Anglo Opium Wars

Anglo-Chinese Relations and the Opium Wars.

-The Daoguang emperor, could not so easily deal with the opium crisis. He had issued antiopium edicts in 1821-1889. This year-by year listing suggests the persistence of the throne’s actions, but they were to little avail. The emperor was filled with anger on learning that the imperial clan, key banner officers, and high civil servants were using opium. The court debated the course of action. Some advocated legalizing the drug so that it might be traded and taxed, with the goal of taxing it so greatly that the expense might decrease some of the use; at the least, such a policy would make up for the outflow of silver. Others argued that legalization would only make the social problems stemming from opium worse.

-in the end, in early 1839 the emperor decided that the opium trade had to be wiped out. He had found the advice of and official, Lin Zixu, persuasive-that the importers and distributors of the drug, rather than the users, had to bear the principal force of government actions. To suppress the opium traffic, the emperor in March appointed Lin as imperial commissioner. Lin rapidly mobilized gentry and local officials to name opium dealers and distributors. By July 1839 he arrested about 1700 Chinese and confiscated 44000 pounds of opium and over 70000 opium pipes.

-In trying to deal with the problem of importation, Lin demanded that the foreigners turn over their opium stocks. He tried to reason with the British and use shame to get them to surrender the drug.   Message to Queen Victoria “ The wealth of china is used to profit the barbarians, by what right do they then in return use the poisonous drug to injure the Chinese people? In coveting profit to such and extreme, they have no regard for the injuring others. “ British ignored the order and   refused to give up trade. . Following the logic of the tributary system, Lin then stopped all trade and set up a siege of the factories and their 350 foreigners....