Joseph LaCorte
How Britain Starved China
By Joseph LaCorte, ‘13
Chinese junks in battle
During the nineteenth century,
China was a major victim of one of the
worst global famines in history. Various
influences, both human and natural,
contributed to the nation falling into this
state of misery. However, the true catalyst
behind the famine was the influence
of foreign powers, especially Britain.
Although China would have suffered
drought due to the abnormal El Niño
oscillations regardless, the economic,
political, and military pressures of the
external powers were what caused
them to plunge into famine. According
to British Parliamentary Papers, Mike
Davis’s Late Victorian Holocausts, and
other researched information regarding
China in the nineteenth century, it is
evident that British imperial policies are
“‘Rich and poor Chinese
alike gathered in opium
dens called divans,’
and the widespread
distribution of the drug
led to nation-wide
addiction”
to be blamed for Chinese suffering in the
late nineteenth century.
The British started their
exploration of Asia, about the same time
as their Dutch rivals did, through the
British East India Company, which had
tremendous influence over Britain’s
exploration and international trade. The
Company was very successful in early
trade with China, and it bought Chinese
spices along with their world-famous
silk, tea, and porcelain. However, unlike
their counterparts in India, the Chinese
were very protective of their ports and,
as of 1699, only allowed the Portuguese
to trade in Macau and the other European
powers in Canton. The British East
India Company led the way in Canton
in the early 1700s, but trading was very
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11
How Britain Starved China
limited. Chinese import duties and taxes
imposed by the Peking government
were hugely restrictive. No merchants
were allowed to buy more than onehalf of a ship’s cargo, and Europeans
were usually forced to purchase goods
using only silver. European traders
grew increasingly frustrated with
Chinese policies and petitioned their
governments for aid into the nineteenth
century.
Cheap opium, introduced to
the Chinese market in the early 1830s,
was the driving force behind the end of
China’s restrictive trade policies towards
the British and other foreigners. The
drug had been present in China for some
time, but it was expensive and difficult
to attain due to the lack of direct access
and its illegality outside of medical
use. It was grown minimally in China,
and its quality was very low. The East
India Company’s strong foothold in
Chinese men smoking opium
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Kaleidoscope Journal Vol. 4 Issue 1
India allowed it to obtain cheap, highquality opium there. The 150-lb chests
of opium flowing into China between
1830 and 1831 only numbered 4,010.
When the British began obtaining it for
a lower price and in larger quantities,
that number ballooned to 20,882 by
1836. The people of China, now with
much easier access to opium, began
using it in huge doses. By 1837, “opium
represented 57 per cent of Chinese
imports” in Canton, and the main
supplier was British-controlled India.
The massive influx of cheap
British opium led to a severe backlash
from the Chinese government and soon
sparked the First Opium War. The
principle aim of the Chinese Imperial
Government was to prevent opium from
being imported into the Qing Empire.
This became a major problem when the
British began trafficking huge quantities
of the narcotic. Unfortunately for the
Joseph LaCorte
Imperial government, opium was so
profitable that the Chinese merchants
and officials of Canton were receiving
huge kickbacks for overlooking its
importation. The standard rate for
an official’s turning a blind eye to the
importation of a single crate of opium
was 80 taels. The merchants, both
British and Chinese, grew fabulously
wealthy from the opium trade in Canton;
and the emperor, approximately 1,000
miles away in Peking, was unable to stop
the corruption of his southern port.
“Rich and poor Chinese alike
gathered in opium dens called divans,”
and the widespread distribution of the
drug led to nationwide addiction. The
blatant disregard of
the Emperor’s law on
opium imports and the
problems it caused in
China finally sparked
armed conflict in
March 1839, setting
off the First Opium
War. A representative
of the Emperor named
Lin Zexu finally took
the initiative on the
Emperor’s behalf and
demanded that the
British stop trading opium in China. He
surrounded and attacked British opium
ships with Chinese junks, demanding
the surrender of their opium. The small
contingent of the British Navy, along with
the British merchants, held off capture
for six weeks before British naval officer
Charles Elliot told the merchants to give
up their opium supply, promising that
the Queen would reimburse their loss at
“The
Chinese
junks were
no match
for the
advanced
British
gunships”
the going market rate. They obliged, and
the Chinese forces destroyed the nearly
2.7 million pounds of opium that was on
the ships.
However, the fight against the
foreigners was not over; despite having
forced the British out of Canton, Lin
was about to have the tables turned on
him. Elliot decided to evacuate all the
Europeans out of Canton to a nearby
strait called Hong Kong. Lin followed and
ordered his Navy to attack and bring the
foreigners back to Canton, as he had not
intended to lose all foreign trade with the
Europeans. The small British Naval party
quickly routed the Chinese and used the
excuse of the attack and the seizure of
the opium to start a war with China. The
Queen and her government fully backed
the counterattack against the Chinese.
In April 1840, Queen Victoria wrote,
“…judicially proceed upon all captures,
seizures, prizes and reprisals that have
been or shall be made of ships or vessels
belonging to the Emperor of China.”
The majority of the fighting took
place along the Chinese coast, and the
Chinese junks were no match for the
advanced British gunships and were
destroyed easily by the British Navy.
Using “steamers” and “irons” like the
Nemesis, the British fought their way
northward along the eastern coast
of China. The opium trade itself also
contributed to the Chinese army’s defeat;
with so much of the population subdued
by this extremely potent narcotic, they
were unable to mount a viable defense
against the British. Lin Zexu was quoted
saying, “If we continue to allow this
trade to flourish, in a few dozen years
we will find ourselves not only with no
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13
How Britain Starved China
soldiers to resist the enemy, but also
with no money to equip the army.” This
nightmare soon turned into reality
when the Chinese were embarrassed in
the First Opium War due to ineffective
leadership, lack of able soldiers, and
glaring military deficiencies. By June
1840, the British were threatening
Nanking, and even Peking. Due to the
domination of the British Navy, the
“opium-addicted shell” that China had
become surrendered. The war ended as
a humiliating defeat.
The war officially ended in
August 1842 with the signing of the
Treaty of Nanking. As the victors, the
British were able to dictate many new
stipulations to the relationship between
England and China. The treaty opened
up a number of new ports for English
subjects to reside and trade in. The
British also ordered that the tariffs and
duty taxes be made fair for the British
to be able to trade freely and equally
with the Chinese. They also gained
possession of the island of Hong Kong,
where the Queen’s subjects could “refit
their ships when required, and keep
stores for that purpose.” On top of being
forced to pay the entire sum for the lost
opium trade from the war, the Emperor
of China was forced to allow free trade
with all Chinese merchants, not just ones
licensed by the Emperor. The 6 million
dollars-worth that the Emperor had to
pay for the lost opium was just part of
the 12 million dollars-worth total he
would pay in the treaty. The final part
of the treaty instructed the Emperor
to make a public statement assuming
blame for the war and apologizing to
both his subjects and the British. This
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Kaleidoscope Journal Vol. 4 Issue 1
was incredibly demeaning and intended
to show the weakness of the Emperor
to the rest of the world, and more
importantly to his own subjects. This
dominating victory by the British and
the unequal treaty that followed put
the Chinese in a subordinate position to
their European counterparts.
The second boom
of opium in the 1850s and
the increase in its negative
effects throughout China
led to the Second Opium
War. The returns from
the newly opened ports
on the east coast of
China and Hong Kong
were the highest of any
British trade, with the
exception of Indian ports.
Trading hostilities in 1856
increased tensions, and
when Chinese officials
arrested British sailors
aboard the Arrow for
suspected piracy, tensions boiled over.
The British, who were allied with the
Americans, Russians, and primarily the
French, led an attack on China. From
entry in Hong Kong, they easily captured
Canton in 1857 and continued moving
along the east coast. An Anglo-French
force destroyed the Chinese forts outside
of the city of Tientsin in 1858, effectively
ending hostilities. The British forces in
the entire war effort never exceeded
10,000, even when they were occupying
five different major Chinese cities. The
rapid victory by the allies was followed
by the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858, which
stipulated that eleven more Chinese
ports must be opened to foreign trade
“The final part
of the treaty
instructed the
Emperor to
make a public
statement
assuming
blame for the
war”
Joseph LaCorte
and that all foreigners with passports
would be permitted to travel freely
throughout China.
Still, the British were not fully
satisfied with this treaty since they were
unable to attain embassies in Peking.
After the Chinese disregarded the
British negotiator who was supposed to
be working on amending the treaty, the
negotiator ordered a military attack on
Peking. In a letter from the Earl of Elgin
& Kincardine to Parliament, he said, “I
found that the government of Peking had
refused to send a Plenipotentiary to meet
me there… I at once determined to bring
pressure to bear
at some point near
the capital.” This
would eventually
lead to a successful
attack
on
the
summer palace in
Peking. Faced with
war as well as civil
strife, the Chinese
surrendered soon
after the attack on
the palace, and the Emperor conceded
in the Convention of Peking that, “Her
Majesty the Queen, may, if she see fit,
appoint Ambassadors, Ministers, or
other Diplomatic Agents to the Court
of Peking.” This piece of the agreement
was what the British were looking for,
and they now had the power to influence
the Chinese politically and economically
as they pleased.
After this second dominating
victory by the British in China, the
Convention of Peking was signed,
adding to the Chinese humiliation of
the Treaty of Tientsin. The opening of
eleven new ports gave the British access
to the Yang-tze-kiang, or Great River,
which traverses China from east to
west. This increased British influence
in the Chinese interior and gave them
new markets for opium. This treaty was
formulated after the British suppression
of the Taiping Rebellion as well, which
gave them supreme bargaining power
over the Emperor during negotiations.
The main advantage that the British
received was the opening of many new
ports and access to the Yangtze and
Peiho Rivers. The British and the other
foreign nations had soon overtaken
control of the Chinese
economy, which would
have major effects on
the upcoming drought
of the 1870s.
The
British
mercantile system was
based completely on
a favorable balance of
foreign trade and taking
advantage of market
prices to maximize
profit, a major contrast to the old
Chinese agricultural system. In India,
the British had encouraged moving
focus away from subsistence crops,
like millet and lentils, in favor of cash
crops, like cotton and opium. The same
shift was pushed in China. When the
Chinese markets became available to
the British, agricultural regions such as
Shanxi and Honan were encouraged to
stop producing rice and grain in favor
of opium and especially cotton due to
price increases for textiles during the
American Civil War. These cash crops
in the previous system were virtually
“The British ... now
had the power to
influence the Chinese
politically and
economically as they
pleased”
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15
How Britain Starved China
useless to these agricultural regions
because they had nowhere to sell them.
They were worthless to farmers as far
as direct utility. However, when British
merchants gained access to these
farming regions and were able to create
markets for those cash crops, it was far
more profitable to sell cotton than rice.
When crops failed in 1876 and the price
of food skyrocketed, the cash that they
received from cotton was not nearly
enough to buy sufficient food to feed
the population. The British economic
model had convinced the Chinese that
sacrificing their direct food entitlement
for a trade entitlement would be more
profitable, but they found out in 1876
that they had been misled. This shift in
production, caused by the introduction
of cash crops intended for distant
markets, coupled with the extreme
drought in Northern China from 1876
to 1878 caused by extreme El Niño
conditions and the flooding of the Yellow
River from 1876-1878, created a severe
famine that would kill nearly ten million
Chinese.
Due to the massive starvation
occurring in the rural interior, many
people fled to large, coastal cities hoping
there would be food to support them
there. However, as large famine-stricken
groups of people gathered together
the likelihood of spreading infectious
diseases was amplified. In 1877, a British
report on the famine said, “epidemic
disease has committed serious ravages
in all the afflicted districts. Typhus
fever completed…the depopulation of
many villages in Shantung…Cholera has
visited nearly all the coast ports.” The
rains returned in late 1878, and by 1879
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Kaleidoscope Journal Vol. 4 Issue 1
people were going back to their rural
homes to plant and raise crops again.
Still, throughout the regions in the north
of China, over nine million people died in
excess mortality due to famine, disease,
and starvation. In the end, it was the
El Niño conditions and Yellow River
flooding that caused the drought, but
the British policies and influence that
caused the shortage of food and thus the
famine.
“The British economic
model had convinced
the Chinese that
sacrificing their direct
food entitlement for a
trade entitlement would
be more profitable”
Beginning with opium in 1830,
Britain began to gain control through
economic and military means in
China, which eventually resulted in the
suffering of the Chinese people in the
famine of 1876-1878. Opium was the
illegal commodity that gave Britain a
foothold in the southern ports of China.
The Chinese tried twice to eradicate the
trade by warring with the British, but
they were slaughtered both times due
to deficiencies in manpower caused by
opium addiction and further shortages in
military technologies. War and rebellion
hurt the Emperor’s standing politically
and allowed the British to dictate
what they wanted in the Convention
Joseph LaCorte
of Peking. By 1860, Britain dominated
China economically and imposed radical
changes on the traditionally agricultural
society. This caused the farmers of
China to begin growing profitable cash
crops like cotton, instead of subsistence
crops like rice. Without enough food to
survive, the Chinese people soon flooded
the cities as the drought persisted and
epidemic diseases quickly developed.
When the famine had ended it was
estimated that 9.5 million Chinese died
in excess mortality. The root of this mass
starvation was the British imperialist
system and the changes forced upon the
Chinese. It is difficult to speculate on
how many fewer would have perished
had the Chinese retained their direct
entitlements to food, but it can be
inferred that there would have been far
less distraught than there was under the
economic domination of the British.
Chinese woodcut of the Second Opium War
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17
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