A Brief Modern Chinese History. Haipeng Zhang

to understand the law of nations in China. For this reason, Fan Wenlan, an eminent Marxist historian, praised Lin for being the first Chinese to understand the non-Chinese world in a global context.17 In his campaign against the opium trade, Lin did not suggest that trade be stopped between China and other countries. He recommended that China study the advantages of foreign countries while fighting against their aggression. He argued that dealing with Britain depended on sophisticated weapons, superb skills, unbroken courage and significant effort.18 This laid the basis for Lin’s programs of manufacturing guns and ships and mobilizing the masses of the people.

      One consequence of the Opium War was that Chinese elites felt it necessary to begin to study the nature of the changing world around them. Take Yao Ying 姚莹, for example. During the war, Yao superintended Taiwan and attacked British troops. Before the outbreak of the war, Yao began collecting foreign books and began to learn about the Western powers as well as other countries in Asia and religions such as Lamaism and Catholicism. Once the war ended, he continued to look for more effective methods of fighting against foreign invaders. For this reason, he correctly predicted that the British were bound to cast their covetous eyes on Tibet once they had finished annexing India and suggested that Qing strengthen border defenses as much as possible.

      Yao argued that if China wanted to improve its image, then it was necessary for its leaders to have a better understanding of the world. He argued that the community of educated Chinese was shortsighted and ignorant and their actions caused harm to the country.

Lin Zexu left The Encyclopedia of Geography to Wei Yuan, one of Xu’s friends, after being removed from office. Liang Qichao, a renowned thinker-politician, said it was the precursor of modern Chinese geography.19 This book, which was based on Hugh Murray’s An Encyclopedia of Geography, came out in 1841. More than thirty countries including Britain, France and the United States were briefly discussed in The Encyclopedia of Geography. The book was comprised of history, geography, politics, religions, customs, culture, education, industry, foreign trade and international relations. The goal of The World was to find ways to resist colonial empires by fully understanding them. The World essentially aimed to gain a more global knowledge of history and geography and serve as a window through which the Chinese could see the world.

Wei Yuan, a scholar-official who supported the war against the British, created the Illustrated Treatise of Maritime Kingdoms on the basis of Lin Zexu’s The World. Readers of Wei’s monograph could find information about the history, geography, science, military affairs and social life of people in the five continents. Wei’s book was one of the earliest writings introducing the Chinese to the world. Wei made it very clear from the beginning that this book would be able to help the Chinese more effectively resist foreign aggressors by comprehensively understanding them.20 In the first chapter he emphasized the importance of studying the strong points of the colonialists.21 Wei criticized the conservatives in power, saying that when fighting against the enemy they should not refuse to study the enemy’s good points nor should they make no attempt to thoroughly understand the enemy. Wei argued that in order to successfully resist the invaders, China must follow the West’s example of promoting economic and military growth. He proposed detailed plans for how this could be achieved.22 Wei was especially critical of those who regarded foreign invaders as simply diabolic and wicked, arguing that they were ignorant of the importance of learning from others.23 Apart from his aim of improving China’s military prowess, Wei repeatedly sang the praises of the people’s successful resistance against the British troops in Sanyuanli, Guangdong24 and concluded that, thanks to Sanyuanli’s success, it became clear that the foreign invaders were not unbeatable. Wei’s Treatise later influenced Japan’s Meiji Restoration. The fifty-volume Treatise was printed in 1843; nine years later a hundred-volume edition was published.

      Like Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan, Xu Jiyu 徐继畲, a high official of Fujian, tried to bring China into the modern world and was intent on collecting writings related to the West. He completed the ten-volume World Geography: A Concise Introduction (瀛环志略) published in 1849. In this book Xu discussed the geographic positions, historical changes, economico-cultural characteristics and local customs and practices of other countries, in particular the Western countries. This book became known to the Chinese for its rich contents and perfect narratives.

      However, it must be pointed out that the (First) Opium War did not completely succeed in bringing changes to the old Chinese dynasty. It is said that the Emperor Daoguang still did not know where Britain was located despite his government signing the Treaty of Nanjing. The efforts made by men such as Wei Yuan and Xu Jiyu to bring China into the modern world did not have a great effect on the Chinese government.

Social Changes in Post-War China

      In addition to seriously damaging China’s sovereignty, the unequal treaties signed during the Opium War brought about deep changes in the country’s social economy. Drastic changes were obvious even in the everyday life of the Chinese. First, the five treaty ports, Guangzhou (Canton), Xiamen (Amoy), Fuzhou, Shanghai and Ningbo were located on the southeast coast of China. These ports witnessed great economic prosperity. Of these, Shanghai experienced some of the most dramatic changes. Shanghai was geographically larger than Fuzhou and Ningbo, both of which had slower economic growth. Xiamen was renowned for its trade with Taiwan and the countries in Southeast Asia; however, it was not an ideal commercial hub in the eyes of Western traders. Shanghai was the most popular because it was known for its convenience and also for its proximity to the provinces that sold the best silk and tea. From the mid-1850s, Shanghai accounted for over half of China’s international trade. For these reasons, the Western powers turned their attention to Shanghai in the wake of the Opium War. As a consequence, Guangzhou, which had been China’s center of foreign trade for quite a long time, was replaced by Shanghai.

The British Consul in Shanghai seized a piece of land and turned it into a quarter for the British, marking the beginning of the concession of Chinese land. Soon, France and the United States forced Qing’s government in Shanghai to sign a land lease agreement. Not long afterward, leased territory could be found in all treaty ports. At first, the Chinese government was given the right to intervene in the administrative and legal affairs on the leased land. However, the Western powers later excluded the Chinese authorities and made the land administratively and legally independent of China. The treaty ports on these lands then served as the bases for foreign powers to invade China. Within these territories, foreign companies allowed international trade as well as opium smugglers and human traffickers. Frederick Engels commented in an editorial for an American newspaper that the colonizers retained “not a little of the old plundering buccaneering spirit which distinguished our common ancestors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”25 Even the British Consul in Shanghai acknowledged that some foreigners in the colonized territories were “offscum of the European nations.”26

      The Anglo-American capitalists were overjoyed that five ports had been created in the colonized territories after the war. The commander of the British forces complacently said he had opened a new world to British traders. He bragged to businessmen about how large the Chinese market was and how the entire production of all of Lancashire’s textile mills could not meet a single Chinese province’s demand. Some businessmen even dreamed that if one Chinese purchased one nightcap a year all of the manufacturers in the whole of England must produce at full throttle. Thus, the British traders shipped a huge amount of cotton textiles and manufactured