S03: Imperial Decline

• Canton Trade: Qing in the World
• Opium: How did it create the modern world economy?
• The Great Divergence: What explains Qing’s decline?

• Who are Wang Xiang and Guo Ju?
• What did they do for their parents?
• Why are they celebrated for their deeds?

游子吟

孟郊 (751-814)

慈母手中线，游子身上衣。 临行密密缝，意恐迟迟归。 谁言寸草心，报得三春晖。

Song of the Vagrant Son

In the mother’s hand, a thread she weaves,
On the wanderer’s body, the clothes she leaves.
As she sews, she stitches with care,
Fearing his return might be rare.
Who says a blade of grass can repay
The warmth of spring’s sun in any way?

Montesquieu:

• Stagnation
• Rule by man, not by law
• Excessive despotism

State-society relations in tension:

• Governance on the cheap, growing population but shrinking bureaucracy and tax base
• Principal agent problem
• Grassroots activism vs. Vigilance against local power

Universal ideal…

• Late imperial Chinese governance was remarkably stable, built on an Emperor, scholar-bureaucrats, and Confucianism.
• “Benevolent government” meant minimal intervention, low taxes, and moral guidance.
• The Confucian bureaucracy unified the empire by promoting harmony order and universalism against local groups.

… and particularistic reality

• Magistrates – outsider, and overworked – depended on managing clerks, private secretaries, and gentry.
• The state’s reach in the countryside was limited by resources, finances, and local interests.
• Officials faced a conflict between bureaucratic duties and obligations to personal networks (family, friends).

• The Selden map is a 17th-century wall map of East Asia, showing areas from Siberia to Java and Japan to Burma.
• It is named after John Selden (1584–1654), a lawyer and Oxford’s first rabbinic studies scholar.
• Selden donated the map to Oxford’s Bodleian Library as part of his collection of Oriental manuscripts.

• A network of trade developed around the South China Sea, involving merchants from tribute-paying states to the Ming dynasty, focusing on Chinese goods and grain.
• This trade relied on two key conditions: Ming’s ability to produce high-quality goods at reasonable prices; limited foreign access to Ming market.
• These stable conditions throughout the sixteenth century fostered a strong trading system, creating a “world-economy.”

• The Spanish and Portuguese were able to integrate into regional trade in Asia thanks to monopoly of silver from the New World, especially Peru, Bolivia, and Mexico.
• Conventional wisdom suggests that economic modernity originated from a dynamic West European foundation, but the Europeans were not major players in Maritime East Asia yet.
• Certain Asian economies were more advanced than European economies until the Industrial Revolution.

• What are we looking at?
• How did this figurine travel in time and space? Who were its makers / buyers?
• What can this object tell us about their makers and the world it was made?

• New crops like corn, sweet potatoes, and peanuts were integrated into farming, growing well in marginal areas and complementing existing grain crops.
• Improvements in irrigation, terracing, grain storage, tools, and organic fertilizers further enhanced food production.
• The rising population in turn placed pressure on arable land, prompting mass migration from densely populated areas to frontier regions to expand agricultural practices.

• Like the Ming, coastal trade only permitted at designated ports
• Canton (Guangzhou) as sole port open for Western trade
• Revenue went to imperial treasury
• Fixed, seasonal trading period
• Mobility restriction: Special residential quarter for foreign merchants

• Canton trade system (1757-1842): Hong merchants acted as exclusive liaisons between American traders and Chinese government
• Hong merchants held licenses, controlled trade, and enforced regulations
• They purchased imports, arranged exports, ensured compliance

• Only allowed to trade in Canton and live in designated quarters
• Subject to Qing law, with no diplomatic representation

• Boston Tea Party: chests of Chinese tea into Boston Harbor December 16, 1773
• Target: Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed tax-free tea sales by British East India Company in American colonies
• Sons of Liberty strongly opposed taxes in Townshend Act as rights violation and destroyed EIC tea shipment

• In 1794, Emperor Qianlong received Lord George Macartney.
• King George III of Great Britain – the same king against whom the American colonies rebelled in 1776 – dispatched Lord Macartney to China
• Qianlong dismissively informed the British that China had no need for any English goods or inventions, and sends him back to King George III empty handed.
• The British needed to balance a massive trade deficit fueled by tea addiction.

• What did the Europeans want?
• Why didn’t they get want they want?

China:

• Tianxia / “All under heaven”: concentric hierarchy of foreign relations
• Sino-centrism: China as “middle kingdom”
• Tribute system based on ritual submission

The West:

• Sovereignty and equality of nations
• Nations are free and independent of one another
• “Natural law”: law of nature applicable to nations
• Free trade as an inherent right: If abridged, a state had the right to enforce that freedom.

• EIC vs. Cohongs: two government-recognized monopolies
• England vs. Qing China: two empires with universal pretensions

Mercantilists

• Trade as zero-sum game
• Increase exports, decrease imports
• Connected to bullionism: wealth of nation = gold and silver reserves
• Trade restrictions: tariffs, monopolies, exclusive patents

Free Trade

• Division of labor: Comparative advantage, rather than absolute advantage
• Trade as mutually beneficial
• Less government intervention, lower trade barriers
• Financial system based on banking

• 1600: East India Company chartered to contest Portuguese control of East Indies
• 1834: End of EIC’s Trade Monopoly in China

• Congress of Vienna in 1815: A sovereign state recognized as having the ability to exert influence on a global scale.
• Powerful, centralized state as index of the level of progress and civilization
• Comity of nations based on mutual and equal sovereignty, regardless of size, wealth, or power

• “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its borders.”
• What does China want?

• Great Britain, exported opium grown in India and sold it to China
• Indian opium replaced silver as medium of trade
• The British used opium profits to purchase Chinese porcelain, silk, and tea

• After the American Revolution, U.S. merchants started trading independently in the East Indies and challenged the monopoly of the British East India Company
• Mercantile wealth helped concentrate capital, create wealth, and establish modern business corporations
• Canton trade fed anti-British sentiment at the same time as it boosted American national spirit after independence

• What is Lin Zexu’s message to Queen Victoria?
• How might his letter have been received in England?

Opium War as the “First National Humiliation”: it “cut off the lifeblood of the state” and “threatened our people’s chance of survival.

China’s Destiny (1943)

• State involution
• Increased migration and resource competition
• Decreased agricultural productivity
• Ecological degradation: deforestation, silting of Yellow River, etc.
• Social dislocation: Talent glut

Bi-metallic system:

• Unminted silver bullion + Minted copper cash coins
• Market adjustment of relative supply of two metals in circulation
• Copper cash (mostly from Japan) contracted while silver (from the New World) grew

Before mid-19th century:

• Head tax (percentage of working-age males)
• Land tax (agricultural productivity)
• Monopolies: salt, iron, jade, porcelain, customs receipts from trading ports
• Personal income
• Commercial tax

Partnership with gentry elites:

• <1% population, 25% farmland, 5-8% of agricultural income
• Preferential treatment: Taxed at 20%-50% the rate of common farmers
• Gentry wealth to pay for local administrative costs

Kangxi
b. 1654-1722, r. 1661-1722

• Freeze basic land tax (1713)

Yongzheng
b. 1678-1735, r. 1723-1735

• Introducing silver meltage fee
• Folding head tax into land tax

Qianlong
b. 1711-1799, r. 1735-1796

• Tax reductions: lower grain assessments
• General remission of land taxes (1745)

• Costs of maintenance mainly shared among local elites
• Debate at court: Abandon or restore?
• Sea shipping after 1840
• Affected population as source of instability

• Apocalyptic messianism in its expectation of the day of judgment and the birth of a savior.
• Practices included medical healing, sitting and breathing exercises, martial arts, and the chanting of spells and charms.
• Synthesis of Buddhism, Daoism, and Manicheanism (religious movement founded in Persia in the 3rd century CE by Mani, who, as the “Apostle of Light”, predicts an eternal struggle between a good spiritual world of light, and an evil material world of darkness.)

• The White Lotus Rebellion occurred in China from 1796 to 1804.
• Led by the White Lotus Society, which preached Buddhist teachings of Maitreya Buddhism promising the arrival of a savior to restore the faithful.
• The rebels aimed to overthrow the Qing government and restore the Ming Dynasty.

• What began as a local rebellion escalated into a serious political crisis due to Qing’s ill response.
• Officials tasked with suppressing the rebellion were often half-hearted and exploited the situation for personal gain.
• Hiring civilians became a way to misappropriate war funds, leading many dismissed troops to become rebels themselves and increasing the war’s costs.
• The rebellion foreshadowed the Qing’s disintegration in the mid-nineteenth century.

The troubles originated in the same population boom that founded the Qing success.

• Jobs were scarce.
• Success was nearly impossible in the tightly restricted (and corrupt) examination system.
• The bureaucracy failed to appoint sufficient administrators even as the population doubled.
• Taxes fell behind, as did the granary and canal system.

• Silver outflow: Trade surplus with England turned deficit in 1826
• Increasing opium smuggling
• Growing users and addicts: “the magistrate or governor who did not smoke opium was an exception”

The Daoguang Emperor (r. 1812-1850) opposed the operation of opium dens and appointed Lin Zexu as commissioner in 1838. Lin came up with a three-part plan:

1. Offer rehabilitation for addicts in government sanitariums.
2. Round up Chinese dealers and dismantle drug rings.
3. Confiscate opium from foreign sellers and require them to sign agreements to exit the opium trade.

• What is Lin Zexu’s message to Queen Victoria?
• How might his letter have been received in England?
• Does Lin Zexu’s letter to Queen Victoria treat the Queen as an equal to the emperor?
• Does he see Great Britain as of equal standing with China? Finally, with whom do you sympathize most in the letter? Why?

Lin’s Position

• Set up sanitariums and arrested over 1,600 Chinese dealers.
• Surrounded 13 warehouses, holding 350 Europeans hostage for opium.
• Negotiated with Elliot while denying ships food and water.
• Destroyed over 2.6 million pounds of opium after merchants complied.

British position

• Captain Charles Elliot, the British Superintendent of Trade opposed Lin’s methods and hostage-taking.
• Elliot refused to sign a bond subjecting British citizens to Qing law, but promised to reimburse merchants before handing over opium.
• Believed Canton system was inadequate for trade and sought formal diplomatic relations for unrestricted free trade.

• Lin’s hostage-taking seen as an act of war.
• Letter to Lord Palmerston, PM, infuriated the merchant lobby, who believed military response could enhance trade relations.
• First shots of Opium War fired on September 4, 1839, near Hong Kong.
• Opposition in England: A war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated – to cover this country with permanent disgrace, I do not know, and I have not read of. (William Gladstone)

• Emphasized the role of class struggle and economic structures in societal development.
• China’s feudal system and lack of a capitalist class hindered industrialization.
• The absence of a revolutionary proletariat delayed modernization.

• High-equilibrium Trap: Traditional systems and practices are effective enough to prevent change, making capital investment for improving efficiency unprofitable.
• China’s economic and social structures were stable, leading to resistance against modernization efforts.
• Indicates that the self-sustaining nature of the agrarian economy limited the motivation for industrial advancement.

• Which theory do you find most convincing? Why? Do you have another explanation?
• China vs. the West: What are the appropriate temporal and geographical units of comparison?
• Are we even asking the right questions? “Why didn’t they modernize…”

• European exceptionalism: European culture, technology or institutional superiority inevitably led to Western dominance.
• Longue-durée perspective: 19th century as blip and return of China to power?