The Chinese Opium Wars (Paperback)

by Jack Beeching (Author) "In the hot August of 1798 a fleet of Chinese junks and sampans, carrying an important passenger and all his retinue, made way upstream to..." (more)
Key Phrases: opium clippers, war junks, tea crop, Hong Kong, Lord Elgin, Lord Palmerston (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
An enlightening account of a notorious period in nineteenth-century imperialism, when an effort by the Chinese government to stamp out the country's profitable opium trade resulted in a series of conflicts known as the Opium Wars. Index; illustrations and map.

About the Author
Jack Beeching (born John Charles Stuart Beeching) (1922-2001) was an English poet. As a poet he was prominent in the third quarter of the century, but his works thereafter fell into neglect.

Beeching was born in Hastings, Sussex, England, on May 8, 1922, and died in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on December 27, 2001. He served in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II. He married author and translator Alexis Brown in 1950. They were divorced in 1970, and shared the rest of his life with Charlotte Mensforth, the painter. He had four children.

In 1956, he suffered serious chest injuries in an automobile accident. As a result, he had severe respiratory problems that forced him to live in warmer climates.

Beeching's poetry is considered moving, original, clear-sighted, compressed, and funny. A view expressed by the editor of Qualm in 2003, and a high opinion shared by the editors at Penguin circa 1970, and very much reflected in his obituary in The Independent thirty years later, whose author speaks also of Beeching's 'disciplined metre, subtle half-rhyme and a luxuriant syntax which expressed at times distinctly "difficult" metaphysical concerns'. His writing in old age was perhaps at least as strong and trenchant as that of any of his peers of a similar age.

Although he continued to write with dedication and erudition until his death, during the second half of his life his work fell into neglect. This neglect was partly attributable to his having to live, because of his damaged lung, abroad in drier climates, including Greece, Turkey, Guatemala, Lucca, Genoa, Menton, and Majorca. It was a life of near-poverty in tiny apartments.

He was published in Penguin Modern Poets No. 16 in 1970, and near the end of his life brought out a collection, Poems 1940-2000 (Art Ojo Nuevo). He was also a novelist and writer of historical books, but stated "Poetry is my avocation; the other forms of writing are a means of livelihood".

Beeching also translated poetry from French and Spanish, and wrote several plays for the London stage. He contributed to The New York Times and The Times.

The Arts Council of Great Britain gave him their Award to a Living Artist in 1967, and he was later granted a Civil List pension for "services to literature".

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harvest Books (April 6, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156170949
• ISBN-13: 978-0156170949
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #411,456 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Very First Drug War, December 14, 2001

By	Matherson (New York) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

When Hong Kong was handed over by the British in 1997, some asked why the Chinese were showing such lack of gratitude for the 150 years of British rule. Had they read this book, they would understand. The seizure of Hong Kong was part of the "package" of concessions handed over at the end of the First Opium War, in which Britain struggled to free up the flow of opiates to the Celestial Empire. (Without creating a massive market of Chinese opium addicts, the British East India Company, the world's largest purchaser of Chinese tea, stood no chance of balancing its trade deficit with China.) Later, the 1857 "Arrow" incident (Chinese port officials firing on a Dutch pirate vessel flying the Union Jack) provided Britain and France with the necessary pretext to increase their concessions and burn the Imperial Summer Palace. Beeching covers both the military campaigns - tremendous bravery shown on both sides - and the political background to the dispute. His account of the debates in British Parliament are particularly classic, with Palmerston's government engaging in massive chicanery to keep the Lords from voting against the Second Opium War. Beeching knows his stuff, and he is equally scathing of Western avarice which drove these wars and the Chinese royal family's incompetence in failing to limit the damage.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars British Arrogance Explicated, December 20, 2006

By	R. E. Rieder (Corrales NM) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The opium wars in China were a contest between the Chinese and the British which extended from 1840 to 1842, and were renewed in 1857. What these wars were about is a matter of contention. Jack Beeching, in this engaging and detailed book about the conflicts takes the position that they really were about what the name implies, smuggling opium into China in violation of its laws. An analogy today, would be if Columbia or Mexico were to invade the U.S. in order to open our markets to cocaine regardless of the fact that our laws prohibit its sale. Britain had the sea power and disciplined troops to do it and did.

British and American commentators at the time and since have strongly urged the view that in 1839 the real issue was not opium but extra-territoriality - or, sometimes, the Open Door in China. The argument is respectable, but it must be recognized that the British government laid down from the start a policy and a strategy which corresponded very closely to the declared needs of the big opium smugglers."

Beeching is up against some fairly strong "respectable" opposition. For example, Peter Ward Fay, a professor emeritus of history at the California Institute of Technology, wrote a book about the first opium war, evidently intending to satisfy what he and Beeching must both have realized at the time they wrote, both books being published in 1975: "There does not exist, for the West's first major intrusion into China, what the subject deserves and a reader is entitled to. The popular books on the war leave it a piece in the larger story of the `awakening dragon' or treat it decidedly hurriedly. The scholarly monographs approach it from one angle or another, rarely making much of an effort at narrative." (Fay, Peter Ward, The Opium War, 1840-1842, 1975, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1997, Paperback Edition. Evidently Fay did not think much of Beeching's narrative. Writing a preface in a new edition in 1997, he said: ... "Nothing has been added to the existing Notes on Sources, in part because in the years since it was drawn up, nothing that seriously added to or challenged the narrative has to my knowledge appeared.") Fay subscribes to the other "respectable" argument. "Readers may discover that though I am quite aware what damage opium did, I do not believe that the Opium War was really about opium at all. It was about other particular things, shaped by circumstances as most history is; and it was, if you look for an overarching principle, about somehow getting the Chinese to open up. The desire is still very much with us today."

This view is echoed by John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman. They argue that the British expeditionary force led by the new paddle wheel steamer, Nemesis, was intended "...to secure privileges of general commercial and diplomatic intercourse on a Western basis of equality, and not especially to aid the expansion of the opium trade. The latter was expanding rapidly of its own accord and was only one point of friction in the general antagonism between the Chinese and British schemes of international relations." (Fairbank, John King, Goldman, Merle, China a New History, 2nd Edition, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2006. It should be noted that Fairbank's review of both Fay's and Beeching's books in The New York Times is cited on the cover of each.) The objective being in dispute even today, what happened in China?

The background of the conflict is complex, but the central aspect of it is generally agreed. In the eighteenth century the British had developed a substantial liking for tea. They obtained it from China for which they paid in silver. As the consumption grew the balance of payments with China tilted more and more in favor of the Chinese. For example, between 1710 and 1759 Britain bought 26,833,614 Pounds Sterling worth of tea and sold only 9,248,396 Pounds worth of goods to the Chinese.

That the Chinese did not admire British goods or want them is a frequently told story. Lord Macartney took a representative selection of British goods when he went to the Summer Palace in 1793 to establish an embassy. The Emperor took one look at them and said: "I set no value on strange objects and ingenious (sic.) and have no use for your country's manufactures." They languished in a warehouse only to be discovered in their crates at the end of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. The British simply could not afford to continue buying tea and not selling anything. In India the British were growing opium (a white poppy which produces a milk from which opium is derived). While there was no market for it in 1782, the British thought they could purchase it cheaply in India where they were selling textiles and develop a market for it in China to offset their tea purchases. A couple of British firms did just that. "By 1830, the opium trade there was probably the largest commerce of its time in any single commodity, anywhere in the world." But the Chinese banned the sale and tried to shut down the sellers and importers. While the emperor had issued an edict against its sale in 1799 and closed outlets by force in 1821-3, the trade persisted. The proximate cause of the war was the righteous action of the incorruptible Chinese Imperial Commissioner, Lin Zixu, in 1839, to arrest the Chinese opium dealers in Canton and to quarantine the foreign suppliers and seize their supplies of opium. The British responded by forcibly "opening the door," but the door was to the opium den.

The arrogance of the British at that time cannot be overstated. Disraeli, opposing war, challenged Palmerston, the Prime Minister to put the matter to a vote of the nation. Palmerston did just that. He dissolved Parliament and appealed to the electorate calling Commisioner Lin "an insolent barbarian." Evidently gunboat diplomacy was more popular with the people than the House of Commons, for his government was returned with a majority. It should be noted, that during this time opium was not prohibited in Britain and many there regarded it as less harmful than alcohol and, indeed, used it for medical purposes.

Beeching describes the ensuing war in detail, recognizing that it was not an even contest. The British had disciplined troops and modern weapons. In one instance, after the British had captured Ningpo, the Chinese massed a force and invaded the city. They broke through a city gate and attacked down the street toward the market. The British brought up one howitzer, and a platoon of infantry which barred the only side street of escape. It was a slaughter. "No British were killed that night, but over 500 Chinese dead were counted. All units of the Chinese army which had been in action at Ningpo were permanently demoralized from the effect on their minds of grapeshot and musketry at close quarters. Henceforth, against any European army, they were defeated in advance." The treaty of Nanking ended the war and granted the British the right to resume trade on an expanded basis and other concessions.

The personalities involved on both sides seem to be caricatures of their time. The British Victorian statesmen and soldiers were conquerors and the Chinese mandarins were still the foundation of Chinese society. Both empires had cracks, and Beeching describes them. However, the Chinese, being isolated compared to the British, did not recognize their weeknesses. A new emperor in 1850, Hsien Feng, was not a match for the time. There were disasters, the Yellow River altered its course and the Taiping rebellion swept the country. Parts of the treaty of Nanking were not honored. The British wanted what the treaty provided and more. They concentrated their fleet on Chinese waters after the Crimean War was over. An excuse came when the Arrow, a British flag vessel, was boarded by Chinese marines who arrested the Chinese crew. The following clash, in 1859, was even more one sided than the previous one. After another treaty was negotiated but not honored by the Chinese, the British captured Beijing. They looted and destroyed the Summer Palace and opened up the interior of China to trade and missionary activity.

The Chinese Opium Wars has remained in print for the last thirty years because it is readable and its scope is extensive, from 1798 to 1864. Furthermore, Beeching dwells upon the personalities and turmoil in China along with British aggression. It may well be that the isolation the Chinese imposed upon themselves from the time of Zheng He would have dissipated over time without foreign intervention. However, Chinese social and governmental structure, which did not lend itself to change, was anachronistic. Gentry were selected to command troops without having received training other than in Confucian texts. Official promotions from ninth grade, and later eighth grade, were offered for cash starting in 1838. And the revolutions in China did not include the industrial one.

Beeching describes his modest intent in a postscript referring to his sources:
"Materials for the serious academic history of the Chinese Opium wars which has not yet been written are abundant. For instance there are over 2000 books and articles, many in Chinese or Russian, on the Taiping Rising alone. To append a scholarly apparatus of references to an essay in popular narrative history, compiled from less than a hundred sources, all secondary, and in only two languages, would be willfully misleading. Yet the narrative historian writing for the man in the street has valid standards of his own - corresponding to those of the responsible journalist. History is the resurrection of the dead; this book is only a sketch of a possible beginning."

Given that objective, Beeching successfully outlined the conflicts.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Early Embarrassment for Free Trade, January 19, 2003

By	doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This is a highly enjoyable history by Jack Beeching into an embarrassing episode from the 19th century that holds many lessons for today's world. The Opium Wars in China seem to have been forgotten by the West, especially by those who don't want to confront the more ignoble actions by European powers. By the early 1800's England had been exporting large quantities of opium into the Chinese black market. The Chinese emperor tried to outlaw opium because it was leading to large numbers of addicts and was destroying the social fabric of several cities. This was anathema to British merchants who were surely willing to overlook the horrific consequences of their trade in light of the handsome profits they were making. In fact, in Chapter 9 of this book a British official is quoted as saying, "Free trade is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is free trade." England then went to war twice with China (with help from France, Russia, and the U.S.) to keep the opium market open. It was even official policy during these wars to force more opium into the Chinese interior and create millions more addicts, and to pressure the Chinese into legalizing the drug, all because free trade and profits were more important than the destruction of a sovereign society.

Beeching makes great use of historical analysis, and a bit of sarcastic humor, to describe these two opium wars and the surrounding historical context. He does a good job outlining the cultural misunderstandings that made things worse (both sides always called the other crude barbarians), and he does a fine job covering all sides of the story within the context of concurrent British and Chinese history. On the British side, the book does occasionally get bogged down in Parliamentary politics back in London, but on the Chinese side there is good coverage of native culture and an interesting foray into the Taiping rebellion.

The most useful outcome of this fascinating book is its lessons about free trade between Western and non-Western economies, which was even a troublesome issue back in the 19th century. In modern times, a common criticism of globalization is its destructive effect on foreign cultures. Any proponent of unrestricted free trade, before condemning such concerns as politically correct nonsense, would be wise to consider the old Opium Wars. The British and their western allies justified the ruination of a society by the profits it generated, and conveniently forgot any religious or political scruples about trading in illegal drugs. Meanwhile the East's distrust for the West was intensified and still remains to this day. One has to wonder if Columbia currently has that attitude about exporting drugs to the U.S. They're just practicing free trade and western capitalism, after all.