-Opium Campaign of 1839.” EnglishHistorical Review 123, no. 505 (December 2008): 1470 1503.

Newman, R. K. “Opium Smoking in Late Imperial China: AReconsideration.” Modern Asian Studies 29, no. 4 (October 1995):765 794.

Wang, Dong. “The Discourse of Unequal Treaties in ModernChina.” Pacific Affairs 76, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 399 425.

■ BooksChang, Hsin-pao. Commissioner Lin and the Opium War. Cam-bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964.

Gelber, Harry G. Opium, Soldiers and Evangelicals: Britain’s1840 42 War with China, and Its Aftermath. Houndmills, Bas-ingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Madancy, Joyce A. The Troublesome Legacy of Commissioner Lin:The Opium Trade and Opium Suppression in Fujian Province,1820s to 1920s. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,2004.

Polachek, James M. The Inner Opium War. Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press, 1992.

Zheng, Yangwen. The Social Life of Opium in China. Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

■ Web SitesChrastina, Paul. “Emperor of China Declares War on Drugs.”Future Opioids Web site.

http://www.opioids.com/opium/opiumwar.html.

“The Opium War and the Opening of China.”http://historyliterature.homestead.com/files/extended.html.

Q. Edward Wang

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Document Text

Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to

Queen Victoria”

A communication: magnificently our greatEmperor soothes and pacifies China and the foreigncountries, regarding all with the same kindness. Ifthere is profit, then he shares it with the peoples ofthe world; if there is harm, then he removes it onbehalf of the world. This is because he takes themind of heaven and earth as his mind.

The kings of your honorable country by a tradi-tion handed down from generation to generationhave always been noted for their politeness and sub-missiveness. We have read your successive tributarymemorials saying, “In general our countrymen whogo to trade in China have always received HisMajesty the Emperor’s gracious treatment and equaljustice,” and so on. Privately we are delighted withthe way in which the honorable rulers of your coun-try deeply understand the grand principles and aregrateful for the Celestial grace. For this reason theCelestial Court in soothing those from afar hasredoubled its polite and kind treatment. The profitfrom trade has been enjoyed by them continuouslyfor two hundred years. This is the source from whichyour country has become known for its wealth.

But after a long period of commercial intercourse,there appear among the crowd of barbarians both goodpersons and bad, unevenly. Consequently there arethose who smuggle opium to seduce the Chinese peo-ple and so cause the spread of the poison to allprovinces. Such persons who only care to profit them-selves, and disregard their harm to others, are not tol-erated by the laws of heaven and are unanimouslyhated by human beings. His Majesty the Emperorupon hearing of this is in a towering rage. He has espe-cially sent me, his commissioner, to come to Kwang-tung, and together with the governor-general and gov-ernor jointly to investigate and settle this matter.

All those people in China who sell opium orsmoke opium should receive the death penalty. If wetrace the crime of those barbarians who through theyears have been selling opium, then the deep harmthey have wrought and the great profit they haveusurped should fundamentally justify their executionaccording to law. We take into consideration, howev-er the fact that the various barbarians have stillknown how to repent their crimes and return to theirallegiance to us by taking the 20,183 chests of opium

from their store ships and petitioning us, throughtheir consular officer [Charles] Elliot, to receive it. Ithas been entirely destroyed and this has been faith-fully reported to the Throne in several memorials bythis commissioner and his colleagues.

Fortunately we have received a specially extendedfavor from His Majesty the Emperor, who considersthat for those who voluntarily surrender there arestill some circumstances to palliate their crime andso for the time being he has magnanimously excusedthem from punishment. But as for those who againviolate the opium prohibition, it is difficult for thelaw to pardon them repeatedly. Having establishednew regulations, we presume that the ruler of yourhonorable country, who takes delight in our cultureand whose disposition is inclined towards us, mustbe able to instruct the various barbarians to observethe law with care. It is only necessary to explain tothem the advantages and disadvantages and thenthey will know that the legal code of the CelestialCourt must be absolutely obeyed with awe.

We find that your country is sixty or seventy thou-sand li from China. Yet there are barbarian ships thatstrive to come here for trade for the purpose of mak-ing a great profit. The wealth of China is used toprofit the barbarians. That is to say, the great profitmade by barbarians is all taken from the rightfulshare of China. By what right do they then in returnuse the poisonous drug to injure the Chinese people?Even though the barbarians may not necessarilyintend to do us harm, yet in coveting profit to anextreme, they have no regard for injuring others. Letus ask, where is your conscience? I have heard thatthe smoking of opium is very strictly forbidden byyour country; that is because the harm caused byopium is clearly understood. Since it is not permittedto do harm to your own country, then even lessshould you let it be passed on to the harm of othercountries how much less to China! Of all thatChina exports to foreign countries, there is not a sin-gle thing which is not beneficial to people: they areof benefit when eaten, or of benefit when used, or ofbenefit when resold: all are beneficial. Is there a sin-gle article from China which has done any harm toforeign countries? Take tea and rhubarb, for exam-ple: the foreign countries cannot get along for a sin-


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gle day without them. If China cuts off these bene-fits with no sympathy for those who are to suffer,then what can the barbarians rely upon to keepthemselves alive? Moreover the woolens, camlets,and longells of foreign countries cannot be wovenunless they obtain Chinese silk. If China, again, cutsoff this beneficial export, what profit can the barbar-ians expect to make? As for other food stuffs, begin-ning with candy, ginger, cinnamon, and so forth, andarticles for use, beginning with silk, satin, chinaware,and so on, all the things that must be had by foreigncountries are innumerable. On the other hand, arti-cles coming from the outside to China can only beused as toys. We can take them or get along withoutthem. Since they are not needed by China, what dif-ficulty would there be if we closed the frontier andstopped the trade? Nevertheless our Celestial Courtlets tea, silk, and other goods be shipped withoutlimit and circulated everywhere without begrudgingit in the slightest. This is for no other reason but toshare the benefit with the people of the whole world.

The goods from China carried away by your coun-try not only supply your own consumption and use,but also can be divided up and sold to other coun-tries, producing a triple profit. Even if you do not sellopium, you still have this threefold profit. How canyou bear to go further, selling products injurious toothers in order to fulfill your insatiable desire?

Suppose there were people from another countrywho carried opium for sale to England and seducedyour people into buying and smoking it; certainlyyour honorable ruler would deeply hate it and be bit-terly aroused. We have heard heretofore that yourhonorable ruler is kind and benevolent. Naturallyyou would not wish to give unto others what youyourself do not want. We have also heard that theships corning to Canton have all had regulationspromulgated and given to them in which it is statedthat it is not permitted to carry contraband goods.This indicates that the administrative orders of yourhonorable rule have been originally strict and clear.Only because the trading ships are numerous,heretofore perhaps they have not been examinedwith care. Now after this communication has beendispatched and you have clearly understood thestrictness of the prohibitory laws of the CelestialCourt, certainly you will not let your subjects dareagain to violate the law.

We have further learned that in London, the capi-tal of your honorable rule, and in Scotland (Su-ko-lan), Ireland (Ai-lan), and other places, originally noopium has been produced. Only in several places of

India under your control such as Bengal, Madras,Bombay, Patna, Benares, and Malwa has opium beenplanted from hill to hill and ponds have been openedfor its manufacture. For months and years work iscontinued in order to accumulate the poison. Theobnoxious odor ascends, irritating heaven and fright-ening the spirits. Indeed you, O King, can eradicatethe opium plant in these places, hoe over the fieldsentirely, and sow in its stead the five grains. Anyonewho dares again attempt to plant and manufactureopium should be severely punished. This will really bea great, benevolent government policy that willincrease the common weal and get rid of evil. For this,Heaven must support you and the spirits must bringyou good fortune, prolonging your old age and extend-ing your descendants. All will depend on this act.

As for the barbarian merchants who come toChina, their food and drink and habitation are allreceived by the gracious favor of our Celestial Court.Their accumulated wealth is all benefit given withpleasure by our Celestial Court. They spend ratherfew days in their own country but more time in Can-ton. To digest clearly the legal penalties as an aid toinstruction has been a valid principle in all ages.Suppose a man of another country comes to Englandto trade, he still has to obey the English laws; howmuch more should he obey in China the laws of theCelestial Dynasty?

Now we have set up regulations governing theChinese people. He who sells opium shall receive thedeath penalty and he who smokes it also the deathpenalty. Now consider this: if the barbarians do notbring opium, then how can the Chinese people resellit, and how can they smoke it? The fact is that thewicked barbarians beguile the Chinese people into adeath trap. How then can we grant life only to thesebarbarians? He who takes the life of even one personstill has to atone for it with his own life; yet is theharm done by opium limited to the taking of one lifeonly? Therefore in the new regulations, in regard tothose barbarians who bring opium to China, thepenalty is fixed at decapitation or strangulation. Thisis what is called getting rid of a harmful thing onbehalf of mankind.

Moreover we have found that in the middle of thesecond month of this year Consul Elliot of yournation, because the opium prohibition law was verystem and severe, petitioned for an extension of thetime limit. He requested a limit of five months forIndia and its adjacent harbors and related territories,and ten months for England proper, after which theywould act in conformity with the new regulations.

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Now we, the commissioner and others, have memori-alized and have received the extraordinary Celestialgrace of His Majesty the Emperor who has redoubledhis consideration and compassion. All these whowithin the period of the coming one year (from Eng-land) or six months (from India) bring opium toChina by mistake, but who voluntarily confess andcompletely surrender their opium, shall be exemptfrom their punishment. After this limit of time, ifthere are still those who bring opium to China thenthey will plainly have committed a wilful violation andshall at once be executed according to law, withabsolutely no clemency or pardon. This may be calledthe height of kindness and the perfection of justice.

Our Celestial Dynasty rules over and supervisesthe myriad states, and surely possesses unfathomablespiritual dignity. Yet the Emperor cannot bear to exe-cute people without having first tried to reform them

by instruction. Therefore he especially promulgatesthese fixed regulations. The barbarian merchants ofyour country, if they wish to do business for a pro-longed period, are required to obey our statutesrespectfully and to cut off permanently the source ofopium. They must by no means try to test the effec-tiveness of the law with their lives. May you, O King,check your wicked and sift your vicious peoplebefore they come to China, in order to guarantee thepeace of your nation, to show further the sincerity ofyour politeness and submissiveness, and to let thetwo countries enjoy together the blessings of peace.How fortunate, how fortunate indeed! After receivingthis dispatch will you immediately give us a promptreply regarding the details and circumstances of yourcutting off the opium traffic. Be sure not to put thisoff. The above is what has to be communicated. Thisis appropriately worded and quite comprehensive.

camlets fabrics made of silk and wool

Canton Guangzhou

Kwangtung Guangdong

li a Chinese unit of measure for distance, which has varied over the course of history butis now considered to be 1,640 feet.

longells often spelled “long ells,” twilled woolen fabrics woven in long pieces

memorials statements made to a government, often accompanied by petitions for action

Glossary

Treaty of Nanjing 947

18

42Treaty of Nanjing

“ The Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of Six Millions of Dollarsas the value of Opium which was delivered up at Canton.”

the operating assumptions of Western maritime powerssince the early modern period. In seeking fair and equaltreatment from the Qing Empire (1644 1911), the Britishwound up using the terms of the Treaty of Nanjing to con-trol Chinese economic life and, by extension, to determinethe course of Chinese political life as well. The practice ofinfluencing the politics of a dependent nation by control-ling its economy, commonly referred to by historians as“indirect imperialism” or “semicolonialism,” was arguablyborn with the Treaty of Nanjing.

Context

At the end of the seventeenth century, China’s contactwith Europeans was limited mostly to waterfront trade withBritish, Dutch, and Portuguese merchants in a few citieson China’s southeastern coast. The port cities of Canton(Guangzhou), Amoy (Xiamen) and Zhoushan had beenopen to foreign trade since 1683 and were fairly independ-ent in the way they conducted their affairs. Foreign tradewas managed by a guild of merchant brokerage firms calledthe Cohong. The individual firms, or Hong, were licensedby the Qing Empire to buy and sell merchandise andworked through an imperial trade supervisor (the Hoppo)to ensure that the court received its revenues. The enforce-ment of commercial regulations and tariff payments by theHong was irregular and usually self-serving, frustratingWestern traders.

At the turn of the eighteenth century, Great Britain wasthe dominant European trading power in China, and itsmerchants became strident in their demands for greateraccess to Chinese markets and regulation of the arbitrarypractices of the Cohong. The British East India Company,which owned the British monopoly on Asian trade, askedrepeatedly for standardized tariffs and tried to secure for itsemployees the right to reside in China and to receive treat-ment equal to their Chinese counterparts. The Chinesegovernment refused such petitions and generally showedlittle willingness to cooperate with foreigners. In 1741HMS Centurion, commanded by George Anson, put intoCanton after sustaining damage at sea. Anson’s efforts toget his ship repaired turned into a bureaucratic nightmare.

Overview

The Treaty of Nanjing ended the OpiumWar of 1839 1842 and created the frame-work for a new commercial and diplomaticrelationship between Great Britain and theQing Empire of China. By demanding thatChina open new ports, fix regular tariffs onimports and exports, and abolish the mer-

chant guild, or “Cohong,” system of commerce, the treatyrectified for the British what they considered to be long-standing problems in their dealings with the Chinese. Inthe immediate sense, then, the Treaty of Nanjing provideda legal and enforceable means of maintaining a “harmo-nious” relationship between China and Great Britain.

In a larger sense the 1842 treaty did far more than settlea trade dispute. It opened a new chapter in the history ofglobal power and provided a template for the dominance ofWestern trading nations in East Asia for roughly a century. Asthe first of many “unequal” treaties between modern mercan-tile nations and traditional East Asian societies, the Treaty ofNanjing ushered in an era of “treaty diplomacy,” a euphe-mism for economic and political exploitation that defined thecontours of Western imperialism in East Asia and confirmedthe supremacy of the modern commercial state worldwide. Ingeneral, the unequal treaties were characterized by the impo-sition of demands for treaty ports in the host country; the cre-ation of zones in the host country where foreign nationalscould live, work, and worship; the establishment of con-sulates in the treaty cities; the control over tariffs; andextraterritoriality, which refers to the right claimed by foreignnationals to remain under the legal jurisdiction of their homecountries, even while living and working abroad. In cases inwhich military operations were required to enforce a treaty,indemnities paid by the host country to the dominant powerwere also commonly included.

The historical irony of the unequal treaty concept is thatthe Western powers invariably used the rhetoric of “equal-ity” to seek greater economic opportunities in Asia. Howev-er, for the Asian powers involved, these treaties were signedunder duress and often without full knowledge of the com-plex mechanisms of modern economics, trade, and financethat formed the basis of these treaties and that had become


In 1759 an East India Company trader named James Flintasked the Chinese government to reform corrupt Hongpractices and to open additional ports in northern China.In response, Qing officials sentenced Flint to three years inprison and placed even greater constraints on maritimetrade. After 1760 the Chinese rigidly enforced the “Cantonsystem,” which restricted all foreign trade to the port ofCanton and then allowed it only during the “trading sea-son” between October and March.

As prodigious consumers of Chinese porcelains, silks,and tea especially tea and as proponents of the modernideal of free trade, the British came to consider the Cantonsystem intolerably restrictive. Besides being shackled bymanaged trade, the British were also being bled by Hongbrokers of their precious silver reserves. By 1800 Britishmerchants were paying £3.6 million in silver for Chinesetea. The great imbalance of silver payments represented anenormous burden to a treasury already strapped with theadministration of a growing empire.

With the hope of stopping the silver drain and fixing thestructural problems of the Canton system, the British gov-ernment sent Lord George Macartney to China in 1793 tonegotiate a comprehensive trade agreement. The Britishhoped to persuade the Chinese to purchase more Britishmanufactured goods and to open an embassy in Beijing.The Macartney mission turned out to be a colossal failure.Macartney violated protocol by refusing to kowtow (bowdown) before Emperor Qianlong, and the Chinese madeclear that they had no particular desire for British manu-factured goods. In what has become one of the mostfamous rejections in history, Qianlong refused Macartneyall his requests and sent the British delegation home. Nev-ertheless, the relationship between Great Britain andChina would change quickly and dramatically. Fewer thanfifty years after Macartney was rebuffed by the Qing court,British ships were attacking Chinese cities at will and dic-tating the terms of surrender. The opium trade would bringabout this radical reversal in power.

Undaunted by Qianlong’s refusal, the British decidedthat if the Chinese did not want British products, theywould find a suitable replacement. As an alternative to man-ufactured goods, the British turned to opium. Because theBritish East India Company was governing India by 1800, italso controlled India’s poppy fields and could produce asmuch opium as it needed. Opium use had been illegal inChina since 1729, but in the 1760s the British began smug-gling small amounts of the drug into Canton. After theMacartney mission, the British began to increase their ship-ments. Between 1760 and 1830 the number of chests soldin China went from fewer than one thousand to more thantwenty thousand per year, and it is estimated that by 1838,there were nearly two million Chinese addicts. When theHong were ordered by Qing officials to ban all opium trans-actions in Canton, the British simply moved the enterpriseoffshore to Lintin Island. In time, besides creating a publichealth crisis, the opium trade created an economic crisis aswell. Not only were the British able to redress the imbalanceof payments, but they also had forced the Chinese into cir-

1683 ■ The QingEmpire liftsrestrictions onmaritime trade,allowingforeigners totrade in selectedports on thesoutheasterncoast of China.

1720 ■ Merchants inCanton formtrade guildscalled Cohong.The Cohong,supervised byHoppo (imperialtrade super -intendents), arelicensed toconductcommerce withforeign powers.

■ The Britishbegin to exportIndian opium toChina on asmall scale.

1729 ■ Opium isdeclaredcontraband bythe YongzhengEmperor, withexceptions formedicinal use.

1741 ■ CommodoreGeorge Ansonof the Britishnavy sails intoCanton forrepairs after astorm at sea,only to suffer aseries of delays,frustrations, andrefusals.Anson’s reportto the Britishgovernmentgeneratesawareness ofthe problemsencountered byBritish ships inChina.

Time Line


cumstances in which they were the ones bleeding silver.This situation worsened after 1834, when the British gov-ernment lifted the East India Company’s monopoly and newBritish “entrepreneurs,” competing with Americans,brought even more opium into China. By 1836 theDaoguang Emperor was desperate for a solution.

In 1838 the emperor appointed an imperial commission-er, Lin Zexu, to “fix” the opium problem. Commissioner Linemployed a number of tactics: moral exhortations, stiff pun-ishments, confiscations of opium and pipes, and even a let-ter to Queen Victoria asking her to bring moral pressure tobear upon the scourge of opium selling. None of thesemeasures was completely successful. Finally, Lin went afterthe source of the problem: the British traders in Canton,who were known to have stockpiled opium chests in theirwaterfront factories. When the British refused to turn overan opium merchant named Lancelot Dent to Commission-er Lin, Lin ordered the confiscation and destruction ofthree million pounds of opium, shut down the waterfrontentirely, and ordered the British out of Canton.

Lin’s actions were interpreted by the merchants as anaffront to free trade, a theft of private property, and an insultto the British Crown. So incensed were the British that theysent a punitive expedition of sixteen warships to China in thesummer of 1840. In a series of one-sided engagements alongthe Chinese coast between 1840 and 1842, British naval andamphibious forces overwhelmed the Chinese defenses. In1842, as steam-powered warships anchored in the ChangRiver threatened to destroy the city of Nanjing, the Qingaccepted the British terms of surrender.

About the Author

Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, was theforeign secretary of Great Britain during the Opium War. Inthis capacity he directed foreign policy for Queen Victoria,whose signature ratified the treaty, and he was the immedi-ate superior of Sir Henry Pottinger, who signed as theBritish plenipotentiary. Lord Palmerston was, in a practicalsense, the “author” of this document, if not the architect ofthe Opium War itself. A living emblem of British imperial-ism, Palmerston spent nearly sixty years in public life pro-moting the cause of British imperial power. He began hiscareer as a conservative Tory, but coming of age in post-Napoleonic Europe, a time of dynamic political change, hecame to embrace the spirit of nineteenth-century moderni-ty, including its assumptions that economic efficiency andpolitical reform were the keys to modern state power. At theheight of his career, his thinking was more classically liber-al than traditionally conservative, and his approach to thecultivation of Great Britain’s strength was both rational andpractical. Palmerston’s reformist sentiments occasionallycame into conflict with his imperial aspirations. In the1830s, as the conflict between the Qing court and Britishtrade merchants began to escalate over the issue of opiumtrading, Palmerston was less than enthusiastic about sup-porting merchants who violated Chinese laws. This position

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1759 ■ James Flint ofthe British EastIndia Companyasks the Qingimperial court toaddress theextortion, bribes,and othercorruptpractices of theCanton Hongand for anexpansion oftrading rights.

1760 ■ The Cantonsystem isformalized,restricting allforeign trade tothe waterfrontof Canton(Guangzhou)during the“trading season”betweenOctober andMarch.

1770s ■ British sales ofopium in Chinasurpass onethousand chestsper year.

1780s ■ The British EastIndia Companysuffers hugedeficits in thesilver-for-teatrade in China.

1793 ■ SeptemberLord GeorgeMacartney meetswith EmperorQianlong to try toexpand tradingand diplomaticrights with China.Macartney’sefforts topersuade theChinese topurchase moremanufacturedgoods areunsuccessful.

Time Line


changed quickly when Commissioner Lin began arrestingBritish subjects and confiscating British property in 1839.Palmerston made the decision to deploy a naval task forceagainst China and was persistent in pressing for a settle-ment that optimized Britain’s interests.


The Treaty of Nanjing was signed on August 29, 1842. Itopens with a standard diplomatic preamble from the domi-nant signatory, Queen Victoria, who, along with her “GoodBrother the Emperor of China,” presented this treaty to pos-terity. This verbiage, while fairly common according to thestandards of the day, is remarkable considering that fewerthan fifty years earlier, Victoria’s predecessor, King GeorgeIII, had been dismissed as a minor “barbarian” king byDaoguang’s predecessor, Qianlong. That the signing tookplace aboard HMS Cornwallis, a British warship anchoredin the Chang River, only added to the ponderous symbolismof the dramatic reversal in power between the British andChinese empires in the previous half century. The preamblenames the Chinese plenipotentiaries Qiying and Yilibu(called Keying and Elepoo in the document and spelled avariety of ways in historical writings) of the Qing court andPottinger of Great Britain. An additional participant in thetreaty was England’s Queen Victoria, who signed the treatyand added above her signature and seal a passage in whichshe pledged that Great Britain would “sincerely and faith-fully perform and observe all and singular the things whichare contained and expressed in the Treaty.”

◆ Article IArticle I presents the formulaic pledges of peace and

friendship between the rival nations that are standard in mod-ern treaties but that strike the contemporary reader as ironicif not hypocritical, knowing that the British would have razedNanjing had their friends, the Chinese, not accepted theterms. It is important to realize that the British, operatingfrom their own standpoint of Enlightenment rationalism, didnot insist on “peace and friendship” with any sense of irony.It was an accepted truth that no society remaining in a “bar-barous” state could hope to attain any long-term historicalsatisfaction, and the British believed that they were bringingenlightenment to a backward civilization.

◆ Article IIArticle II names the five treaty ports Canton

(Guangzhou), Amoy (Xiamen), Foochow-fu (Fuzhou), Ning-po (Ningbo), and Shanghai and it provided for the estab-lishment of foreign quarters and consulates in each city. Thisarticle is significant because it ended, for the British, one ofthe more irksome practices of the Canton system. It allowedforeign citizens and their families to live in China legally forthe first time in history. It also demanded that British royaltrade representatives serve as intermediaries between themerchants and Chinese trade officials. This situation hadbeen a source of confusion after the British East India Com-

1800 ■ The Qing courtpasses an edictagainst theimport andthe domesticproduction ofopium.

1821 ■ The Qing courtagain attempts tostop opium tradeby refusing to letthe Hong handlethe product. As aresult, bulktransactions ofopium are movedoffshore to LintinIsland.

1834 ■ The British EastIndia Companyloses itsmonopoly onAsian trade, andmore privatemerchants enterthe illicit opiumtrade.

■ The British EastIndia Companyreplaces companyofficials with royalofficials, puttingmore pressure onChina to opendiplomatic rela-tions.

1839 ■ March–MayCommissioner LinZexu, appointedto remedy theopium problem,begins to railpublicly againstopium useand orderspunishments forusers and sellersof the drug.Calling for an endto the opiumtrade, heconfiscates threemillion pounds ofopium fromBritish merchantsand bans allforeign trade.

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pany lost its monopoly. When the customary lines of com-munication between British company men and Hong mer-chants became unavailable, the Qing court experiencedunwelcome pressure to deal equally with British officials.

◆ Article IIIArticle III provided for the cession of Hong Kong to the

British Crown. By 1842 Hong Kong had already been occu-pied by the British for several years. With the closing of Can-ton and Lintin Island by Commissioner Lin, British tradersestablished a haven on the sparsely populated island. Duringan abortive peace attempt made in 1841 by the British tradesuperintendent Charles Elliot and the Qing official Qishan,Hong Kong had been offered as part of the settlement. Thatagreement was vetoed by both the Qing emperor, whothought it too generous, and Lord Palmerston, who thoughtit insufficient. Palmerston was especially dismayed thatElliot had agreed to accept such a worthless island. In retro-spect, the acquisition of Hong Kong was one of the greatesttriumphs in British imperial history. Within several decadesthe island was transformed into a bustling entrepôt, and inthe twentieth century it became an international center formanufacturing, transportation, finance, and culture.Although the treaty gave Hong Kong to Britain “in perpetu-ity,” the legal status of the Crown colony would change overthe years. In 1860 the British acquired additional territory inneighboring Kowloon and in 1898 even more land; theselands became designated as the “New Territories.” In 1898the New Territories were leased to Great Britain for ninety-nine years. All of this territory, including Hong Kong itself,was returned to China in 1997.

◆ Article IVArticle IV called for China to reimburse Britain for opium

that had been confiscated and destroyed in 1839 by Commis-sioner Lin. Aside from this article, there are no other directreferences to opium anywhere in the treaty, which is unusualconsidering the fact that the treaty ended an “opium” war.The problem was that opium trade was not legal before orafter the war, and the war did not end the trade. Neither theBritish nor the Chinese were willing to treat opium as legiti-mate commerce, and contraband opium trafficking wouldcontinue until the Chinese Communist Party put an end to itin the early 1950s. This article reiterates that what was real-ly at stake in this war was commercial and diplomatic power.It also indicates that the British possessed the extraordinaryleverage to demand reimbursement for a product that was notlegal in China or Great Britain. The reimbursement wasassessed at $6 million, payment of which was rendered inMexican dollars, a silver coin of reliable quality that was rec-ognized as world currency in the 1800s.

◆ Article VArticle V ended the traditional Hong system that had

vexed the British for so many years. The Cohong, or mer-chant guild, was now powerless to interfere with free tradein the treaty ports. British merchants operating in thesecities claimed the right to do business with anybody they

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chose. The article also required the Chinese government topay an additional $3 million to cover the debts of Hong mer-chants who were in arrears to British merchants. The rea-son for this stipulation was that while the Canton systemwas in practice, the Qing court often used Cohong assets asan imperial cash reserve. When the Hong were required tomake “contributions” to the court, they were often unableto purchase the commodities that the British had contract-ed to export. It was not uncommon for the British mer-chants themselves to cover the Hong on their wholesalepurchases so that they could leave with their cargoes.

◆ Article VIArticle VI demanded indemnities for the costs Britain

had incurred fighting the Opium War. From the perspec-tive of the post World War II warfare, in which the victorgenerally pays for the reconstruction of defeated nations, itseems difficult to imagine a day in which the conqueringnation “sent the bill” to the conquered. Nevertheless, thispractice was usual in nineteenth-century diplomacy. Withthinking rooted firmly in the old mercantilist imperialismof the eighteenth century, it seemed prudent to keep a van-quished people poor; saddling them with war costs andpunitive indemnities made it possible to retain them ascaptive markets. The ultimate folly of burdening thedefeated nation with the costs for the war seems to havebeen one of the great lessons of the World War I, when aglobal depression made it impossible for nations to maketheir monetary reparations without causing hyperinflationor when forcing them to do so inadvertently triggered inter-national lawlessness. The present-day practice of having

1839 ■ MayThe British tradesuperintendentCharles Elliotseeks help fromhis governmenton how torespond toCommissioner Lin.The decision ismade to senda punitive navalexpeditionto obtain“satisfaction”from China.

1842 ■ August 29The Treaty ofNanjing endsthe two-year-long Opium Warbetween Chinaand GreatBritain.

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Illustration of an attack by the Chinese on a British boat in Canton River during the Opium War (Library of Congress)


nations rebuild conquered enemies for the purpose ofdrawing them back into an allied economic bloc may alsobe an ultimately self-serving strategy, but it is undeniablymore humane.

◆ Articles VII–IXArticle VII established the repayment schedule and

interest for the $21 million total in indemnities and reim-bursements that China had to pay. Article VIII demandedthe release of all British prisoners. This clause refers notonly to British and Indian military personnel who may havebeen captured during the war but also to those traders whowere incarcerated in the Canton factories during Commis-sioner Lin’s initial shutdown of the contraband trade. Arti-cle IX required amnesty for all Chinese who may have col-laborated or done business with the British during theOpium War. The British factories employed large numbersof Chinese subjects, many of whom were persecuted ascontraband traders during the seizure.

◆ Article XArticle X provided for the publication of fixed tariffs

(“duties” or “customs” fees) on imports and exports. Thecontrol of tariffs was a vital element of nineteenth-centurydiplomacy; what made these treaties unequal was the factthat they ensured that tariffs favored the winner. For states

that measured their national power in terms of balances oftrade, the motive behind imperialism was to secure marketsfor their domestic manufactured products while reducingthe costs of goods purchased abroad. Under the Cantonsystem, it was impossible to predict how Hong brokersmight have manipulated customs duties on imports (Britishgoods) or inflated the price of products intended for export(Chinese goods). Requiring the Chinese to adhere to pub-lished tariff rates (and in the decades to come, dictatingthose tariff rates) was the signal achievement of theunequal treaties. It guaranteed the British easy and pre-dictable access to foreign markets.

On the matter of transit duties, which were the feespaid by secondary merchants to bring goods from the portcity into the interior, the British demanded here that theChinese set an upper limit on these fees to keep Britishgoods competitive outside the port cities. The final sen-tence of Article X contains the words “which shall notexceed.” To make sense, this passage has to be supplement-ed with the “Declaration respecting Transit Duties,” whichis added near the end of the document, after the signatureof the Chinese officials. The declaration states that Britishmerchants are obligated to pay “fair and regular tariff ofexport and import customs and other dues.” It goes on tosay that after those customs and dues have been paid,goods could be transferred to Chinese merchants, who

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A tea warehouse in Canton (© British Library Board All Rights Reserved 10977)

Essential Quotes

“”

“The Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of Six Millions of Dollars asthe value of Opium which was delivered up at Canton in the Month of

March 1839.”(Article IV)

“The Government of China having compelled the British Merchantstrading at Canton to deal exclusively with certain Chinese Merchants

called Hong Merchants (or Cohong) … agrees to abolish that practice infuture at all Ports where British Merchants may reside, and to permit themto carry on their mercantile transactions with whatever persons they please.”

(Article V)

“The Government of Her Britannic Majesty having been obliged to sendout an Expedition to demand and obtain redress for the violent and unjust

Proceedings of the Chinese High Authorities towards her BritannicMajesty’s Officer and Subjects, the Emperor of China agrees to pay the

sum of Twelve Millions of Dollars.”(Article VI)


again have to pay transit duties to transport the goods. Arti-cle X left open the amount of those duties. The added dec-laration simply concludes that duties “shall not exceed thepresent rates, which are upon a moderate scale.”

◆ Article XIArticle XI required that British and Chinese officials

communicate as equals, avoiding derogatory terms andaccording due respect to each other’s offices. Under theCanton system, British East India officers had had noaccess to Chinese officials, and as the diplomaticexchanges between Britain and China from the Macartneymission forward show, British officials were treated as trib-utary barbarians. The historical irony of the insistence on“equality” is that the treaty was manifestly unequal. Thelesson of power is vividly clear: As long as one possesses thefirepower to destroy an enemy, one can claim as muchrespect as one demands, suggesting that equality is the lastthing a nation employing superior force is actually seeking.

◆ Articles XII and XIIIArticle XII states that once Great Britain received its first

installment of indemnities, it would withdraw forces from

Nanjing but would leave a token force until all paymentswere made and the treaty ports were operational. Article XIIIactivated the treaty immediately on the authority of the sign-ing plenipotentiaries, recognizing that it would take time foreach nation’s sovereign to ratify the treaty personally.

Audience

The audience for this treaty was the Chinese officials,merchants, and city magistrates whose lives would bealtered forever by the presence of newly enfranchised for-eign traders in their midst. It took some time before thereality of the treaty diplomacy sank into the urban popula-tions of the treaty cities, and several skirmishes werefought even after the treaty was signed. The reality, though,was that the foreigners were in China to stay and thatresistance against them would be answered by force. Ofcourse, the treaty was also addressed to posterity and worldopinion, and the commercial powers of the West paid veryclose attention, using the Treaty of Nanjing as their ownmodel for unequal treaties that would be imposed on EastAsian nations until the end of World War II.


Impact

The Treaty of Nanjing redefined world diplomacy andhelped set the stage for the emergence of the “new impe-rialism” of the late nineteenth century. It is not the casethat the terms, or even the categories of terms, were newto the world or to China. As recently as 1835, the Chinesehad voluntarily granted extraterritoriality, a consulate, andrights to control tariffs to Quqon (Kokand), a central Asiantributary state that sought these privileges in its dealingswith the Chinese-controlled city of Kashgar (Kashi). Thesubstantive difference between this famous settlementand the unequal treaties after 1842 was the degree towhich China granted or was forced to grant these particu-lar rights. While only the most pessimistic of Chinesewould have believed that China was surrendering itsautonomy to the maritime states of the West, the Westernpowers had no doubt that they were, and should be, con-trolling the conversation. Officials from the United States,France, and Russia studied the Treaty of Nanjing careful-ly and rushed to present their own versions to the Chinesegovernment for signing soon after the treaty was ratified.The American-sponsored Treaty of Wangxia and theFrench-sponsored Treaty of Huangpu (Whampoa), bothsigned in 1844, were based on the Treaty of Nanjing andwere even more complete in their demands. Not only dideach of these treaties specify terms for extraterritoriality,which the Nanjing Treaty did not, but they also demanded“most favored nation” status, meaning that the UnitedStates and France would automatically receive any tradeprivileges granted by China to other nations in the future.

Great Britain received extraterritoriality and most-favored-nation status in the supplementary Treaty of the Bogue,signed in 1843.

For the rest of the nineteenth century, all Western pow-ers operating in East Asia would impose unequal treatieson their new “friends” in the Pacific. The 1858 Treaty ofTianjin (Tientsin), among Great Britain, the United States,Russia, France, and China; the 1861 Commercial Treaty,between Prussia and China; and the 1896 Li-LobanovTreaty (also called the Sino-Russian Secret Treaty),between Russia and China are only three in a long list oftreaties that systematically reduced the Qing Empire to thestatus of semicolonialism. Perhaps the most humiliating ofall was the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki (also known as theTreaty of Maguan), in which a modernized Japan adoptedthe role of the Western power, imposing its own unequalterms on China after its victory in the Sino-Japanese War.

In the domain of domestic politics, the Treaty of Nan-jing demonstrated the weakness of the Manchu Qing rulersand precipitated a permanent legitimacy crisis for the QingDynasty. Less than a decade after the signing, the TaipingRebellion would shake China to its foundations. This mas-sive insurrection, informed by explosive antiforeign andanti-Qing sentiment, ended only with the help of foreignintervention, strengthening the hands of the treaty powers.Subsequent treaties would sap China of its sovereignty, andrebellions would plague the dynasty for the next sixty years.In many ways the Treaty of Nanjing marked the beginningof the end of imperial China, destroying the legitimacy ofthe Qing Dynasty and sending it into a downward spiralfrom which it would never recover.

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1. Trace the history of Great Britain’s relationship with China using the Treaty of Nanjing, Qianlong’s Letter to

George III, and Lin Zexu’s “Moral Advice to Queen Victoria.”

2. Treaties such as the Treaty of Nanjing are generally accounted as unequal, allowing commercial nations such

as Great Britain to dominate colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. How was Great Britain—and other Euro-

pean powers—able to achieve such dominance? If the treaty was unequal, why did China not simply expel the

British?

3. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British East India Company, a private, commercial enter-

prise, assumed what could almost be characterized as governmental control in countries such as China and India.

Using the Treaty of Nanjing and Queen Victoria’s Proclamation concerning India, explain how the East India Com-

pany was able to achieve this position.

4. How did the Treaty of Nanjing contribute to the implosion of imperial China?

5. In one sentence, explain to an interested listener what the Opium War was. In one more sentence, explain why

the war was important.


Further Reading

■ ArticlesDowns, Jacques M. “American Merchants and the China OpiumTrade, 1800 1840.” Business History Review 42 (Winter 1968):418 442.

Wang, Dong. “The Discourse of Unequal Treaties in ModernChina.” Pacific Affairs 76, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 399 425.

Zheng, Yangwen. “The Social Life of Opium in China, 1483 1999.”Modern Asian Studies 37, no. 1 (February 2003): 1 39.

■ BooksFairbank, John King. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: TheOpening of the Treaty Ports, 1842 1854. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press, 1953.

Fairbank, John King, and Merle Goldman. China: A New History,2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard UniversityPress, 2006.

Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China, 2nd ed. NewYork: W. W. Norton, 1999.

Waley-Cohen, Joanna. The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents inChinese History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.

■ Web Sites“The Opium War and Foreign Encroachment.” Columbia Univer-sity Web site.

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/modern/opium.htm.

Eric Cunningham


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Document Text

Treaty of Nanjing

Victoria, by the Grace of God, Queen of the Unit-ed Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defenderof the Faith, etc., etc., etc. To All and Singular towhom these Presents shall come, Greeting!

Whereas a Treaty between Us and Our GoodBrother the Emperor of China, was concluded andsigned, in the English and Chinese Languages, onboard Our Ship the Cornwallis, at Nanking, on theTwenty-ninth day of August, in the Year of Our LordOne Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty-two, by thePlenipotentiaries of Us and of Our said Good Broth-er, duly and respectively authorized for that purpose;which Treaty is hereunto annexed in Original.

Treaty

Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom ofGreat Britain and Ireland, and His Majesty theEmperor of China, being desirous of putting an endto the misunderstandings and consequent hostilitieswhich have arisen between the two Countries, haveresolved to conclude a Treaty for that purpose, andhave therefore named as their Plenipotentiaries, thatis to say: Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britainand Ireland, Henry Pottinger, Bart., a Major Generalin the Service of the East India Company, etc., etc.;And His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of China, theHigh Commissioners Keying, a Member of the Impe-rial House, a Guardian of the Crown Prince andGeneral of the Garrison of Canton; and Elepoo, ofImperial Kindred, graciously permitted to wear theinsignia of the first rank, and the distinction of Pea-cock’s feather, lately Minister and Governor Generaletc., and now Lieutenant-General Commanding atChapoo: Who, after having communicated to eachother their respective Full Powers and found them tobe in good and due form, have agreed upon, and con-cluded, the following Articles:

◆ Article I.There shall henceforward be Peace and Friend-

ship between Her Majesty the Queen of the UnitedKingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and HisMajesty the Emperor of China, and between theirrespective Subjects, who shall enjoy full security and

protection for their persons and property within theDominions of the other.

◆ Article II. His Majesty the Emperor of China agrees that

British Subjects, with their families and establish-ments, shall be allowed to reside, for the purpose ofcarrying on their Mercantile pursuits, withoutmolestation or restraint at the Cities and Towns ofCanton, Amoy, Foochow-fu, Ningpo, and Shanghai,and Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, etc.,will appoint Superintendents or Consular Officers,to reside at each of the above-named Cities orTowns, to be the medium of communication betweenthe Chinese Authorities and the said Merchants, andto see that the just Duties and other Dues of the Chi-nese Government as hereafter provided for, are dulydischarged by Her Britannic Majesty’s Subjects.

◆ Article III. It being obviously necessary and desirable, that

British Subjects should have some Port whereat theymay careen and refit their Ships, when required, andkeep Stores for that purpose, His Majesty theEmperor of China cedes to Her Majesty the Queenof Great Britain, etc., the Island of Hongkong, to bepossessed in perpetuity by Her Britannic Majesty,Her Heirs and Successors, and to be governed bysuch Laws and Regulations as Her Majesty theQueen of Great Britain, etc., shall see fit to direct.

◆ Article IV. The Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of

Six Millions of Dollars as the value of Opium whichwas delivered up at Canton in the month of March1839, as a Ransom for the lives of Her BritannicMajesty’s Superintendent and Subjects, who hadbeen imprisoned and threatened with death by theChinese High Officers.

◆ Article V. The Government of China having compelled the

British Merchants trading at Canton to deal exclu-sively with certain Chinese Merchants called HongMerchants (or Cohong) who had been licensed bythe Chinese Government for that purpose, the


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Emperor of China agrees to abolish that practice infuture at all Ports where British Merchants mayreside, and to permit them to carry on their mercan-tile transactions with whatever persons they please,and His Imperial Majesty further agrees to pay to theBritish Government the sum of Three Millions ofDollars, on account of Debts due to British Subjectsby some of the said Hong Merchants (or Cohong),who have become insolvent, and who owe very largesums of money to Subjects of Her Britannic Majesty.

◆ Article VI. The Government of Her Britannic Majesty having

been obliged to send out an Expedition to demandand obtain redress for the violent and unjust Pro-ceedings of the Chinese High Authorities towardsHer Britannic Majesty’s Officer and Subjects, theEmperor of China agrees to pay the sum of TwelveMillions of Dollars on account of the Expensesincurred, and Her Britannic Majesty’s Plenipoten-tiary voluntarily agrees, on behalf of Her Majesty, todeduct from the said amount of Twelve Millions ofDollars, any sums which may have been received byHer Majesty’s combined Forces as Ransom for Citiesand Towns in China, subsequent to the 1st day ofAugust 1841.

◆ Article VII. It is agreed that the Total amount of Twenty-one

Millions of Dollars, described in the three precedingArticles, shall be paid as follows:

Six Millions immediately. Six Millions in 1843. That is: Three Millions on

or before the 30th of the month of June, and ThreeMillions on or before the 31st of December.

Five Millions in 1844. That is: Two Millions anda Half on or before the 30th of June, and Two Mil-lions and a half on or before the 31st of December.

Four Millions in 1845. That is: Two Millions onor before the 30th of June, and Two Millions on orbefore the 31st of December; and it is further stipu-lated that Interest at the rate of 5 per cent perannum shall be paid by the Government of China onany portions of the above sums that are not punctu-ally discharged at the periods fixed.

◆ Article VIII. The Emperor of China agrees to release uncondi-

tionally all Subjects of her Britannic Majesty(whether Natives of Europe or India) who may be inconfinement at this moment, in any part of the Chi-nese Empire.

◆ Article IX. The Emperor of China agrees to publish and

promulgate, under His Imperial Sign Manual andSeal, a full and entire amnesty and act of indemnity,to all Subjects of China on account of their havingresided under, or having had dealings and inter-course with, or having entered the Service of HerBritannic Majesty, or of Her Majesty’s Officers, andHis Imperial Majesty further engages to release allChinese Subjects who may be at this moment in con-finement for similar reasons.

◆ Article X. His Majesty the Emperor of China agrees to estab-

lish at all the Ports which are by the 2nd Article of thisTreaty to be thrown open for the resort of British Mer-chants, a fair and regular Tariff of Export and ImportCustoms and other Dues, which Tariff shall be pub-licly notified and promulgated for general information,and the Emperor further engages, that when BritishMerchandise shall have once been paid at any of thesaid Ports the regulated Customs and Dues agreeableto the Tariff, to be hereafter fixed, such Merchandisemay be conveyed by Chinese Merchants, to anyProvince or City in the interior of the Empire of Chinaon paying a further amount as Transit Duties whichshall not exceed [see Declaration respecting TransitDuties below] on the tariff value of such goods.

◆ Article XI. It is agreed that Her Britannic Majesty’s Chief

High Officer in China shall correspond with the Chi-nese High Officers, both at the Capital and in theProvinces, under the term “Communication.” TheSubordinate British Officers and Chinese High Offi-cers in the Provinces under the terms “Statement” onthe part of the former, and on the part of the latter“Declaration” and the Subordinates of both Countrieson a footing of perfect equality. Merchants and othersnot holding official situations and, therefore, notincluded in the above, on both sides, to use the term“Representation” in all Papers addressed to, or intend-ed for the notice of the respective Governments.

◆ Article XII. On the assent of the Emperor of China to this

Treaty being received and the discharge of the firstinstallment of money, Her Britannic Majesty’s Forceswill retire from Nanking and the Grand Canal, andwill no longer molest or stop the Trade of China. TheMilitary Post at Chinhai will also be withdrawn, butthe Islands of Koolangsoo and that of Chusan will

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continue to be held by Her Majesty’s Forces until themoney payments, and the arrangements for openingthe Ports to British Merchants be completed.

◆ Article XIII. The Ratification of the Treaty by Her Majesty the

Queen of Great Britain, etc., and His Majesty theEmperor of China shall be exchanged as soon as thegreat distance which separates England from Chinawill admit; but in the meantime counterpart copiesof it, signed and sealed by the Plenipotentiaries onbehalf of their respective Sovereigns, shall be mutu-ally delivered, and all its provisions and arrange-ments shall take effect.

Done at Nanking and Signed and Sealed by thePlenipotentiaries on board Her Britannic Majesty’sship Cornwallis, this twenty-ninth day of August,1842, corresponding with the Chinese date, twenty-fourth day of the seventh month in the twenty-sec-ond Year of Taou Kwang.

(L.S.) Henry Pottinger, Her Majesty’s Plenipo-tentiary

[Signatures of Chinese Plenipotentiaries]Declaration respecting Transit Duties.Whereas by the Xth Article of the Treaty between

Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom ofGreat Britain and Ireland, and His Majesty theEmperor of China, concluded and signed on boardHer Britannic Majesty’s ship Cornwallis, at Nanking,on the 29th day of August, 1842. … it is stipulatedand agreed, that His Majesty the Emperor of Chinashall establish at all the ports which, by the 2nd Arti-cle of the said Treaty, are to be thrown open for theresort of British merchants, a fair and regular tariffof export and import customs and other dues, whichtariff shall be publicly notified and promulgated forgeneral information; and further, that when Britishmerchandise shall have once paid, at any of the saidports, the regulated customs and dues, agreeable tothe tariff to be hereafter fixed, such merchandisemay be conveyed by Chinese merchants to anyprovince or city in the interior of the Empire of

China, on paying a further amount of duty as transitduty; And whereas the rate of transit duty to be solevied was not fixed by the said Treaty; Now, there-fore, the undersigned Plenipotentiaries of Her Bri-tannic Majesty, and of His Majesty the Emperor ofChina, do hereby, on proceeding to the exchange ofthe Ratifications of the said Treaty, agree anddeclare, that the further amount of duty to be solevied on British merchandise, as transit duty, shallnot exceed the present rates, which are upon a mod-erate scale; and the Ratifications of the said Treatyare exchanged subject to the express declaration andstipulation herein contained.

In witness whereof the respective Plenipoten-tiaries have signed the present declaration, and haveaffixed thereto their respective seals.

Done at Hong-Kong, the 26th day of June, 1843

(L.S.) Henry Pottinger[Seal and signature of Chinese Plenipoten-

tiary]We, having seen and considered the Treaty afore-

said, have approved, accepted, and confirmed thesame in all and every one of its Articles and Clauses,as We do by these Presents approve, accept, confirm,and ratify it for Ourselves, Our Heirs, and Succes-sors: Engaging and Promising upon Our Royal Word,that We will sincerely and faithfully perform andobserve all and singular the things which are con-tained and expressed in the Treaty aforesaid, andthat We will never suffer the same to be violated byany one, or transgressed in any manner, as far as itlies in Our Power.

For the greater Testimony and Validity of allwhich, We have caused the Great Seal of Our Unit-ed Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to beaffixed to these Presents, which We have signed withOur Royal Hand.

Given at Our Court at Windsor Castle, the Twen-ty-eighth day of December, in the Year of Our LordOne Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty-two, and inthe Sixth Year of Our Reign.

(Signed) Victoria R.

Chapoo a seaport in present-day Zhejiang Province

Chinhai a port in present-day South Korea

Sign Manual the handwritten signature of the emperor of China

Glossary