The Opium Wars

Background

By the late eighteenth century, Britain had a trade problem with China. The British (and the rest of Europe) wanted Chinese tea, silk, and porcelain. China wanted very little from Europe and required payment in silver. As a result, silver flowed from Britain to China. The British East India Company found a solution: opium grown in India could be sold in China for silver, balancing the trade. By the 1830s, millions of Chinese were opium addicts and the silver flow had reversed.

First Opium War (1839-1842)

Chinese Commissioner Lin Zexu was sent to Canton to stop the opium trade. He destroyed 1,200 tons of British opium. Britain responded with naval force, defeating the Qing easily with steam-powered gunboats and modern artillery.

Treaty of Nanjing (1842): The first of the "unequal treaties." China ceded Hong Kong to Britain, opened five "treaty ports" to British trade, paid a massive indemnity, and granted extraterritoriality (British subjects in China were exempt from Chinese law). The treaty became the model for subsequent agreements with other powers.

Second Opium War (1856-1860)

Britain and France jointly attacked China, ultimately occupying Beijing and burning the Summer Palace. Additional unequal treaties further opened China to Western penetration. The opium trade was formally legalized.

Spheres of influence

After the Opium Wars, Western powers (joined by Russia and Japan) carved out spheres of influence in China. Each sphere gave its sponsoring power exclusive trading and investment rights in a region, plus the right to station troops and build infrastructure (especially railroads).

• Russia: Manchuria and northern China

• Britain: Yangtze River valley

• France: Southern China bordering French Indochina

• Germany: Shandong Peninsula

• Japan: Korea and (after 1895) Taiwan and parts of southern Manchuria