Written by: Ishan Raj Upadhyay - 22008, Grade XII
Posted on: 14 March, 2022
The opium Wars were two violent confrontations in China in the mid-nineteenth century between Western troops and the Qing dynasty, which reigned from 1644 to 1911/12. China and Britain fought the first Opium War (1839–42), while Britain and France battled China in the second Opium War (1856–60), also known as the Arrow War or the Anglo-French War in China. Foreign powers emerged in each case, gaining commercial benefits as well as legal and territorial concessions in China. The disputes ushered in an age of unequal treaties and other encroachments on Qing sovereignty, which contributed to the dynasty's weakening and eventual overthrow in favor of republican China in the early twentieth century.China's attempts to stop the opium trade led to the Opium Wars. Since the 18th century, foreign traffickers (mostly British) have been illegally trafficking opium from India to China, but the trade exploded after 1820. The widespread addiction that resulted was wreaking havoc on China's social and economic systems. In April 1839, the Chinese authorities seized and burned more than 20,000 chests of opium—roughly 1,400 tons of the drug—stored by British merchants in Canton (Guangzhou). In July, a drunken British sailor murdered a Chinese farmer, heightening tensions between the two sides. The British government refused to hand over the accused individuals to the Chinese because it did not want its people to be prosecuted in the Chinese judicial system.Later that year, when British warships demolished a Chinese blockade of the Pearl River (Zhu Jiang) estuary at Hong Kong, hostilities erupted. Early in the year 1840, the British government resolved to deploy an expeditionary force to China, which landed in Hong Kong in June. After months of discussions, the British navy sailed up the Pearl River estuary to Canton, where they assaulted and seized the city in May 1841. Despite a concerted counterattack by Chinese troops in the spring of 1842, further British assaults over the next year were also successful against the weaker Qing forces. The British, on the other hand, resisted the attack and took Nanjing (Nanking) in late August, putting an end to the conflict.Peace talks moved fast, culminating in the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing on August 29. Its stipulations required China to pay a hefty indemnity to the United Kingdom, hand over Hong Kong Island to the British, and raise the number of treaty ports where the British may trade and dwell from one (Canton) to five. Shanghai was one of the four more authorized ports, and the city's metamorphosis into one of China's main commercial entrepots began with the city's increased access to foreigners. On October 8, 1843, the British Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue (Human) conferred British people extraterritoriality (the right to be prosecuted by British courts) and most-favored-nation status (Britain was granted any rights in China that might be granted to other foreign countries).
