Search

The narrative of 'imposition', whereby 'international law' is said to have been imposed by Western powers on China, was shared by both English and Chinese literatures, albeit each holding contrasting views on the meaning and consequences of such 'imposition'. This paper seeks to highlight the nuances in the shared 'imposition' narratives and challenge many of its presumptions through a chronological re-examination. First, by tracing the 'encounter' back to the 16th century, the unity and diversity between the Sinocentric and Eurocentric orders were re-examined. Second, by comparing the Chinese and English text of the Opium War Treaties, this paper reveals how the Qing Empire also sought to accommodate the Eurocentric order in its own term from 1842 to 1860. Third, by seeing the 'encounter' as an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary process, this paper demonstrates how the concept of 'China as a state' evolved from the Celestial Empire's 'encounter' with 'international law'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on Opium War or the Anglo-Chinese war of 1839-42. Topics include Qing government anticipated while easily dealing with the imperialist power and putting the ban on Opium trade; and new ideas and concepts being spelled out adding new slogans and eloquence to the language system.

This article argues that Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies combats monologic discourse by channeling what Mikhail Bakhtin calls the dialogic imagination. The first installment in the Ibis Trilogy, exploring the events leading up to and following the First Opium War, the novel follows the overlapping trajectories of six characters who undergo significant transformations as they cross the Indian Ocean aboard the eponymous ship. While much scholarship on the novel has discussed how barriers of caste, race, gender, and class crumble aboard the Ibis, this essay contributes to a growing corpus that attends to the novel’s imbrication of language and politics. This essay contends that it is through its linguistic inventiveness, specifically its multilingual wordplay, that the novel undermines the grand monologic narratives of history. Insisting on the narrative’s inventiveness allows this essay to discuss how it provides access to the past rather than the mold of academic history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Established in Malacca in 1818 by Robert Morrison, the Anglo-Chinese College (Yinghua shuyuan 英華書院) became an important centre for translation and publishing of Protestant books and tracts in Chinese in the formative decades before the Opium War (1839–42). The extant publications in Chinese from the Anglo-Chinese College in this period shed light on the process of experimentation followed by missionaries and their Chinese collaborators, about how to make books that would appeal to Chinese readers – a necessary prelude to making converts to Christianity. This article traces that process of experimentation through an examination of the publications in Chinese from the Anglo-Chinese College press over the twenty-five years of the College's operation there, prior to its relocation to Hong Kong in 1843. After an overview of the publications, the article discusses the books as physical objects and then considers the content and language within them. These examples suggest common ground between Chinese and Protestant print cultures: both saw close connections between reading, education and virtue, and both employed selective appropriation of excerpts from longer canonical texts as a reading practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most totemic nineteenth-century military conflict between Britain and China was the First Opium War; the least memorable, perhaps, was the brief Camphor War of 1868, which broke out twenty-nine years later in Taiwan. As in the First Opium War, the Qing was defeated in the Camphor War as a result of Britain's clear technological edge over China. Yet this was more than a minor military skirmish: it was an encounter that indicates the eagerness of the Qing to reposition itself in the global arena, both politically and economically. The Camphor War reminds us that the 'clash of empires' was very much part of a process of global consumption and commercialisation, which forced the Qing court for the first time to grapple with defending its natural resources and its existing monopoly over an established market. By tracing the social and material history of camphor, we can also see how demand for this commodity set the gears of the Qing, the British and the American empires into motion. The Camphor War was not concerned with a territorial dispute or the opening of a port city; its essential interest lies in revealing how, in the post-Opium age, competition between the Qing Empire and foreign powers could revolve around access to, and control over, a truly global commodity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On November 20, 1841, John Quincy Adams delivered an address that shocked the nation. The former President, Congressman, and advocate of the Amistad slaves, urged his fellow citizens to support Britain's cause in the Opium War, which, as he put it, was a war for "human freedom." Why would so zealous a champion against slavery endorse a war to sell an addictive substance? This article offers a critical reinterpretation of Adams's lecture on China. By focusing on an excised portion of his original manuscript, it argues that Adams's remarks can only be understood because of—and not in spite of—his antislavery convictions. At a time when Britain was curtailing the interests of Southern slaveholders through meddling in the coastwise slave trade, Adams attempted to shield Britain's moral capital through an ambitious, if problematic, exposition of political theory. This article therefore makes the case that Adams's remarks on China deserve a more prominent place in his oeuvre. By recasting the Opium War as a landmark in the age of emancipation, Adams calls attention to a factor that many scholars of slavery and abolition may have missed: how the problem of racial slavery in the nineteenth century became inseparable from the problem of opium addiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Piracy was considered a crime in international law, and British authorities felt its suppression justified the extension of state power into Asian waters. Only after the Opium War and the colonisation of Hong Kong, however, did Britain gain an interest and the wherewithal to act against pirates off the coast of South China. Ships of the Royal Navy, enforcing British ideas of international and maritime law in Chinese waters, together with the criminal justice system in Hong Kong, proved limited in their capacity to deal with piracy in South China in the mid-nineteenth century. Agents of British state power on the coast of China thus sought the assistance of their international counterparts, culminating in an international punitive expedition to Coulan. This article examines interstate cooperation in the effort to suppress piracy and the light this sheds on the relationship between piracy and state power. It argues that such collaboration required compromises between different understandings of piracy and the jurisdiction that different states had over it, and that interstate power was ultimately limited in its impact on the activities of pirates in South China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US missionaries Elijah Bridgman and Samuel Wells Williams leveraged authority from extraterritorial printing in South China to rebut the oratorical eloquence of ex-President John Quincy Adams on the First Opium War. They did this by editing Adams's 'Lecture on the War with China' (1841) for The Chinese Repository that they published monthly from Guangzhou, Macao, and Hong Kong. Adams presents the British as righteous Christians defending 'free trade' from pagan China. The missionaries' editorial strategies challenged Adams on points of fact to signal disagreement with him over the moral implications of opium smuggling and China's status under international law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

War is prominent in sound studies, yet the sonic dimensions of the Opium Wars remain understudied. Analysing essays on the First Opium War by the English Opium-Eater, Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859), this article explores the dense relationships between opium, empire and sound in nineteenth-century Britain. It brings the tropes of the pipe as connector and organ as musical instrument, body part and instrument of the body politic into dialogue with Deleuze and Guattari's theorisation of the 'Body without Organs', and suggests how the empires of China and Britain and their opium-taking subjects could be imagined as violently sounding bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the special issue proposes that two discrete nineteenth-century histories of opium – a literary history, initiated by the drug confessions of De Quincey, and a colonial history, exemplified by the commercial activities of the East India Company (in which Thomas Love Peacock participated) in cultivating opium in Bengal for export to China, leading to the first Opium War – are common elements in a nineteenth-century 'opium complex', a set of interlocking practices of individuals and (quasi)state actors, extending across the globe. Sherlock Holmes detective stories are read as compressed registers of tensions that inhere in this complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the topics of nationhood, Westernization, Sinicization, modern national identity and nationalism in Chinese films. Other topics include how the Opium War in the 1840s started Chinese modern history, how Western influences launched the concept of nationhood, and the features of Chinese art and entertainment in early Chinese cinema.

Depending on how one defines homelessness, China has either a very tiny homeless population or an extremely large one. Compared to other countries, there very few vagrants: people living on the streets of China's cities without means of support. But if one counts the people who migrated to cities without a legal permit (hukou), work as day laborers without job security or a company dormitory, and live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions on the edge of cities, there are nearly 300 million homeless. Free market fundamentalism is responsible for the emergence of this sort of homelessness in China. We review China's recent new policies to tackle homelessness and offer suggestions based on the traditional Chinese wisdom, which includes the concept of the universal family (family - tian xia). Homelessness in China must be addressed as a cultural problem caused by the breakdown of ancient methods of social integration. Treating it merely as a housing deficit will fail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Afghanistan as the world's leading opium producer. The author states that although Afghanistan produces ninety percent of the world's opium, the poppy cultivation trade does not seem to have translated into economic power for the nation. Topics include opium wars, political instability, the connection between war and drug production, and the dependence of the Afghan economy on drug production. The Taliban and Mujaheddin groups are mentioned.

Copyright of Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi Journal of Social Sciences / Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi is the property of Journal of Abant Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article explores the history of First Opium War, which is fought between the United Kingdom and the Qing dynasty of China. Topics discussed include cause of war which subject of much historical debate; talks of newly appointed secretary for war (1839-41) Thomas Babington Macaulay in the Commons debate of April, 1840; and mentions hostility of Thomas De Quincey to Macaulay.

Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies is about the world just before the start of the Opium Wars. It centres on the Ibis, an old slaving-ship travelling around and across the Indian Ocean. The dynasty is set to cross continents, races and even generations. The novel captures a wide range of countryside, right from the flourishing poppy fields of the Ganges to the crowded backstreets of China. The novels rich variety of the characters makes the book interesting and occupying. In short, it is a work of art truly. The present paper deals with the colonial complexity and the history presented in the novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If we were asked to recall a coastal city of early modern China, most of us would choose Shanghai, Canton, Xiamen, or Macau. These port cities became famous for facilitating trans-regional sea trade that linked the Qing Empire to the rest of the world. Attentive observers know that all of these cities are located on the Southeast China coast, by which we mean the coastal areas south of Shanghai. Taking Shanghai as the dividing line between the northeastern and southeastern coastlines, the port cities of the south are far more likely to be familiar to us than are those of the north. I consider this phenomenon (i.e. the focus on the coast of early modern China) to be a "Southeast China centrism." And although we might all concede that some southeastern seaports were vital to transoceanic interactions, it is shortsighted to ignore the northern port cities and the role they played in connecting China with the maritime world. In this article I investigate the importance of Northeast China's port cities by focusing particular attention on the less familiar coastal seaport of Dengzhou. By detailing and examining the political and economic importance of this port city in the early modern period, I will show that Qing China's northeastern coast was no less important than the southeast. Even if China's northern port cities might not have been as economically vibrant as those in the south, we should not overlook their functions and histories. Indeed, they also attained unique patterns of political and economic development throughout the long eighteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the neo-racism in China against African American people. Topics mentioned include the historical events and factors that led to discrimination of African descent people, and the racism shown in popular media and advertisement. It also mentioned the Opium War and exposure to western entertainment.

This article investigates British attitudes towards Qing China as a consequence of their early encounters from the Macartney embassy to the opium crisis. Examining this medium-term time span, to which previous scholarship has paid inadequate attention, shows the continuity and change in these attitudes through different historical contexts. With its focus on war-related discussions, this article reveals how the idea of war against the Chinese empire was developed and debated on the basis of these changing ideas. The First Anglo-Chinese War, to a great extent, could not have developed into the form and scale it did without these developments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Amherst embassy has a long-standing reputation as a diplomatic failure in Britain’s early relations with China. This analysis concentrates on a greatly overlooked aspect of the Amherst mission—the controversy within the embassy’s leadership about whether to perform kowtow before the Jiaqing emperor. George Thomas Staunton, basing his arguments on some “local inside knowledge,” successfully prevailed on Amherst to refuse to kowtow. This decision directly resulted in the rejection of the embassy from Beijing. To explain this unpleasant outcome, both sides of the controversy downplayed the importance of their decision and, instead, constructed a capricious image of the Chinese emperor, which helped to lay the foundations for the deterioration of Sino–British relations in the run up to the Opium War. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on the exchanges and temporalities associated with the First Opium War of 1840-1842 in the works of essayist Thomas de Quincey, writer Charles Dickens and film director D. W. Griffith. It offers some broad reflections of the war in the film "Broken Blossoms or the Yellow Man and the Girl" directed by Griffith, and how Dicken's fiction influenced Griffith's film art. It also examines how de Quincey connected his lifelong experience of opium with two decades of thinking.

The translation of Western philosophies in China has experienced different historical periods: late Ming and early Qing period; around the Opium War; the New Cultural Movement and the "May 4th" Movement; from the rule of National Party to the founding of the People's Republic of China; from the founding of P.R. China to the Reform and Opening and the period after the Reform and Opening. The translation and study of Western philosophies are carried out under historical and social backgrounds and have great impact on the reformation of Chinese societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Qing dynasty in the context of Chinese history. Topics discussed include modernization theory in respect of China, the assumption that modernity and Confucianism are incompatible, the divide between the modern and traditional period of Chinese history being the Opium War, and the reading of Manchu documents by scholars.

Copyright of Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong is the property of Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores whether the British decision-makers and public were conscious of the habit-forming nature of opium at the time of the Chinese war of 1839–42, the First Opium War. While most political historians have assumed that the British authorities understood the nature of the drug, social historians argue that notions of addiction only arose, in Britain, at the end of the nineteenth century. Examining the abundant press, pamphlet, and parliamentary literature generated by the war debate, this article examines in what terms opium use was characterized. It considers the groups that intervened on both sides of the debate and draws lessons from the arguments they deployed for and against the war. Situating the source literature within the context of early Victorian values and mores, finally, it argues that the British leaders and political nation were aware of the drug's habit-forming properties. Not only was it widely recognized that it was something dangerous that was being introduced, at the point of a gun, into China, but there can be said to have existed, in Britain, a layman's notion of drug addiction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Prior to the Opium Wars, in 1840 and 1857, the celebrated English Opium Eater Thomas de Quincey published journalism that urged Britain to attack China. De Quincey claims that the Qing Empire displays 'the demoniac hybris of Greek Tragedy'. While de Quincey's citation of classical literature to support imperialism is a commonplace of Victorian politics, some of his references to the ancient world reflect a Romantic anxiety concerning the fragility of empire. De Quincey theorizes that classical literature yields social 'power', yet doing so reveals his own powerlessness. This article examines the transposition of ideas between de Quincey's China articles and his 'Theory of Greek Tragedy'. De Quincey relies on a classical literature of 'power' to assert his identity in defiance of the Oriental other, but the concept with which he characterizes Manchurian folly -- the daimon -- also symbolizes his own helplessness. The supposedly inexorable conflict between Apollonian Britain and Dionysian China, the Malay visitor amok in Confessions, and opium use all entail the loss of individual agency identifiable with daimonic influence. The daimon -- a figure for his own addiction -- indicates that the Opium Wars articles continue the work of Confessions, as an encoded expression of de Quincey's plight as addict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once afflicted by frequent episodes of famine, China-particularly the Chinese state-is growing in importance as a player in the overseas aid and development sector. This paper examines four famines in modern China-defined as the period since the First Opium War of 1839-42-to shed light on the changing nature of state involvement in disaster relief in the country, while also demonstrating the breadth and diversity of relief agency in the past. It makes the case that traditional disaster relief principles and methods were active well into the twentieth century, and that the statist model of today's People's Republic is not an essential characteristic of Chinese humanitarian organisation. Rather, the extent to which the Chinese state will continue to assume a dominant role in the country's re-emerging civic and charity sector is, as in earlier times, a function of the political developments and struggles that lie ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After its defeat in the Opium Wars, China was drawn into the orbit of Western influence. Since then, dewesternization has always been one of the hotly debated topics among Chinese intellectuals and politicians. With the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, China’s economic take-off was almost instant due to its low-cost labor, rich resources, and the government’s firm resolution to modernize. The booming of a market economy with Chinese characteristics can be quoted as a success story of China’s dewesternization project. However, while enjoying the benefits of its attempts to modernize itself, China also begins to encounter the dark side of modernity. Problems like environmental deterioration, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and food safety are causing anxieties among Chinese people. In order to cope with the detrimental effects of the neo-liberal doctrines, harmony was put forward as a state strategy. Ostensibly disinterested, harmony aims at the well-being, happiness, and welfare of all. However, while harmony can serve as a national strategy to ameliorate the fermenting social discontent in China, it may also be a lofty ideal to attract, unite, and inspire people in other parts of the world. According to the spirit of harmony, different nations can pursue the well-being of their own people in their own ways which is in accordance with the notion of pluriversality as proposed by decolonial thinkers. Besides analyzing the social, economic, and political significance of harmony both within China and abroad, this essay also attempts to address the theoretical problems posed by harmony, if it is to be considered a productive ideal in this globalized world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism is presented of several 19th century works by Romantic English authors, including the book "China, in a Series of Views, Displaying the Scenery, Architecture, and Social Habits, of That Ancient Empire. Drawn, From Original and Authentic Sketches, by Thomas Allom. With Historical and Descriptive Notices by G.N. Wright," by George Newenham Wright and the essays "The Opium and the China Question,” and "Hints Towards an Appreciation of the Coming War in China,” by Thomas De Quincey. Particular focus is given to the depiction of British attitudes towards China, including in regard to Great Britain's relations with China and the 1840-1842 Opium Wars.

The article discusses some of the internal and external challenges faced by Japan during the Tempo Era, including Japan's knowledge of the Opium War. It also discusses advance warnings Japan received about Western challenges as a way to explore reasons for Japan's lack of military and diplomatic preparation by the time the Perry Mission arrived in 1853.

Prior to the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing, Chinese officials prohibited the presence of foreign women in China. While, many Chinese regulations concerning foreign merchants and missionaries were not enforced, this rule xuas. In 1830 and again in the 1840s, in the aftermath of the first Opium War, clusters of British and American families traveled up the Pearl River to the factories that housed visiting merchants in Canton (Guangzhou). On both occasions, trouble ensued. But the conflicts may not have been all they seemed. This article suggests that fordgn women did have the potential to be a problem in China, less because of inherent cultural differences than because both Chinese officials and Western merchants used Western women to embody a boundary betiueen peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editor's Note: The essay that follows is based on a conference paper by Dilip K. Basu that has long circulated informally, in the process exercising an unusually high degree of influence for an unpublished commentary. Most notably, some ideas embedded in it have been spread via literary scholar Lydia Liu's engagement with and quoting of the paper in The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making (Liu 2006), a provocative and much-cited book that calls for a radical rethinking of some of the standard terms and concepts used in the past to refer to the Qing Empire's ties to and conflicts with other political and territorial units. Those familiar with Liu's work will find here an essay that complements some arguments in her book; those who have not read it will be introduced to those ideas for the first time. Beyond this, though, all readers will find a discussion of various ideas and events—visions of China's place in the world, how the story of the Opium War is thought about in different settings, the history of Sinology—shaped by personal as well as scholarly concerns.The essay's ties to the author's life and associations, which come into play more as the essay proceeds, make it a good fit with the goals of our recently introduced and still evolving “Reflections” genre. In addition, since it revisits critically ideas about China associated with the work of John K. Fairbank, it can be placed well beside some of the essays published in the “Legacies” series launched by Kenneth George, in his time as editor of the journal. And regular attendees of the Association for Asian Studies annual meetings may notice that much that follows resonates with the keynote address by Amitav Ghosh, one of those familiar with Basu's essay in draft form, when that conference was held in Toronto in 2012. The pages that follow are tightly focused on China, but Basu's discussion of “xenology” (a term for the ways that cultures think about those deemed “others,” which has, of course, the same root as the more familiar term “xenophobia”) clearly has implications for widely varied times and places, just as the handling of Fairbank's distinctive role in Chinese studies may bring to mind parallels to the influence that other prominent Western academics from the last century once shaped and via their legacies can continue to shape academic work on other parts of Asia. While focused tightly on China, in other words, it has much to offer readers whose primary interest is not in that country. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The University of London was the first institution in the United Kingdom to establish a professorship in Chinese. Within a decade of the first half of the nineteenth century, two professorships in Chinese were created at its two colleges: the first at University College in 1837 and the second at King's College in 1847. Previous studies of British sinology have devoted sufficient attention to the establishment of the programme and the first Chinese professorship. However, despite the latter professorship being established by the same patron (Sir George Thomas Staunton; 1781–1859) during the same era as the former, the institutionalisation of the Chinese programme at King's College London seems to have been completely overlooked. If we consider British colonial policy and the mission of the Empire in the early nineteenth century, we are able to understand the strategic purpose served by the Chinese studies programme at King's and the special reason for its establishment at a crucial moment in the history of Sino-British relations. Examining it from this perspective, we reveal unresolved doubts concerning the selection and appointment of King's first Chinese professor. Unlike other inaugural Chinese professors appointed during the nineteenth century at other universities in the United Kingdom, the first Chinese professor at King’s, Samuel Turner Fearon (1819–1854), was not a sinophile. He did not translate any Chinese classics or other works. His inaugural lecture has not even survived. This is why sinologists have failed to conduct an in-depth study on Fearon and the genealogy of the Chinese programme at King’s. Nevertheless, Samuel Fearon did indeed play a very significant role in Sino-British relations due to his ability as an interpreter and his knowledge of China. He was not only an interpreter in the first Opium War (1839–1842) but was also a colonial civil servant and senior government official in British Hong Kong when the colonial government started to take shape after the war. This paper both re-examines his contribution during this “period of conflict and difficulty” in Sino-British relations and demonstrates the very nature of British sinology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines public reactions to the ' Napier Fizzle' and the discussion about Britain's China policy within the British community in China in the mid eighteen-thirties. This period has received much less attention than the Napier incident itself and the immediate causes of the Opium War. Based on popular publications available in Canton in this period, the article investigates the debate over the cause of Lord Napier's failure, the 'show of force' theory as well as other 'minor' voices. It reveals that, although 'show of force' was the most prominent attitude at the time, the mid eighteen-thirties should be considered as a period of confused thinking with regard to Britain's China policy, rather than a clear stage in the preparations for an open war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the Free Trade lobby's attempts to make its primary concern into a lunch pail issue for the masses played a crucial role in providing the political cover for military adventures despite the pacifist inclinations of the leadership of the Anti-Corn-Law-League. This casts new light on the decision to use force against the Qing Empire during what would come to be the First Opium War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]