d9 discuss the origins ( 100 word response) text 9 economics and imperialism (200 word response). d9 discuss the origins ( 100 word response) text 9 economics and imperialism (200 word response).
text 9 economic instructions .
Document – Economics and Imperialism in Africa
Captain F.D. Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire, vol. I (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1893), pp. 379–382, 473.
.
THE NEW IMPERIALISM: THE RACE FOR AFRICA AND ASIA
In the 1880s, this mass migration of individuals was paralleled by an expansion of Western power into non-Western parts of the world. European nations raced to gain control over Africa and Asia especially. They subdued local opposition and reshaped the existing societies to fit their own purposes. They brought Western culture and institutions to Africa and Asia whether those peoples wanted them or not. By 1914, imperial powers had seized most of Africa and much of Asia, taking direct or indirect control over almost half a billion people.
Imperialism was not new. Since the fifteenth century, Europeans had been extending their influence over the globe. Increasingly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Western nations developed and mobilized the ships, weapons, and finances that gave them advantages over other civilizations. Spurred on by competitive rivalries among themselves for power and wealth, European states used these advantages to impose their will again and again in Asia and Africa. But the burst of expansion between about 1880 and 1914 was so rapid and extensive that historians call it the new imperialism.
Money and Glory
Economic causesThere were many forces driving this wave of imperialism. For one thing, as Document 20.1 indicates, people thought they could make money from it. “It is in order to foster the growth of the trade of this country, and to find an outlet for our manufacturers and our surplus energy, that our far-seeing statesmen and our commercial men advocate colonial expansion,” concluded a British colonial administrator. Industrial nations hungered for new markets, cheap raw materials, and juicy investment opportunities. Western manufacturers, merchants, financiers, shippers, investors, adventurers, and settlers thought they would find all these things in Africa and Asia, and European workers believed that the guaranteed markets would keep them employed. Political leaders, egged on by other pressures as well, usually agreed.
Politics of imperialismYet the race for riches often proved more difficult than people expected. Many colonies cost European governments far more to acquire and maintain than riches received. The colonizing process got complicated politically as well. Imperial powers took some colonies not because they saw them as money-makers but because they wanted to protect the borders of other, more lucrative colonies. In many such buffer colonies, loans were never paid off, mines never yielded enough minerals to cover their expenses, and markets proved not worth the cost of building railroads to reach them. But in the beginning, people hoped for great profits or at least security for money-making ventures in distant lands. Competition and the optimistic taking on of risks were at the heart of capitalism, and this led many Westerners and their nations into Africa and Asia.
Nationalism and imperialismA different, probably more powerful competition—the drive for international prestige—also drove governments, cheered on by millions of their citizens, to snap up colonies. The renewed burst of imperialism came at precisely the time when nationalism was on the rise in Europe. As Document 20.2 suggests, nationalistic sentiment easily translated into a new struggle for imperial conquest—for remote islands, barren deserts, and impenetrable jungles as well as for more lucrative prizes. Governments used such conquests to display their muscle, especially when such a display was lacking at home. France’s expansion, for example, helped French citizens feel compensated for losses suffered in the Franco-Prussian War. Italian conquests overseas promised to make up for Italy’s failure to acquire first-rate power status on the Continent. Gaining colonies became a measure of status, proof of a nation’s political and economic prowess. To be left behind in the imperial race marked a nation as second class. “[A]ll great nations in the fullness of their strength have desired to set their mark upon barbarian lands, and those who fail to participate in this great rivalry will play a pitiable role in the time to come,” the nationalist German historian Heinrich von Treitschke announced. People in the West avidly followed the race for colonies. Newspapers reporting on incidents and conquests in Asia and Africa framed these developments as adventures and patriotic causes. Thrilling stories about action overseas sold countless papers. In books and classrooms, people could see their national colors spreading across oceans and continents.
This competition for economic gain and international prestige gained a life of its own, a momentum that became hard to curb. When one nation moved into a new area, others followed, for fear of being left with nothing. To protect established colonies, imperial powers seized adjoining territories. To ensure supply lines to distant colonies, nations grabbed up islands, ports, and bases. To form alliances and collect bargaining chips for when disputes arose, imperial powers made colonial claims.
JustificationFinally, people found ways to justify imperialism. Westerners saw themselves as bringing “blessings” of their civilization to “backward” peoples. The British writer Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) expressed the belief of many Westerners when he wrote of the “white man’s burden” to civilize the “lesser breeds” of the earth. Missionaries took to heart the injunction to “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”
Figure 20.7, a cover illustration from a French Catholic magazine, The Pilgrim, reveals Westerners’ idealized views of imperialism. Here a member of the White Sisters, a Catholic order, teaches already converted Ugandan girls how to use a sewing machine. The image plainly contrasts the devoted, beautiful European woman and the humble, well-behaved children. The implied promise is that the West will bring the benefits of its technology, faith, and civilization to a new generation of thankful Africans.
FIGURE 20.7
A European Vision of Imperialism This pro-imperialism publication depicts a member of a Catholic order teaching Ugandan girls how to improve their lives. thinking about sources DOCUMENTS
DOCUMENT 20.2 Economics and Imperialism in Africa
With new conquests made in the scramble for Africa, many people expected commerce to accelerate and new markets for manufactured goods to emerge. This attitude shows up in Lord Lugard’s account of his experiences in colonial service. A British soldier and administrator, Lugard helped bring large parts of Africa into the British Empire.
The Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom have unanimously urged the retention of East Africa on the grounds of commercial advantage. The Presidents of the London and Liverpool chambers attended a deputation to her Majesty’s Minister for Foreign Affairs to urge “the absolute necessity, for the prosperity of this country, that new avenues for commerce such as that in East Equatorial Africa should be opened up, in view of the hostile tariffs with which British manufacturers are being everywhere confronted.” Manchester followed with a similar declaration; Glasgow, Birmingham, Edinburgh, and other commercial centres gave it as their opinion that “there is practically no middle course for this country, between a reversal of the free-trade policy to which it is pledged, on the one hand, and a prudent but continuous territorial extension for the creation of new markets, on the other hand.” …
This view has been strongly endorsed by some of our leading statesmen. Space forbids me to quote extracts from speeches by our greatest politicians, which I might else adduce as proof that they held the opinions of the Chambers of Commerce, which I have quoted, to be sound and weighty….
The “Scramble for Africa” by the nations of Europe—an incident without parallel in the history of the world—was due to the growing commercial rivalry, which brought home to civilised nations the vital necessity of securing the only remaining fields for industrial enterprise and expansion. It is well, then, to realise that it is for our advantage—and not alone at the dictates of duty—that we have undertaken responsibilities in East Africa. It is in order to foster the growth of the trade of this country, and to find an outlet for our manufactures and our surplus energy, that our far-seeing statesmen and our commercial men advocate colonial expansion….
There are some who say we have no right in Africa at all, that “it belongs to the natives.” I hold that our right is the necessity that is upon us to provide for our ever-growing population—either by opening new fields for emigration, or by providing work and employment which the development of over-sea extension entails—and to stimulate trade by finding new markets, since we know what misery trade depression brings at home.
While thus serving our own interests as a nation, we may, by selecting men of the right stamp for the control of new territories, bring at the same time many advantages to Africa. Nor do we deprive the natives of their birthright of freedom, to place them under a foreign yoke. It has ever been the key-note of British colonial method to rule through and by the natives, and it is this method, in contrast to the arbitrary and uncompromising rule of Germany, France, Portugal, and Spain, which has been the secret of our success as a colonising nation, and has made us welcomed by tribes and peoples in Africa, who ever rose in revolt against the other nations named. In Africa, moreover, there is among the people a natural inclination to submit to a higher authority. That intense detestation of control which animates our Teutonic races does not exist among the tribes of Africa, and if there is any authority that we replace, it is the authority of the Slavers and Arabs, or the intolerable tyranny of the “dominant tribe.” …
***
So far, therefore, as my personal experience goes, I have formed the following estimate: (1) No kind of men I have ever met with—including British soldiers, Afghans, Burmese, and many tribes of India—are more amenable to discipline, more ready to fall into the prescribed groove willingly and quickly, more easy to handle, or require so little compulsion as the African. (2) To obtain satisfactory results a great deal of system, division of labour, supervision, etc., is required. (3) On the whole, the African is very quick at learning, and those who prove themselves good at the superior class of work take a pride in the results, and are very amenable to a word of praise, blame, or sarcasm.
from: Captain F.D. Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire, vol. I (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1893), pp. 379–382, 473.Analyze the Source
How does Lugard connect nationalistic and economic motives for imperialism?
How does he respond to arguments against imperialism?
Sherman, Dennis. The West in the World, Combined Volume, Edition 5, McGraw-HiIl, 2015, pp. 609-611
d9 discuss the origins instructions
Discuss the origins and development of the Dahomey Warriors. Why women warriors? For what purposes? How does this change with the arrival of Europeans? In which ways were they a form of resistance to the imperialist expansion?
Watch the documentary: The Legendary Battles of the Dahomey Amazons by HomeTeam History (14 min 30 sec): https://youtu.be/gWMbPuzeIMc (Links to an external site.)
Read the article: Dahomey’s Women Warriors by Mike Dash, Sep. 23, 2011, in the SmithsonianMag.com
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/dahomeys-women-warriors-88286072/ (Links to an external site.)
In your replies incorporate elements from both sources, and cite them.
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d9 what are the Congolese (100 word response) 2nd topic d9 drug wars (100 word response) 2 separate answers
d9 drug wars instructions
Drug Wars and Wars on Drugs (Chinese Opium and British Trade)
Read the Global Connections “Opium and the West in China” (Overview section).
What did Lin Zexu write to Queen Victoria of the British Empire? Which arguments did Lin use in his bid to get the British in ending this practice? Did they prove effective? Why (not)?
To bring the discussion locally: do you know of a monument to Lin Zexu in New York City? Please google image it and tell us where it is. Let’s see who’ll post it first!
For a short overview Opium War Explained (13 min): https://youtu.be/nDwoBC_DtGc (Links to an external site.)
Text and Images for Discussion (use questions from below as applicable to our discussion question):
China, with its highly structured society, strong central government, and large armed forces, had long kept Westerners at arm’s length. Although the Chinese admitted some European traders and Christian missionaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they closed their doors rather tightly thereafter. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, China ranked among the world’s most prosperous and powerful societies. The Chinese still considered their huge, populous country the center of civilization surrounded by lesser civilizations. As late as 1793, China’s emperor could easily dismiss a proposed trade agreement with Britain: “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in abundance. We have no need of barbarian products.”
However, during the nineteenth century, population explosion, famine, rebellions, and poor leadership under the declining Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty weakened the ancient civilization. The country became a power vacuum that proved all too tempting to the Western powers. Armed with their guns and goods, Westerners streamed into China.
Opium Wars
First, the British forced themselves on the Chinese. During the 1830s, Britain began trading Indian opium in China for tea, silver, silk, and other products. Soon opium became one of Britain’s most important commodities (see Global Connections). Chinese officials tried to stop the economic drain, addiction, and criminal activities stemming from the opium trade by making the drug illegal. As the Chinese official in charge exclaimed to the British, “You do not wish opium to harm your own country, but you choose to bring that harm to other countries such as China. Why?” In response, Britain sent gunboats and troops armed with modern weapons. They easily defeated the Chinese in a series of clashes known as the Opium Wars. By the terms of the Treaty of Nanking (1842), which ended the conflict, the Chinese ceded Hong Kong to the British, opened several tariff-free ports to foreign trade, exempted foreigners from Chinese law, and paid Britain a large indemnity.
Taiping RebellionAt mid-century, disaster struck. China suffered a devastating civil war—the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864). Subsequent rebellions extended the internal conflict another ten years. In the end, these wars took perhaps fifty million lives, and the famines that followed cost the lives of millions more. All this strife weakened the Qing dynasty and revealed the government’s inability to control a nation threatened by external enemies and internal upheaval.
Page 619
GLOBAL CONNECTIONSOpium and the West in China
Opium, a narcotic derived from the opium poppy, was known and used—especially for medical purposes—in China for centuries. However, not until the nineteenth century did its use become so widespread that millions of Chinese became addicted to the drug. The West was not free from opium, either, for Europeans and Americans increasingly resorted to opium-based products such as morphine and laudanum to calm their nerves, ease aches and pains, and control their noisy children. During the nineteenth century, most of China’s opium supply was imported by British merchants from colonial holdings in India.
Chinese officials made only halfhearted attempts to restrict the opium trade until 1838, when Emperor Daoguang finally banned importation of the drug. In 1839, an imperial official, Lin Zexu, wrote a letter to Britain’s Queen Victoria complaining about the destructive impact of opium on China. “Unscrupulous” merchants, Lin wrote, were “so obsessed with material gain that they have no concern whatever for the harm they can cause to others.” These merchants had flooded China with so much opium “that this poison has spread far and wide in all the provinces.” Lin asked the queen to stop the trade and “destroy and plow under all of these opium plants.” When Lin began confiscating and destroying imported opium, the British responded with force. As one of China’s discouraged commissioners reported, “The ships of the barbarians are sturdy and their cannons fierce.” By 1842, British firepower had overwhelmed the Chinese, and the Treaty of Nanjing legalized the opium trade and granted concessions to Britain and other Western powers.
The struggle against the British over opium was only the beginning of the wars and other upheavals China suffered during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Internal problems also increasingly plagued the vast country, weakening the government’s ability to resist the West. In 1852, Zeng Guofan, a perceptive scholar and high official in Emperor Xianfeng’s government, commented on the situation. Taxes, Zeng claimed, were overwhelming the people. Therefore, “people are complaining and angry, and often the resistance to tax payment bursts forth and mushrooms into full-fledged riot.” More and more impoverished people were resorting to banditry to survive. Yet attempts to stop the lawlessness were useless because governmental soldiers “have always been in collusion with the bandits,” Zeng maintained, and would soon release the bandits “in return for a handsome bribe.” Moreover, people had lost faith in the justice system because so many “innocent men are condemned” and the people “[are unable] to have a wrong redressed.” The next year, a series of disastrous uprisings struck China, the worst of which came with the Taiping Rebellion. Over the following ten years, the conflicts devastated large parts of the country. While the government eventually crushed the rebels, the country soon began losing lands and control to imperial powers.
Meanwhile, the destructive consequences of the opium trade mounted. Isabella Bird Bishop, a British traveler in China during the 1890s, reported on the situation. In addition to noting the continuing importation of opium into China by the British, Bishop observed that “the area devoted to the [opium-producing] poppy in Sze Chuan [province] is enormous.” Moreover, its culture was “encroaching on the rice and arable lands” so much that “there was no longer a margin left on which to feed the population in years of a poor harvest.” Even though the Chinese regarded the opium habit as a disease, Bishop continued, in that province “opium houses are as common as gin shops in our London slums.” In the large cities of that province, she noted, 80 percent of men and 40 percent of women were opium smokers. “It is obvious,” she concluded, “that opium has come to stay.”
To other observers throughout China and the West, it seemed equally clear that China was caught in the tightening grip of Western and Japanese imperialists as well as a powerful and addictive narcotic.
Making ConnectionsHow did Chinese officials try to restrict the opium trade?
What do you think of the British response?
In the years that followed, China fought a series of wars against foreigners. It lost them all, and each defeat chipped away at its sovereignty and racked up yet more indemnities. The Western powers grabbed up spheres of influence and semi-independent treaty ports where all foreigners were exempt from Chinese jurisdiction. In addition, they built railroads to penetrate farther into China’s heartland. As shown on Map 20.5, they also took lands on the huge country’s periphery. By all these means, the French and British added to their possessions in south Asia, Russia gained territory in the north, and Japan snapped up Korea and Taiwan in the east.
The Philippines
The United States joined in the frenzy, grabbing the Philippine Islands after a war with Spain in 1898 and a long struggle against Filipino nationalist forces that cost the lives of perhaps 200,000 Filipinos. President William McKinley explained that the United States had the duty “to educate the Filipinos and uplift and Christianize them.” To protect its commercial interests in Asia, the United States called for an “Open Door” policy that would avoid further territorial annexations by the imperial powers. Rivalry among the great powers themselves, as much as Chinese resistance, saved China from complete loss of its independence.
Page 620 thinking about
GEOGRAPHY
MAP 20.5Imperialism in Asia, 1840–1914
This map shows the expansion of imperialism in Asia by the Western powers and Japan.
Explore the Map
Which powers had gained the largest territorial interests in Asia by 1914?
Where do you think conflicts were likely to break out among Russia, Britain, and Japan? Why?
Boxer RebellionMeanwhile, Chinese nationalism rose in response to foreign aggression. In 1899–1900, the Boxer Rebellion, a serious uprising against Western influences, erupted. Furious at those who had betrayed Chinese religion and customs, the Boxers, a secret organization that believed in the spiritual power of the martial arts, killed thousands of Chinese Christians and a number of foreigners—all with the encouragement of China’s dowager empress. Figure 20.9, a painting by American artist John Clymer, depicts a battle between the Boxers— in the center, with swords and spears—and U.S. marines—in the lower right, with Modern machine guns, rifles with bayonets, and revolvers. The Boxers, represented as wild and bloodthirsty, seem to burst out of the heavily populated Chinese society, while the steadfast U.S. Marines fire from the outside into that society. Combined forces from the imperial powers brutally suppressed this nationalist movement and forced China to pay large indemnities.
FIGURE 20.9
John Clymer, The Boxer Rebellion, 1900 This dramatic painting shows U.S. Marines firing on the Boxers, who in 1899 staged a rebellion against foreign influence in China.Page 621
Even propped up by imperial powers, the corrupt Chinese central government could not last. In 1911, reformers led by Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), a Western-educated doctor, launched a revolution aimed at freeing China from foreign exploitation and modernizing its society. Rebellions swept most of China and pushed the corrupt, inept, disintegrating dynasty to its final collapse. Sun proclaimed a republic, but the power soon dispersed among imperial generals, who became warlords. China’s struggles to cope with the encroaching world and its internal problems were far from over.
Sherman, Dennis. The West in the World, Combined Volume, Edition 5, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2018, 618-621.
d9 what are the Congolese instructions
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How were U.S. imperialism and progressivism linked with each other in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
d9 discuss the origins ( 100 word response) text 9 economics and imperialism (200 word response) ” acct-301-ftoom/”>History Assignment Help Discussion Question: How were U.S. imperialism and progressivism linked with each other in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Another way to ask the question: Did U.S. imperialism effect or play a role in the development of progressivism, and/or did progressivism effect or play a role in the development of imperialism during this period?
“Click the links to below to read and view the sources. Then respond to the discussion question. Your response must be at least 300 words and include specific examples, including quotations and paraphrases from both sources to support your answers.Remember to include a question for your classmates to respond to in their comments.”
[supanova_question]
d9 what are the Congolese (100 word response) 2nd topic d9 drug wars (100 word response) 2 separate answers
d9 drug wars instructions
Drug Wars and Wars on Drugs (Chinese Opium and British Trade)
Read the Global Connections “Opium and the West in China” (Overview section).
What did Lin Zexu write to Queen Victoria of the British Empire? Which arguments did Lin use in his bid to get the British in ending this practice? Did they prove effective? Why (not)?
To bring the discussion locally: do you know of a monument to Lin Zexu in New York City? Please google image it and tell us where it is. Let’s see who’ll post it first!
For a short overview Opium War Explained (13 min): https://youtu.be/nDwoBC_DtGc (Links to an external site.)
Text and Images for Discussion (use questions from below as applicable to our discussion question):
China, with its highly structured society, strong central government, and large armed forces, had long kept Westerners at arm’s length. Although the Chinese admitted some European traders and Christian missionaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they closed their doors rather tightly thereafter. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, China ranked among the world’s most prosperous and powerful societies. The Chinese still considered their huge, populous country the center of civilization surrounded by lesser civilizations. As late as 1793, China’s emperor could easily dismiss a proposed trade agreement with Britain: “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in abundance. We have no need of barbarian products.”
However, during the nineteenth century, population explosion, famine, rebellions, and poor leadership under the declining Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty weakened the ancient civilization. The country became a power vacuum that proved all too tempting to the Western powers. Armed with their guns and goods, Westerners streamed into China.
Opium Wars
First, the British forced themselves on the Chinese. During the 1830s, Britain began trading Indian opium in China for tea, silver, silk, and other products. Soon opium became one of Britain’s most important commodities (see Global Connections). Chinese officials tried to stop the economic drain, addiction, and criminal activities stemming from the opium trade by making the drug illegal. As the Chinese official in charge exclaimed to the British, “You do not wish opium to harm your own country, but you choose to bring that harm to other countries such as China. Why?” In response, Britain sent gunboats and troops armed with modern weapons. They easily defeated the Chinese in a series of clashes known as the Opium Wars. By the terms of the Treaty of Nanking (1842), which ended the conflict, the Chinese ceded Hong Kong to the British, opened several tariff-free ports to foreign trade, exempted foreigners from Chinese law, and paid Britain a large indemnity.
Taiping RebellionAt mid-century, disaster struck. China suffered a devastating civil war—the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864). Subsequent rebellions extended the internal conflict another ten years. In the end, these wars took perhaps fifty million lives, and the famines that followed cost the lives of millions more. All this strife weakened the Qing dynasty and revealed the government’s inability to control a nation threatened by external enemies and internal upheaval.
Page 619
GLOBAL CONNECTIONSOpium and the West in China
Opium, a narcotic derived from the opium poppy, was known and used—especially for medical purposes—in China for centuries. However, not until the nineteenth century did its use become so widespread that millions of Chinese became addicted to the drug. The West was not free from opium, either, for Europeans and Americans increasingly resorted to opium-based products such as morphine and laudanum to calm their nerves, ease aches and pains, and control their noisy children. During the nineteenth century, most of China’s opium supply was imported by British merchants from colonial holdings in India.
Chinese officials made only halfhearted attempts to restrict the opium trade until 1838, when Emperor Daoguang finally banned importation of the drug. In 1839, an imperial official, Lin Zexu, wrote a letter to Britain’s Queen Victoria complaining about the destructive impact of opium on China. “Unscrupulous” merchants, Lin wrote, were “so obsessed with material gain that they have no concern whatever for the harm they can cause to others.” These merchants had flooded China with so much opium “that this poison has spread far and wide in all the provinces.” Lin asked the queen to stop the trade and “destroy and plow under all of these opium plants.” When Lin began confiscating and destroying imported opium, the British responded with force. As one of China’s discouraged commissioners reported, “The ships of the barbarians are sturdy and their cannons fierce.” By 1842, British firepower had overwhelmed the Chinese, and the Treaty of Nanjing legalized the opium trade and granted concessions to Britain and other Western powers.
The struggle against the British over opium was only the beginning of the wars and other upheavals China suffered during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Internal problems also increasingly plagued the vast country, weakening the government’s ability to resist the West. In 1852, Zeng Guofan, a perceptive scholar and high official in Emperor Xianfeng’s government, commented on the situation. Taxes, Zeng claimed, were overwhelming the people. Therefore, “people are complaining and angry, and often the resistance to tax payment bursts forth and mushrooms into full-fledged riot.” More and more impoverished people were resorting to banditry to survive. Yet attempts to stop the lawlessness were useless because governmental soldiers “have always been in collusion with the bandits,” Zeng maintained, and would soon release the bandits “in return for a handsome bribe.” Moreover, people had lost faith in the justice system because so many “innocent men are condemned” and the people “[are unable] to have a wrong redressed.” The next year, a series of disastrous uprisings struck China, the worst of which came with the Taiping Rebellion. Over the following ten years, the conflicts devastated large parts of the country. While the government eventually crushed the rebels, the country soon began losing lands and control to imperial powers.
Meanwhile, the destructive consequences of the opium trade mounted. Isabella Bird Bishop, a British traveler in China during the 1890s, reported on the situation. In addition to noting the continuing importation of opium into China by the British, Bishop observed that “the area devoted to the [opium-producing] poppy in Sze Chuan [province] is enormous.” Moreover, its culture was “encroaching on the rice and arable lands” so much that “there was no longer a margin left on which to feed the population in years of a poor harvest.” Even though the Chinese regarded the opium habit as a disease, Bishop continued, in that province “opium houses are as common as gin shops in our London slums.” In the large cities of that province, she noted, 80 percent of men and 40 percent of women were opium smokers. “It is obvious,” she concluded, “that opium has come to stay.”
To other observers throughout China and the West, it seemed equally clear that China was caught in the tightening grip of Western and Japanese imperialists as well as a powerful and addictive narcotic.
Making ConnectionsHow did Chinese officials try to restrict the opium trade?
What do you think of the British response?
In the years that followed, China fought a series of wars against foreigners. It lost them all, and each defeat chipped away at its sovereignty and racked up yet more indemnities. The Western powers grabbed up spheres of influence and semi-independent treaty ports where all foreigners were exempt from Chinese jurisdiction. In addition, they built railroads to penetrate farther into China’s heartland. As shown on Map 20.5, they also took lands on the huge country’s periphery. By all these means, the French and British added to their possessions in south Asia, Russia gained territory in the north, and Japan snapped up Korea and Taiwan in the east.
The Philippines
The United States joined in the frenzy, grabbing the Philippine Islands after a war with Spain in 1898 and a long struggle against Filipino nationalist forces that cost the lives of perhaps 200,000 Filipinos. President William McKinley explained that the United States had the duty “to educate the Filipinos and uplift and Christianize them.” To protect its commercial interests in Asia, the United States called for an “Open Door” policy that would avoid further territorial annexations by the imperial powers. Rivalry among the great powers themselves, as much as Chinese resistance, saved China from complete loss of its independence.
Page 620 thinking about
GEOGRAPHY
MAP 20.5Imperialism in Asia, 1840–1914
This map shows the expansion of imperialism in Asia by the Western powers and Japan.
Explore the Map
Which powers had gained the largest territorial interests in Asia by 1914?
Where do you think conflicts were likely to break out among Russia, Britain, and Japan? Why?
Boxer RebellionMeanwhile, Chinese nationalism rose in response to foreign aggression. In 1899–1900, the Boxer Rebellion, a serious uprising against Western influences, erupted. Furious at those who had betrayed Chinese religion and customs, the Boxers, a secret organization that believed in the spiritual power of the martial arts, killed thousands of Chinese Christians and a number of foreigners—all with the encouragement of China’s dowager empress. Figure 20.9, a painting by American artist John Clymer, depicts a battle between the Boxers— in the center, with swords and spears—and U.S. marines—in the lower right, with Modern machine guns, rifles with bayonets, and revolvers. The Boxers, represented as wild and bloodthirsty, seem to burst out of the heavily populated Chinese society, while the steadfast U.S. Marines fire from the outside into that society. Combined forces from the imperial powers brutally suppressed this nationalist movement and forced China to pay large indemnities.
FIGURE 20.9
John Clymer, The Boxer Rebellion, 1900 This dramatic painting shows U.S. Marines firing on the Boxers, who in 1899 staged a rebellion against foreign influence in China.Page 621
Even propped up by imperial powers, the corrupt Chinese central government could not last. In 1911, reformers led by Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), a Western-educated doctor, launched a revolution aimed at freeing China from foreign exploitation and modernizing its society. Rebellions swept most of China and pushed the corrupt, inept, disintegrating dynasty to its final collapse. Sun proclaimed a republic, but the power soon dispersed among imperial generals, who became warlords. China’s struggles to cope with the encroaching world and its internal problems were far from over.
Sherman, Dennis. The West in the World, Combined Volume, Edition 5, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2018, 618-621.
d9 what are the Congolese instructions
done
Seen
5 mins ago[supanova_question]
https://anyessayhelp.com/ Discussion Question: How were U.S. imperialism and progressivism linked with each other in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Another way to ask the question: Did U.S. imperialism effect or play a role in the development of progressivism, and/or did progressivism effect or play a role in the development of imperialism during this period?
“Click the links to below to read and view the sources. Then respond to the discussion question. Your response must be at least 300 words and include specific examples, including quotations and paraphrases from both sources to support your answers.Remember to include a question for your classmates to respond to in their comments.”
[supanova_question]
d9 what are the Congolese (100 word response) 2nd topic d9 drug wars (100 word response) 2 separate answers
d9 drug wars instructions
Drug Wars and Wars on Drugs (Chinese Opium and British Trade)
Read the Global Connections “Opium and the West in China” (Overview section).
What did Lin Zexu write to Queen Victoria of the British Empire? Which arguments did Lin use in his bid to get the British in ending this practice? Did they prove effective? Why (not)?
To bring the discussion locally: do you know of a monument to Lin Zexu in New York City? Please google image it and tell us where it is. Let’s see who’ll post it first!
For a short overview Opium War Explained (13 min): https://youtu.be/nDwoBC_DtGc (Links to an external site.)
Text and Images for Discussion (use questions from below as applicable to our discussion question):
China, with its highly structured society, strong central government, and large armed forces, had long kept Westerners at arm’s length. Although the Chinese admitted some European traders and Christian missionaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they closed their doors rather tightly thereafter. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, China ranked among the world’s most prosperous and powerful societies. The Chinese still considered their huge, populous country the center of civilization surrounded by lesser civilizations. As late as 1793, China’s emperor could easily dismiss a proposed trade agreement with Britain: “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in abundance. We have no need of barbarian products.”
However, during the nineteenth century, population explosion, famine, rebellions, and poor leadership under the declining Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty weakened the ancient civilization. The country became a power vacuum that proved all too tempting to the Western powers. Armed with their guns and goods, Westerners streamed into China.
Opium Wars
First, the British forced themselves on the Chinese. During the 1830s, Britain began trading Indian opium in China for tea, silver, silk, and other products. Soon opium became one of Britain’s most important commodities (see Global Connections). Chinese officials tried to stop the economic drain, addiction, and criminal activities stemming from the opium trade by making the drug illegal. As the Chinese official in charge exclaimed to the British, “You do not wish opium to harm your own country, but you choose to bring that harm to other countries such as China. Why?” In response, Britain sent gunboats and troops armed with modern weapons. They easily defeated the Chinese in a series of clashes known as the Opium Wars. By the terms of the Treaty of Nanking (1842), which ended the conflict, the Chinese ceded Hong Kong to the British, opened several tariff-free ports to foreign trade, exempted foreigners from Chinese law, and paid Britain a large indemnity.
Taiping RebellionAt mid-century, disaster struck. China suffered a devastating civil war—the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864). Subsequent rebellions extended the internal conflict another ten years. In the end, these wars took perhaps fifty million lives, and the famines that followed cost the lives of millions more. All this strife weakened the Qing dynasty and revealed the government’s inability to control a nation threatened by external enemies and internal upheaval.
Page 619
GLOBAL CONNECTIONSOpium and the West in China
Opium, a narcotic derived from the opium poppy, was known and used—especially for medical purposes—in China for centuries. However, not until the nineteenth century did its use become so widespread that millions of Chinese became addicted to the drug. The West was not free from opium, either, for Europeans and Americans increasingly resorted to opium-based products such as morphine and laudanum to calm their nerves, ease aches and pains, and control their noisy children. During the nineteenth century, most of China’s opium supply was imported by British merchants from colonial holdings in India.
Chinese officials made only halfhearted attempts to restrict the opium trade until 1838, when Emperor Daoguang finally banned importation of the drug. In 1839, an imperial official, Lin Zexu, wrote a letter to Britain’s Queen Victoria complaining about the destructive impact of opium on China. “Unscrupulous” merchants, Lin wrote, were “so obsessed with material gain that they have no concern whatever for the harm they can cause to others.” These merchants had flooded China with so much opium “that this poison has spread far and wide in all the provinces.” Lin asked the queen to stop the trade and “destroy and plow under all of these opium plants.” When Lin began confiscating and destroying imported opium, the British responded with force. As one of China’s discouraged commissioners reported, “The ships of the barbarians are sturdy and their cannons fierce.” By 1842, British firepower had overwhelmed the Chinese, and the Treaty of Nanjing legalized the opium trade and granted concessions to Britain and other Western powers.
The struggle against the British over opium was only the beginning of the wars and other upheavals China suffered during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Internal problems also increasingly plagued the vast country, weakening the government’s ability to resist the West. In 1852, Zeng Guofan, a perceptive scholar and high official in Emperor Xianfeng’s government, commented on the situation. Taxes, Zeng claimed, were overwhelming the people. Therefore, “people are complaining and angry, and often the resistance to tax payment bursts forth and mushrooms into full-fledged riot.” More and more impoverished people were resorting to banditry to survive. Yet attempts to stop the lawlessness were useless because governmental soldiers “have always been in collusion with the bandits,” Zeng maintained, and would soon release the bandits “in return for a handsome bribe.” Moreover, people had lost faith in the justice system because so many “innocent men are condemned” and the people “[are unable] to have a wrong redressed.” The next year, a series of disastrous uprisings struck China, the worst of which came with the Taiping Rebellion. Over the following ten years, the conflicts devastated large parts of the country. While the government eventually crushed the rebels, the country soon began losing lands and control to imperial powers.
Meanwhile, the destructive consequences of the opium trade mounted. Isabella Bird Bishop, a British traveler in China during the 1890s, reported on the situation. In addition to noting the continuing importation of opium into China by the British, Bishop observed that “the area devoted to the [opium-producing] poppy in Sze Chuan [province] is enormous.” Moreover, its culture was “encroaching on the rice and arable lands” so much that “there was no longer a margin left on which to feed the population in years of a poor harvest.” Even though the Chinese regarded the opium habit as a disease, Bishop continued, in that province “opium houses are as common as gin shops in our London slums.” In the large cities of that province, she noted, 80 percent of men and 40 percent of women were opium smokers. “It is obvious,” she concluded, “that opium has come to stay.”
To other observers throughout China and the West, it seemed equally clear that China was caught in the tightening grip of Western and Japanese imperialists as well as a powerful and addictive narcotic.
Making ConnectionsHow did Chinese officials try to restrict the opium trade?
What do you think of the British response?
In the years that followed, China fought a series of wars against foreigners. It lost them all, and each defeat chipped away at its sovereignty and racked up yet more indemnities. The Western powers grabbed up spheres of influence and semi-independent treaty ports where all foreigners were exempt from Chinese jurisdiction. In addition, they built railroads to penetrate farther into China’s heartland. As shown on Map 20.5, they also took lands on the huge country’s periphery. By all these means, the French and British added to their possessions in south Asia, Russia gained territory in the north, and Japan snapped up Korea and Taiwan in the east.
The Philippines
The United States joined in the frenzy, grabbing the Philippine Islands after a war with Spain in 1898 and a long struggle against Filipino nationalist forces that cost the lives of perhaps 200,000 Filipinos. President William McKinley explained that the United States had the duty “to educate the Filipinos and uplift and Christianize them.” To protect its commercial interests in Asia, the United States called for an “Open Door” policy that would avoid further territorial annexations by the imperial powers. Rivalry among the great powers themselves, as much as Chinese resistance, saved China from complete loss of its independence.
Page 620 thinking about
GEOGRAPHY
MAP 20.5Imperialism in Asia, 1840–1914
This map shows the expansion of imperialism in Asia by the Western powers and Japan.
Explore the Map
Which powers had gained the largest territorial interests in Asia by 1914?
Where do you think conflicts were likely to break out among Russia, Britain, and Japan? Why?
Boxer RebellionMeanwhile, Chinese nationalism rose in response to foreign aggression. In 1899–1900, the Boxer Rebellion, a serious uprising against Western influences, erupted. Furious at those who had betrayed Chinese religion and customs, the Boxers, a secret organization that believed in the spiritual power of the martial arts, killed thousands of Chinese Christians and a number of foreigners—all with the encouragement of China’s dowager empress. Figure 20.9, a painting by American artist John Clymer, depicts a battle between the Boxers— in the center, with swords and spears—and U.S. marines—in the lower right, with Modern machine guns, rifles with bayonets, and revolvers. The Boxers, represented as wild and bloodthirsty, seem to burst out of the heavily populated Chinese society, while the steadfast U.S. Marines fire from the outside into that society. Combined forces from the imperial powers brutally suppressed this nationalist movement and forced China to pay large indemnities.
FIGURE 20.9
John Clymer, The Boxer Rebellion, 1900 This dramatic painting shows U.S. Marines firing on the Boxers, who in 1899 staged a rebellion against foreign influence in China.Page 621
Even propped up by imperial powers, the corrupt Chinese central government could not last. In 1911, reformers led by Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), a Western-educated doctor, launched a revolution aimed at freeing China from foreign exploitation and modernizing its society. Rebellions swept most of China and pushed the corrupt, inept, disintegrating dynasty to its final collapse. Sun proclaimed a republic, but the power soon dispersed among imperial generals, who became warlords. China’s struggles to cope with the encroaching world and its internal problems were far from over.
Sherman, Dennis. The West in the World, Combined Volume, Edition 5, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2018, 618-621.
d9 what are the Congolese instructions
done
Seen
5 mins ago[supanova_question]
https://anyessayhelp.com/ Discussion Question: How were U.S. imperialism and progressivism linked with each other in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Another way to ask the question: Did U.S. imperialism effect or play a role in the development of progressivism, and/or did progressivism effect or play a role in the development of imperialism during this period?
“Click the links to below to read and view the sources. Then respond to the discussion question. Your response must be at least 300 words and include specific examples, including quotations and paraphrases from both sources to support your answers.Remember to include a question for your classmates to respond to in their comments.”
[supanova_question]
d9 what are the Congolese (100 word response) 2nd topic d9 drug wars (100 word response) 2 separate answers
d9 drug wars instructions
Drug Wars and Wars on Drugs (Chinese Opium and British Trade)
Read the Global Connections “Opium and the West in China” (Overview section).
What did Lin Zexu write to Queen Victoria of the British Empire? Which arguments did Lin use in his bid to get the British in ending this practice? Did they prove effective? Why (not)?
To bring the discussion locally: do you know of a monument to Lin Zexu in New York City? Please google image it and tell us where it is. Let’s see who’ll post it first!
For a short overview Opium War Explained (13 min): https://youtu.be/nDwoBC_DtGc (Links to an external site.)
Text and Images for Discussion (use questions from below as applicable to our discussion question):
China, with its highly structured society, strong central government, and large armed forces, had long kept Westerners at arm’s length. Although the Chinese admitted some European traders and Christian missionaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they closed their doors rather tightly thereafter. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, China ranked among the world’s most prosperous and powerful societies. The Chinese still considered their huge, populous country the center of civilization surrounded by lesser civilizations. As late as 1793, China’s emperor could easily dismiss a proposed trade agreement with Britain: “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in abundance. We have no need of barbarian products.”
However, during the nineteenth century, population explosion, famine, rebellions, and poor leadership under the declining Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty weakened the ancient civilization. The country became a power vacuum that proved all too tempting to the Western powers. Armed with their guns and goods, Westerners streamed into China.
Opium Wars
First, the British forced themselves on the Chinese. During the 1830s, Britain began trading Indian opium in China for tea, silver, silk, and other products. Soon opium became one of Britain’s most important commodities (see Global Connections). Chinese officials tried to stop the economic drain, addiction, and criminal activities stemming from the opium trade by making the drug illegal. As the Chinese official in charge exclaimed to the British, “You do not wish opium to harm your own country, but you choose to bring that harm to other countries such as China. Why?” In response, Britain sent gunboats and troops armed with modern weapons. They easily defeated the Chinese in a series of clashes known as the Opium Wars. By the terms of the Treaty of Nanking (1842), which ended the conflict, the Chinese ceded Hong Kong to the British, opened several tariff-free ports to foreign trade, exempted foreigners from Chinese law, and paid Britain a large indemnity.
Taiping RebellionAt mid-century, disaster struck. China suffered a devastating civil war—the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864). Subsequent rebellions extended the internal conflict another ten years. In the end, these wars took perhaps fifty million lives, and the famines that followed cost the lives of millions more. All this strife weakened the Qing dynasty and revealed the government’s inability to control a nation threatened by external enemies and internal upheaval.
Page 619
GLOBAL CONNECTIONSOpium and the West in China
Opium, a narcotic derived from the opium poppy, was known and used—especially for medical purposes—in China for centuries. However, not until the nineteenth century did its use become so widespread that millions of Chinese became addicted to the drug. The West was not free from opium, either, for Europeans and Americans increasingly resorted to opium-based products such as morphine and laudanum to calm their nerves, ease aches and pains, and control their noisy children. During the nineteenth century, most of China’s opium supply was imported by British merchants from colonial holdings in India.
Chinese officials made only halfhearted attempts to restrict the opium trade until 1838, when Emperor Daoguang finally banned importation of the drug. In 1839, an imperial official, Lin Zexu, wrote a letter to Britain’s Queen Victoria complaining about the destructive impact of opium on China. “Unscrupulous” merchants, Lin wrote, were “so obsessed with material gain that they have no concern whatever for the harm they can cause to others.” These merchants had flooded China with so much opium “that this poison has spread far and wide in all the provinces.” Lin asked the queen to stop the trade and “destroy and plow under all of these opium plants.” When Lin began confiscating and destroying imported opium, the British responded with force. As one of China’s discouraged commissioners reported, “The ships of the barbarians are sturdy and their cannons fierce.” By 1842, British firepower had overwhelmed the Chinese, and the Treaty of Nanjing legalized the opium trade and granted concessions to Britain and other Western powers.
The struggle against the British over opium was only the beginning of the wars and other upheavals China suffered during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Internal problems also increasingly plagued the vast country, weakening the government’s ability to resist the West. In 1852, Zeng Guofan, a perceptive scholar and high official in Emperor Xianfeng’s government, commented on the situation. Taxes, Zeng claimed, were overwhelming the people. Therefore, “people are complaining and angry, and often the resistance to tax payment bursts forth and mushrooms into full-fledged riot.” More and more impoverished people were resorting to banditry to survive. Yet attempts to stop the lawlessness were useless because governmental soldiers “have always been in collusion with the bandits,” Zeng maintained, and would soon release the bandits “in return for a handsome bribe.” Moreover, people had lost faith in the justice system because so many “innocent men are condemned” and the people “[are unable] to have a wrong redressed.” The next year, a series of disastrous uprisings struck China, the worst of which came with the Taiping Rebellion. Over the following ten years, the conflicts devastated large parts of the country. While the government eventually crushed the rebels, the country soon began losing lands and control to imperial powers.
Meanwhile, the destructive consequences of the opium trade mounted. Isabella Bird Bishop, a British traveler in China during the 1890s, reported on the situation. In addition to noting the continuing importation of opium into China by the British, Bishop observed that “the area devoted to the [opium-producing] poppy in Sze Chuan [province] is enormous.” Moreover, its culture was “encroaching on the rice and arable lands” so much that “there was no longer a margin left on which to feed the population in years of a poor harvest.” Even though the Chinese regarded the opium habit as a disease, Bishop continued, in that province “opium houses are as common as gin shops in our London slums.” In the large cities of that province, she noted, 80 percent of men and 40 percent of women were opium smokers. “It is obvious,” she concluded, “that opium has come to stay.”
To other observers throughout China and the West, it seemed equally clear that China was caught in the tightening grip of Western and Japanese imperialists as well as a powerful and addictive narcotic.
Making ConnectionsHow did Chinese officials try to restrict the opium trade?
What do you think of the British response?
In the years that followed, China fought a series of wars against foreigners. It lost them all, and each defeat chipped away at its sovereignty and racked up yet more indemnities. The Western powers grabbed up spheres of influence and semi-independent treaty ports where all foreigners were exempt from Chinese jurisdiction. In addition, they built railroads to penetrate farther into China’s heartland. As shown on Map 20.5, they also took lands on the huge country’s periphery. By all these means, the French and British added to their possessions in south Asia, Russia gained territory in the north, and Japan snapped up Korea and Taiwan in the east.
The Philippines
The United States joined in the frenzy, grabbing the Philippine Islands after a war with Spain in 1898 and a long struggle against Filipino nationalist forces that cost the lives of perhaps 200,000 Filipinos. President William McKinley explained that the United States had the duty “to educate the Filipinos and uplift and Christianize them.” To protect its commercial interests in Asia, the United States called for an “Open Door” policy that would avoid further territorial annexations by the imperial powers. Rivalry among the great powers themselves, as much as Chinese resistance, saved China from complete loss of its independence.
Page 620 thinking about
GEOGRAPHY
MAP 20.5Imperialism in Asia, 1840–1914
This map shows the expansion of imperialism in Asia by the Western powers and Japan.
Explore the Map
Which powers had gained the largest territorial interests in Asia by 1914?
Where do you think conflicts were likely to break out among Russia, Britain, and Japan? Why?
Boxer RebellionMeanwhile, Chinese nationalism rose in response to foreign aggression. In 1899–1900, the Boxer Rebellion, a serious uprising against Western influences, erupted. Furious at those who had betrayed Chinese religion and customs, the Boxers, a secret organization that believed in the spiritual power of the martial arts, killed thousands of Chinese Christians and a number of foreigners—all with the encouragement of China’s dowager empress. Figure 20.9, a painting by American artist John Clymer, depicts a battle between the Boxers— in the center, with swords and spears—and U.S. marines—in the lower right, with Modern machine guns, rifles with bayonets, and revolvers. The Boxers, represented as wild and bloodthirsty, seem to burst out of the heavily populated Chinese society, while the steadfast U.S. Marines fire from the outside into that society. Combined forces from the imperial powers brutally suppressed this nationalist movement and forced China to pay large indemnities.
FIGURE 20.9
John Clymer, The Boxer Rebellion, 1900 This dramatic painting shows U.S. Marines firing on the Boxers, who in 1899 staged a rebellion against foreign influence in China.Page 621
Even propped up by imperial powers, the corrupt Chinese central government could not last. In 1911, reformers led by Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), a Western-educated doctor, launched a revolution aimed at freeing China from foreign exploitation and modernizing its society. Rebellions swept most of China and pushed the corrupt, inept, disintegrating dynasty to its final collapse. Sun proclaimed a republic, but the power soon dispersed among imperial generals, who became warlords. China’s struggles to cope with the encroaching world and its internal problems were far from over.
Sherman, Dennis. The West in the World, Combined Volume, Edition 5, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2018, 618-621.
d9 what are the Congolese instructions
done
Seen
5 mins ago[supanova_question]
https://anyessayhelp.com/ Discussion Question: How were U.S. imperialism and progressivism linked with each other in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Another way to ask the question: Did U.S. imperialism effect or play a role in the development of progressivism, and/or did progressivism effect or play a role in the development of imperialism during this period?
“Click the links to below to read and view the sources. Then respond to the discussion question. Your response must be at least 300 words and include specific examples, including quotations and paraphrases from both sources to support your answers.Remember to include a question for your classmates to respond to in their comments.”
[supanova_question]
d9 what are the Congolese (100 word response) 2nd topic d9 drug wars (100 word response) 2 separate answers
d9 drug wars instructions
Drug Wars and Wars on Drugs (Chinese Opium and British Trade)
Read the Global Connections “Opium and the West in China” (Overview section).
What did Lin Zexu write to Queen Victoria of the British Empire? Which arguments did Lin use in his bid to get the British in ending this practice? Did they prove effective? Why (not)?
To bring the discussion locally: do you know of a monument to Lin Zexu in New York City? Please google image it and tell us where it is. Let’s see who’ll post it first!
For a short overview Opium War Explained (13 min): https://youtu.be/nDwoBC_DtGc (Links to an external site.)
Text and Images for Discussion (use questions from below as applicable to our discussion question):
China, with its highly structured society, strong central government, and large armed forces, had long kept Westerners at arm’s length. Although the Chinese admitted some European traders and Christian missionaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they closed their doors rather tightly thereafter. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, China ranked among the world’s most prosperous and powerful societies. The Chinese still considered their huge, populous country the center of civilization surrounded by lesser civilizations. As late as 1793, China’s emperor could easily dismiss a proposed trade agreement with Britain: “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in abundance. We have no need of barbarian products.”
However, during the nineteenth century, population explosion, famine, rebellions, and poor leadership under the declining Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty weakened the ancient civilization. The country became a power vacuum that proved all too tempting to the Western powers. Armed with their guns and goods, Westerners streamed into China.
Opium Wars
First, the British forced themselves on the Chinese. During the 1830s, Britain began trading Indian opium in China for tea, silver, silk, and other products. Soon opium became one of Britain’s most important commodities (see Global Connections). Chinese officials tried to stop the economic drain, addiction, and criminal activities stemming from the opium trade by making the drug illegal. As the Chinese official in charge exclaimed to the British, “You do not wish opium to harm your own country, but you choose to bring that harm to other countries such as China. Why?” In response, Britain sent gunboats and troops armed with modern weapons. They easily defeated the Chinese in a series of clashes known as the Opium Wars. By the terms of the Treaty of Nanking (1842), which ended the conflict, the Chinese ceded Hong Kong to the British, opened several tariff-free ports to foreign trade, exempted foreigners from Chinese law, and paid Britain a large indemnity.
Taiping RebellionAt mid-century, disaster struck. China suffered a devastating civil war—the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864). Subsequent rebellions extended the internal conflict another ten years. In the end, these wars took perhaps fifty million lives, and the famines that followed cost the lives of millions more. All this strife weakened the Qing dynasty and revealed the government’s inability to control a nation threatened by external enemies and internal upheaval.
Page 619
GLOBAL CONNECTIONSOpium and the West in China
Opium, a narcotic derived from the opium poppy, was known and used—especially for medical purposes—in China for centuries. However, not until the nineteenth century did its use become so widespread that millions of Chinese became addicted to the drug. The West was not free from opium, either, for Europeans and Americans increasingly resorted to opium-based products such as morphine and laudanum to calm their nerves, ease aches and pains, and control their noisy children. During the nineteenth century, most of China’s opium supply was imported by British merchants from colonial holdings in India.
Chinese officials made only halfhearted attempts to restrict the opium trade until 1838, when Emperor Daoguang finally banned importation of the drug. In 1839, an imperial official, Lin Zexu, wrote a letter to Britain’s Queen Victoria complaining about the destructive impact of opium on China. “Unscrupulous” merchants, Lin wrote, were “so obsessed with material gain that they have no concern whatever for the harm they can cause to others.” These merchants had flooded China with so much opium “that this poison has spread far and wide in all the provinces.” Lin asked the queen to stop the trade and “destroy and plow under all of these opium plants.” When Lin began confiscating and destroying imported opium, the British responded with force. As one of China’s discouraged commissioners reported, “The ships of the barbarians are sturdy and their cannons fierce.” By 1842, British firepower had overwhelmed the Chinese, and the Treaty of Nanjing legalized the opium trade and granted concessions to Britain and other Western powers.
The struggle against the British over opium was only the beginning of the wars and other upheavals China suffered during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Internal problems also increasingly plagued the vast country, weakening the government’s ability to resist the West. In 1852, Zeng Guofan, a perceptive scholar and high official in Emperor Xianfeng’s government, commented on the situation. Taxes, Zeng claimed, were overwhelming the people. Therefore, “people are complaining and angry, and often the resistance to tax payment bursts forth and mushrooms into full-fledged riot.” More and more impoverished people were resorting to banditry to survive. Yet attempts to stop the lawlessness were useless because governmental soldiers “have always been in collusion with the bandits,” Zeng maintained, and would soon release the bandits “in return for a handsome bribe.” Moreover, people had lost faith in the justice system because so many “innocent men are condemned” and the people “[are unable] to have a wrong redressed.” The next year, a series of disastrous uprisings struck China, the worst of which came with the Taiping Rebellion. Over the following ten years, the conflicts devastated large parts of the country. While the government eventually crushed the rebels, the country soon began losing lands and control to imperial powers.
Meanwhile, the destructive consequences of the opium trade mounted. Isabella Bird Bishop, a British traveler in China during the 1890s, reported on the situation. In addition to noting the continuing importation of opium into China by the British, Bishop observed that “the area devoted to the [opium-producing] poppy in Sze Chuan [province] is enormous.” Moreover, its culture was “encroaching on the rice and arable lands” so much that “there was no longer a margin left on which to feed the population in years of a poor harvest.” Even though the Chinese regarded the opium habit as a disease, Bishop continued, in that province “opium houses are as common as gin shops in our London slums.” In the large cities of that province, she noted, 80 percent of men and 40 percent of women were opium smokers. “It is obvious,” she concluded, “that opium has come to stay.”
To other observers throughout China and the West, it seemed equally clear that China was caught in the tightening grip of Western and Japanese imperialists as well as a powerful and addictive narcotic.
Making ConnectionsHow did Chinese officials try to restrict the opium trade?
What do you think of the British response?
In the years that followed, China fought a series of wars against foreigners. It lost them all, and each defeat chipped away at its sovereignty and racked up yet more indemnities. The Western powers grabbed up spheres of influence and semi-independent treaty ports where all foreigners were exempt from Chinese jurisdiction. In addition, they built railroads to penetrate farther into China’s heartland. As shown on Map 20.5, they also took lands on the huge country’s periphery. By all these means, the French and British added to their possessions in south Asia, Russia gained territory in the north, and Japan snapped up Korea and Taiwan in the east.
The Philippines
The United States joined in the frenzy, grabbing the Philippine Islands after a war with Spain in 1898 and a long struggle against Filipino nationalist forces that cost the lives of perhaps 200,000 Filipinos. President William McKinley explained that the United States had the duty “to educate the Filipinos and uplift and Christianize them.” To protect its commercial interests in Asia, the United States called for an “Open Door” policy that would avoid further territorial annexations by the imperial powers. Rivalry among the great powers themselves, as much as Chinese resistance, saved China from complete loss of its independence.
Page 620 thinking about
GEOGRAPHY
MAP 20.5Imperialism in Asia, 1840–1914
This map shows the expansion of imperialism in Asia by the Western powers and Japan.
Explore the Map
Which powers had gained the largest territorial interests in Asia by 1914?
Where do you think conflicts were likely to break out among Russia, Britain, and Japan? Why?
Boxer RebellionMeanwhile, Chinese nationalism rose in response to foreign aggression. In 1899–1900, the Boxer Rebellion, a serious uprising against Western influences, erupted. Furious at those who had betrayed Chinese religion and customs, the Boxers, a secret organization that believed in the spiritual power of the martial arts, killed thousands of Chinese Christians and a number of foreigners—all with the encouragement of China’s dowager empress. Figure 20.9, a painting by American artist John Clymer, depicts a battle between the Boxers— in the center, with swords and spears—and U.S. marines—in the lower right, with Modern machine guns, rifles with bayonets, and revolvers. The Boxers, represented as wild and bloodthirsty, seem to burst out of the heavily populated Chinese society, while the steadfast U.S. Marines fire from the outside into that society. Combined forces from the imperial powers brutally suppressed this nationalist movement and forced China to pay large indemnities.
FIGURE 20.9
John Clymer, The Boxer Rebellion, 1900 This dramatic painting shows U.S. Marines firing on the Boxers, who in 1899 staged a rebellion against foreign influence in China.Page 621
Even propped up by imperial powers, the corrupt Chinese central government could not last. In 1911, reformers led by Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), a Western-educated doctor, launched a revolution aimed at freeing China from foreign exploitation and modernizing its society. Rebellions swept most of China and pushed the corrupt, inept, disintegrating dynasty to its final collapse. Sun proclaimed a republic, but the power soon dispersed among imperial generals, who became warlords. China’s struggles to cope with the encroaching world and its internal problems were far from over.
Sherman, Dennis. The West in the World, Combined Volume, Edition 5, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2018, 618-621.
d9 what are the Congolese instructions
done
Seen
5 mins ago[supanova_question]
d9 discuss the origins ( 100 word response) text 9 economics and imperialism (200 word response)
d9 discuss the origins ( 100 word response) text 9 economics and imperialism (200 word response)
