The Qing Dynasty and the West

27.1.3: The Qing Dynasty and the West

The Qing dynasty tightly controlled its relations with Western governments by carefully limiting European states’ access to the Chinese market and establishing foreign relations based on traditions that emphasized the superiority of China.

Learning Objective

Examine the early interactions between the Qing and Western governments

Key Points

  • The imperial Chinese tributary system was the network of trade and foreign relations between China and its tributaries. It consisted almost entirely of mutually beneficial economic relationships; member states were politically autonomous and usually independent. This system was the primary instrument of diplomatic exchange throughout the Imperial Era. While most member states of the system during the Qing rule were smaller Asian states, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Portugal sent tributes to China at the time.
  • British ships began to appear sporadically around the coasts of China from 1635. However, trade began to flourish after the Qing dynasty relaxed maritime trade restrictions in the 1680s and after Taiwan came under Qing control in 1683. Even rhetoric regarding the tributary status of Europeans was muted. Official British trade was conducted through the auspices of the British East India Company, which gradually came to dominate Sino-European trade from its position in India.
  • From 1700–1842, the port of Guangzhou (Canton) came to dominate maritime trade with China, and this period became known as the Canton System. From the inception of the Canton System in 1757, goods from China were extremely lucrative for European and Chinese merchants alike. However, foreign traders were only permitted to do business through a body of Chinese merchants known as the Cohong and were restricted to Canton.
  • While silk and porcelain drove trade through their popularity in the west, an insatiable demand for tea existed in Britain. However, only silver was accepted in payment by China, which resulted in a chronic trade deficit. Britain had been on the gold standard since the 18th century, so it had to purchase silver from continental Europe and Mexico. By 1817, the British realized they could reduce the trade deficit and make the Indian colony profitable by counter-trading in narcotic Indian opium, a critical decision for China’s future relations with the West.
  • An issue facing Western embassies to China was the act of prostration known as the kowtow. Western diplomats understood that kowtowing meant accepting the superiority of the Emperor of China over their own monarchs, an act they found unacceptable. Unlike other European partners, China did not deal with Russia through the Ministry of Tributary Affairs, but rather through the same ministry as the Mongols, seen by the Chinese as a problematic partner.
  • The Chinese worldview changed very little during the Qing dynasty as China’s sinocentric perspectives continued to be informed and reinforced by deliberate policies and practices designed to minimize evidence of its growing weakness and West’s evolving power. However, the consequences of the Opium Wars would change everything.

Key Terms

The imperial Chinese tributary system
The network of trade and foreign relations between China and its tributaries, which helped to shape much of East Asian affairs. It consisted almost entirely of mutually beneficial economic relationships, with politically autonomous and usually independent member states. It facilitated frequent economic and cultural exchange.
kowtow
The act of deep respect shown by prostration: kneeling and bowing so low as to have one’s head touching the ground. In East Asian culture, it is the highest sign of reverence and is widely used for one’s elders, superiors, and especially the emperor, as well as for religious and cultural objects of worship.
Opium Wars
Two wars in the mid-19th century (1839–1842 and 1856–1860) involving Anglo-Chinese disputes over British trade in China and China’s sovereignty. The wars and events between them weakened the Qing dynasty and forced China to trade with the rest of the world.
British East India Company
An English and later British joint-stock company formed to pursue trade with the East Indies but in actuality trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and Qing China.

 

 

Imperial Chinese Tributary System

The imperial Chinese tributary system was the network of trade and foreign relations between China and its tributaries, which helped to shape much of East Asian affairs. Contrary to other tribute systems around the world, the Chinese system consisted almost entirely of mutually beneficial economic relationships. Member states of the system were politically autonomous and usually independent. The system shaped foreign policy and trade for over 2,000 years of imperial China’s economic and cultural dominance of the region and thus played a huge role in the history of Asia, particularly East Asia. The tributary system was the primary instrument of diplomatic exchange throughout the Imperial Era. While most member states of the system during the Qing rule were smaller Asian states , Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Portugal also sent tributes to China.

 

European Trade with Qing China

British ships began to appear sporadically around the coasts of China from 1635. Without establishing formal relations through the tributary system, British merchants were allowed to trade at the ports of Zhoushan and Xiamen in addition to Guangzhou (Canton). However, trade began to flourish after the Qing dynasty relaxed maritime trade restrictions in the 1680s and after Taiwan came under Qing control in 1683. Even rhetoric about the tributary status of Europeans was muted. Official British trade was conducted through the auspices of the British East India Company, which held a royal charter for trade with the Far East. The British East India Company gradually came to dominate Sino-European trade from its position in India.

Guangzhou (Canton) was the port of preference for most foreign trade. From 1700–1842, Guangzhou came to dominate maritime trade with China, and this period became known as the Canton System. From the inception of the Canton System in 1757, trade in goods from China was extremely lucrative for European and Chinese merchants alike. However, foreign traders were only permitted to do business through a body of Chinese merchants known as the Cohong and were restricted to Canton. Foreigners could only live in one of the Thirteen Factories, a neighborhood along the Pearl River in southwestern Guangzhou, and were not allowed to enter, much less live or trade in, any other part of China.

While silk and porcelain drove trade through popularity in the west, an insatiable demand for tea existed in Britain. However, only silver was accepted in payment by China, which resulted in a chronic trade deficit. From the mid-17th century, around 28 million kilograms of silver were received by China, principally from European powers, in exchange for Chinese goods. Britain had been on the gold standard since the 18th century, so it had to purchase silver from continental Europe and Mexico to supply the Chinese appetite for silver. Attempts at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries by a British embassy (twice), a Dutch mission, and Russia to negotiate more expansive access to the Chinese market were all vetoed by successive Emperors. By 1817, the British realized they could reduce the trade deficit and turn the Indian colony profitable by counter-trading in narcotic Indian opium. The Qing administration initially tolerated opium importation because it created an indirect tax on Chinese subjects while allowing the British to double tea exports from China to England, thereby profiting the monopoly on tea exports held by the Qing imperial treasury and its agents. The increasingly complex opium trade would eventually become a source of a military conflict between the Qing dynasty and Britain (Opium Wars).

View of the European factories in Canton by William Daniell, late 18th/early 19th century, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Canton City (Guangzhou), with the Pearl River and the several of the Thirteen Factories of the Europeans. These warehouses and stores were the principal and sole legal site of most Western trade with China from 1757 to 1842.

Foreign Relations

An issue facing Western embassies to China was the act of prostration known as the kowtow. Western diplomats understood that kowtowing meant accepting the superiority of the Emperor of China over their own monarchs, an act they found unacceptable. The British embassies of George Macartney (1793) and William Pitt Amherst (1816) were unsuccessful at negotiating the expansion of trade and interstate relations, partly because kowtowing would mean acknowledging their king as a subject of the Emperor. Dutch ambassador Isaac Titsingh did not refuse to kowtow during the course of his 1794–1795 mission to the imperial court of the Qianlong Emperor. The members of the Titsingh mission made every effort to conform with the demands of complex Imperial court etiquette.

In 1665, Russian explorers met the Manchus in present-day northeastern China. Using the common language of Latin, which the Chinese knew from Jesuit missionaries, the Kangxi Emperor of China and Tsar Peter I of the Russian Empire negotiated the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689. This delineated the borders between Russia and China, some sections of which still exist today. China did not deal with Russia through the Ministry of Tributary Affairs, but rather through the same ministry as the Mongols (seen by the Chinese as a problematic partner), which served to acknowledge Russia’s status as a nontributary nation.

Canton Harbor and Factories with Foreign Flags, unknown Chinese artists, c. 1805, Peabody Essex Museum.

Under the Canton System, between 1757 and 1842, Western merchants in China were restricted to live and conduct business only in the approved area of the port of Guangzhou and through a government-approved merchant houses. Their factories formed a tight-knit community, which the historian Jacques Downs called a “golden ghetto” because it was both isolated and lucrative.

The Chinese worldview changed very little during the Qing dynasty as China’s sinocentric perspectives continued to be informed and reinforced by deliberate policies and practices designed to minimize evidence of its growing weakness and West’s evolving power. After the Titsingh mission, no further non-Asian ambassadors were even allowed to approach the Qing capital until the consequences of the Opium Wars changed everything.

Attributions