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More reviews by Wayne E. Yang
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The Opium Wars by W. Travis Hanes III and Frank Sanello
On the historical and geopolitcal seismic scale, the Opium Wars fought between England and China from 1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860 probably register low for most Britons -- and undoubtedly even lower for most Americans. However, the effects of the humiliation wrought on the Middle Kingdom by those wars continues to reverberate today.
The losing Chinese were forced to allow opium to be legalized and imported into several cities, where its trade was unsupervised and untaxed. The victorious British also forced the Chinese to pay hefty war reparations and cede Hong Kong "in perpetuity".
The recent repatriation of Hong Kong (and Macau) has probably helped quiet some of the historical aftershocks, and China's recent growing economic might has probably further distanced the shame. Yet the themes of the Opium Wars continue to echo in contemporary events: whether there should be ethics in trade and whether sovereignty in trade matters.
Those who believe the dictum that "those who fail to learn [from] history are doomed to repeat it" have fodder in W. TRAVIS HANES III AND FRANK SANELLO's THE OPIUM WARS. The Wars stemmed in part from the early trade imbalance between England and China: "[T]he British people became addicted to [tea] ... British traders had to find something China wanted as much as the British wanted tea, and would be willing to pay for in silver. The solution to this predicament lay in opium."
Conveniently disregarding how the drug debilitated significant portions of the Chinese community, proponents argued for its legitimacy as a commodity. Some even argued that it should be legalized and thus better controlled. "The use of opium is not a curse, but a comfort and benefit to the hard-working Chinese."
Those seeking to import the drug into China went on to suggest that "if the Emperor wanted to stop the trade, he should convince his subjects to stop using opium." Storied firms such as Jardine, Matheson & Co. made their first financial killings through the opium trade. Hanes and Sanello point out that the British suggestion that trade was driven by Chinese addiction "was a disengenuous argument that Latin American countries often use against the U.S. today: kill demand and you kill the trade."
Political leaders did exist to condemn the trade. Then MP William Gladstone and others in the British parliament opposed the trade on moral grounds, calling it "the most pernicious, demoralizing and destructive of all the contraband trade." Yet, when viewed against the ultimately substantial sums of tax money that opium brought into the coffers of the Exchequer, most Britons of influence ultimately chose to look the other way, "moral qualms seemed a small price to pay for such a cornucopia of riches."
For those riches, the British were willing to impose their military might on the "corrupt and out of date" Chinese military, a miltary further debilitated by having numerous troops and their leaders addicted to the opium that was pouring into the country.
For the British troops, the fight must have been much like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel. British steamships warred against antiquated, frail Chinese junks. Modern, limber British cannons fired on the immobile, fixed cannons of the Chinese. During the course of the wars, the British ultimately field tested its 25-pound Armstrong field gun, which combined the accuracy of a rifle and the power of a canon against Chinese bows and arrows and 18th-century era guns. "All to save China from the Chinese," one British critic sarcastically wrote.
The difference in military technology resulted in lopsided casualty tallies that would be precursor to those later seen in the U.S. invasion of Iraq more than a century later. In Dinghai, for instance, "two thousand Chinese died ..., while the British lost only 19." China's diplomatic efforts were often undermined by effete Chinese military leaders who portrayed these losses as great miltary victories, emboldening an Emperor who did not want to know the truth.
More than just a collision of military might, the Opium Wars represented a colliding of different agenda (England's perceived right to trade versus Chinese issues of sovereignty), cultures (an England that was the world's superpower versus a China that quixotically still saw itself as the Middle Kingdom) and racial prejudices (the Chinese saw the English as non-Chinese speaking barbarians, while the English saw the Chinese as non-Christian pagans).
The differences were sometimes almost farcical, illustrated best by Hanes and Sanello in the diplomatic contortions over the kowtow (the ceremonial bowing and supplication before the Chinese Emperor) during several of the British diplomatic missions. At one point Chinese court officials resorted to pushing British officials to the ground to make them bow, while the stoical British diplomats resisted, as they sought to maintain equal status for Queen and country.
"The racial divide and contempt ... poisoned both military and diplomatic relations between the Europeans and Chinese," note the authors. The ferocity of the battles often devolved into outright racisist barbarism, as when the "neutral" United States was drawn into one battle, a U.S. commander declaring: "I'll be damned if I'll stand by and see white men butchered before my eyes."
Hanes and Sanello, to their credit, do not hide the seamy side of the wars. They depict the British and French looting--and the burning of the Chinese Emperor's Summer Palace, as well as the torture and killing of prisoners by both sides. The authors provide great detail about nearly every shot and volley of the war. For color, they draw on the memoirs of key administrators and military men, the correspondence between several of the actors (including notes from the Chinese Emperor and the Queen of England to their minions), as well as newspaper editorials both supporting and decrying the wars.
There are probably readers, however, who would have liked to have been spared so much blow by blow accounting. Instead, Hanes and Sanello could have provided further context for the historical inevitability of the conflicts: where China fitted in England's expansion in Asia, color about England's naval might during this era, background about the "foreign" Manchu dynasty that ruled China during this era and how the Middle Kingdom came to be so enfeebled militarily. The authors also could have provided firmer opinions on how the wars continue to influence the relationship between the Western powers and China to this day.
The strong detail and color on the wars and their participants, however, will register this book as a valuable resource to readers who follow this era of Anglo-Chinese history.
Wayne E. Yang
03/12/2002
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Wayne E. Yang is based in New York, where he lives with his wife and two children. His web site is www.wayneyang.com. |
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