halt all opium trade.The "Wicked Barbarians" Lash Back
The London Times
By Dana Tom
Commissioner Lin Zexu’s Letter to Queen Victoria, sent January 15,1840 but never received, was uncovered by British officials, and the release of the letter in the London Times has created a wave of anger amongst the British government and people.
Lin Zexu (picture right) was hired by the Chinese government to suppress the alleged opium trade between Britain and China in 1839. He addressed two letters, both of which were never received, to Queen Victoria, ordering the British to halt all opium trade.
His use of word choice humiliates the British people, such as the phrases, "wicked barbarians" and "vicious people." "The fact is that the wicked barbarians beguile the Chinese people into a death trap. How the can we grant life only to these barbarians? He who takes like of even one person still has to atone for it with his own life; yet is the harm done by opium limited to the taking of one life only?" (1)
Commissioner Lin’s Letter of Advice is not only wrongly threatening, but also insulting to the British people and government. To accuse the British for China’s problems is immoral. To refer to the British people as "barbarians" and of a lower class of commercial excellence is offensive. In fact, the British victory of The Opium War proved Britain’s strength and armed power to the Chinese and gave British trade access to Chinese goods and business.
The Chinese government and Commissioner Lin had no right to blame the British for China’s internal corruption and inability to control the growing opium problem of the Chinese people. Commissioner Lin threatened to execute all British drug suppliers if caught, the same punishement for British businessmen as the Chinese opium addicts.
China (picture of map below) grew stagnant in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century because of their lack of military technology and reluctance to reform to Western politics and society. The Chinese military could not compete with British, much less any technologically advanced Western military, therefore th
eir collapse as inevitable.
The Chinese government did not have the power to fight against opium smuggling or the British presence, which is not the falult of the British. It was China’s responsibility to regulate the opium merchants and addicts, and it was inappropriate for Commissioner Lin to ask Britain to give up their primary source of economy, primarily because China could not handle the problem alone.
After the Opium War and the signing of the Treaty of Nanking, the British had more influence in China, weakening China’s resistance against the West and allowing more Western countries, such as The United States, France and Russia, access to the Chinese trade. (2)
The Tappan Introduction, a paper read at a public meeting in Canton, called the British, "dogs, whose desires can never be satisfied” and accused the British for “murdering all of us that they can." (3) British motives were not murderously based, but rather, justifiable through their economic goals. The British finally found a product that China wanted and would trade for: opium grown in British-controlled India
It was not the British goal to start The Opium War against the people in Canton, who generally remained very passive, nor to weaken China in order to gain territorial rights, but instead to commercially expand and fight against the corrupt Chinese government. (4). Prior to the Treaty of Nanking (picture of meeting in Nanking below right), a treaty signed on August 29, 1842, supplying Britain with access to five Chinese ports, the Chinese arrogance of their global superiority required practices, such as kowtow, and limited the British trade nad factories to Canton with few economic opportu
nities. (5)
Because of the opium trade, the British began to have more success in their commercial expansion. After the Treaty of Nanking, the British were no longer limited to the ports in Canton. The opium business and the Treaty of Nanking has only profited the British economy by initiating their newfound presence in Asia.
The British were not wrong to encourage the opium trade with China, though Commissioner Lin argues otherwise. The British had no moral responsibility to halt the opium trade just because the Chinese could not effectively fight against it themselves. In fact, the opium trade and the British victory over China have benefited Britain and the West economically by opening China to global trade.
Commissioner Lin wrongfully accuses Britain of murder and exploitation, which were not British intentions and of which Britain is not responsible for. We shall denounce the letter as crude and unjust, and we shall continue to consider the opium trade and the Treaty of Nanking as a rightful success for Britain. Britain's economic persistence in China increased the amount of world trade for Western countries and increased the level of British influence around the world.
Footnotes:
1. Ssuyu Teng and John K. Fairbank, China's Response to the West, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), 226-9.
2. John K. Fairbank and Edwin O. Reischauer, China (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989), 273-85.
3. Eva March Tappan, The World’s Story: A History of the World in Story, Song, and Art (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), 197.
4. Encyclopedia Britannica Online., s.v. “China and The first Opium War.” Available from: Encyclopedia Britannica, Menlo School Lib. <http://library.menloschool.org> (accessed 7 December 2006).
5. Encyclopedia Britannica Online
Images:
1. Joseph V. O’Brian, “Letter of Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu to Queen Vitoria (1840)” (image). Available from: Commissioner Lin’s letter to Queen Victoria, Jan. 15, 1840 <http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob29.html> (accessed 8 December 2006).
2. "China Map" (image). Available from: Emergence of Modern China <http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/modern.html> (accessed 13 December 2006).
4. “Nanking, August 29, 1842” (image), Available from: The Treaty of Nanking <http://nanking.com> (accessed: 11 December 2006).