Ch 17 - A Clash of CulturesTaipanThe British Government ended the East India Company's trade monopoly with China, but allowed it to continue its monopoly over opium production in India. A British official replaced the Company's Select Committee in Canton with orders to maintain friendly and cordial relations with the Chinese.
"There is cause for apprehension, lest, in centuries or millenniums to come, China may be endangered by collision with the various nations of the West, who come hither from beyond the seas." The Western world grew increasingly powerful during the early 19th century. Wherever these newly emerging "masters of the globe" went in the world, for better or worse, changes followed in their wake; undercurrents of new ideas, new concepts of scientific learning, individual freedoms, and economic growth. Asian nations soon discovered they could no longer deal with the new West as they had with 18th century Europe. By the nineteenth century, with the twin economic doctrines of laissez faire and free trade steadily gaining momentum, it became apparent to diplomats outside Asia that China's foreign relations policy, much like the contemporary isolationist policies of Japan and Choson, was outdated and no longer supportable. The British East India Company's operating charter was scheduled for renewal in 1833. The Company, through a series of charters, held exclusive trade rights between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan from its inception in 1600. The Company transformed during the latter half of the 18th century, changing from a primarily commercial body into a major territorial power headquartered in Calcutta, India. The British government responded by creating the Board of Control, a body of standing commissioners who supervised the Company's Indian policies. Beginning in the early 19th century however, the British Parliament began debating the exact nature of the government in India and the outcome of that great debate helped set the stage for England's, and the worlds, future relations with Asian nations. The East India Company wanted to regard India as a playground for British commercial exploitation, with the Company holding administrative control in one hand while exploiting India for profit with the other. India's new government would, by their reckoning, be a "law-and-order" state, with Britain enforcing the law while British merchants enjoyed free reign to trade profitably. Naturally, this idea found no support outside the Company and was attacked from several competing interests. The Whig Party, through Edmund Burke in his campaign against India's Governor-General Warren Hastings, demanded that the Indian Government must be responsible for the welfare of the governed. Burke's position was backed by both Anglican and Baptist evangelicals in England, who added that, as a ruling power, Britain was also responsible for India's spiritual and moral welfare. Seeking fertile new ground to test their social theories, a rising group of free-thinking utilitarians joined the debate in the belief that Indian society could be transformed through legislation. Finally, radical rationalists, men who borrowed their human rights doctrine from France, entered the fray in hopes of introducing their beliefs into India. The most practical argument in favor of breaking the East India Company's trade monopoly had to do with its affect on economic competition. The whole concept of monopoly trading was becoming outdated and Britain's growing middle class largely opposed it. A growing body of private British merchants and manufacturers, specifically those shut out of the East Asian market, entered the debate to argue for free trade in the Indies. The Company's long-standing monopoly kept London businesses from competing in the lucrative China trade, even those fully capable of meeting the financial requirements to do so. The monopoly did not however, prevent foreigners from entering the Asian market, particularly the Americans, who traded to the limit of their capacity and reaped profits that London businesses might have enjoyed without the Company's restrictions. Local Chinese authorities in Canton, troubled by the potential dissolution of a company that had been trading in China for over one hundred years, also took an interest in the matter. Faced with the prospect of the Company's charter not being renewed, Canton's governor-general, Li Hongbin, asked Britain in 1831 to appoint a head merchant, or taipan, to Canton when the Company's monopoly ended. He did not suggest the official should enjoy any privileges not held by the Company's Select Committee, merely that he have the same authority over the other merchants as the Select Committee. Under increasing pressure from proponents of free trade with China and manufacturing interests at home, on August 28, 1833, the British Parliament decided to break the monopoly of the British East India Company. Effective April 22, 1834, all British subjects were granted the freedom to trade between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan. In addition, a court was created which would administer justice to British subjects in China and within a hundred miles of its coast. The Company was not asked to suffer serious financial losses and the transition from a monopoly to free trade had little notable effect on commercial activities in China. The Company continued to exercise responsibility for the government of India under the supervision of the Board of Control and retained control of the Indian opium market which, by 1833, accounted for half the total value of British exports to China, far exceeding the value of all tea imports from China. Free merchants would have to buy the drug from the Company and, as numerous new merchants entered the market, the demand for opium increased. It seemed entirely possible at the time that, after covering its overhead, the Company could make greater profits from selling opium in Calcutta than from selling tea in London. The contentious debate over renewing the British East India Company's charter also involved the question of opium and the Company's role as East Asia's leading supplier. Few argued the drug trade as a serious moral concern. Instead, the argument turned, as it always had, to the tremendous wealth it generated for the British Crown. By 1833, opium traffic accounted for half the total value of British exports to China, far exceeding the value of all tea imports from China. Although some members of government expressed an uneasiness about the opium trade, none took affirmative action to stop it. It did not pass unnoticed by other governments around the world that the British Empire, which had paraded its devotion to the cause of humanity by abolishing the slave trade in 1833, had now taken over the principal role in the most massive drug smuggling operation the world had ever known. Up to this point, the West had scanty information about the effects of the opium on the Chinese people, and what information existed was not always reliable. Chinese Repository magazine provided mounting evidence that pointed to a growing alarm among the Chinese about opium's impact. The drug hit the military hard. Out of 1,000 troops sent as reinforcements to suppress an uprising in Canton province, the commanding officer had to reject some 200 men as unfit for service. He later blamed opium for the Imperial Army's defeat by the rebels. Opium respected neither age nor status and the attraction opium smoking had for the sons of China's upper classes had tragic effects. The son of Canton's governor, it turned out, smuggled opium to his friends in Beijing by hiding it in the equivalent of a diplomatic bag carrying documents to the Imperial Court. Even Emperor Xuanzong fell victim to the drug's long reach. His three eldest sons all died from opium addiction. The mere presence of opium in China had the potential to endanger the lives of even its most law-abiding citizens. The fact that so many respectable citizens, or their sons, were opium smokers encouraged extortion and blackmail. The payment of rewards to informers used to help suppress the drug traffic became a temptation to anyone with a grudge against his neighbor to denounce him as a "transgressor of the laws against the drug." Officials used the excuse of "searching for the drug" as a pretext to commit thefts and other outrageous acts against citizens. Thousands of innocent people fell victim to such abuses. In 1834, the Chinese Repository reported just how deeply both merchants and civil authorities were involved in the Canton drug trade. Governor-General Li Hongbin had been dismissed for his failure to suppress the opium traffic. When Canton's new governor, Lu Kun, attempted to arrest the suppliers who overcharged him for his opium supply, he discovered they had already disappeared. According to the Repository, Chinese officials tended to move against smugglers, not to stop the smuggling, but to ensure that it stayed within existing channels: "... it would seem that the smuggling trade is becoming a monopoly of the Government." The American Charles W. King, one of the few merchants of any nationality in Canton who refused to have anything to do with the traffic, complained in a letter: The British merchants, led on by the East India Company, have been driving a trade in violation of the highest laws and the best interests of the Chinese empire. This cause has been pushed so far as to derange its currency, to corrupt its officers, and ruin multitudes of its people. The traffic has become associated, in the politics of the country, with the axe and the dungeon; in the breasts of men in private life, with the wreck of property, virtue, honour and happiness. All ranks, from the Emperor on the throne to the people of the humblest hamlets, have felt its sting. To the fact of its descent to the lowest classes of society, we are frequent witnesses; and the Court gazettes are evidence that it has marked out victims for disgrace and ruin even among the imperial kindred. The impending departure of the British East India Company's Select Committee gave British residents in China cause to voice their own strong feelings on the subject of British trade policy following the Company's departure. In 1832, two American missionaries in Canton founded the Chinese Repository, a monthly magazine which published, among other things, translations of Chinese documents ranging from imperial decrees to flyers and posters. An article published in the December 1833 edition of the Chinese Repository, signed "British Merchant," stated that not once in the 150 years of Company trade with China had it so much as negotiated the smallest amendment to the Canton Trade Regulations and accused the Company of acting with a timid, conciliatory policy toward the Chinese when a stiff, even threatening, policy would have served far better. The anonymous author stated that once the Company left China and removed its governing body, British merchants would be left without regulating authority or direction. To avoid replacing the Select Committee with a similarly weak body such as a Chamber of Commerce, the author proposed that Britain appoint a representative, a person of high standing, who could speak with the assurance that England not only stood behind them, but was ready to sanction the use of force should occasion demand. Long frustrated by the capricious dealings of the Hai Guanbu and the Cohong and with full faith in Britain's military superiority, British merchants wanted someone with the authority of the British Crown to oversee and protect them. Acknowledging the numerous problems that would no doubt arise from placing a representative of the British Crown in China to handle trade matters, the author wrote, "If a crown authority be placed in China, he must be an efficient one, and vested with powers of no ordinary nature, as being placed in a position that may force him into a state of war in spite of his best endeavors to the contrary. Nor, indeed, should our valuable commerce and revenue, both in India and Great Britain, be permitted to remain subject to a caprice, which a few gunboats laid alongside this city would overrule by the discharge of a few mortars. The Governor and Hoppo would soon find that their freaks of fancy were no longer the pastime they used to be, and that it was not prudent to provoke those who were willing to be their friends. ... The results of a war with China cannot be doubted." The author openly urged Great Britain to engage in nothing short of "gunboat diplomacy." If China refused to cooperate, then by threat, intimidation, and war if need be, the author felt Britain should bring sufficient force to bear and kick open the door to free trade in the heart of China. The position of the Canton free merchants expressed in the pages of the Chinese Repository presented the British Cabinet with a real problem. Their solution was to appoint not one, but three trade superintendents who would jointly oversee British commerce in place of the East India Company. Because the government felt that a peer was necessary, the appointees were not private businessmen, but officials of the British Crown. Despite a mound of available evidence from the earlier Macartney and Amherst diplomatic missions to Beijing, the British Cabinet does not seem to have realized the dramatic impact of such a move as seen from the Chinese perspective. With the stroke of a pen, England replaced the administrative control of the East India Company with the full force and power of the British Empire; private relations were superseded by official relations. Although commercial interests continued to play a dominant role in British policy, considerations of politics, prestige and national honor now assumed a greater importance than ever before. Chinese merchants and the Canton authorities now had to contend directly with agents acting on behalf of the British Crown. Nothing in Chinese law or tradition prepared them to handle the implications. The British Cabinet felt that a man with naval experience might prove useful if the situation in China ever reached the stage where the British Navy would have to operate in Chinese waters. Among the potential appointees for the post of Chief Superintendent of Trade, the British Cabinet found only one peer who had ever seen naval service afloat: Lord William John Napier of Merchiston, Scotland, a tall, sandy-haired, forty-seven-year-old naval officer turned sheep farmer. Lord Napier, a strict Presbyterian, had no experience in Asian affairs and, despite his many good qualities, possessed an arrogant character and a lack of perception. Worse, in his heart he considered the Chinese to be ignorant heathens. Lord Napier became Britain's Chief Superintendent of Trade to Canton on December 31, 1833. Britain's Foreign Secretary, Lord Henry John Temple Palmerston, issued instructions that directed Napier to select two men from the Select Committee in Canton as his advisers and assistants who would carry the titles Second and Third Superintendents respectively. Because neither the British Cabinet, nor Lord Napier had taken the time to get expert advice or even read state papers relating to China, neither realized that Napier's mission to China was a "wild-goose chase" from the start. Lord Napier's instructions regarding his China mission clearly reflected British policy at the time and the government's total lack of understanding about China. To begin with, he was ordered to take up residence in Canton and assume his duties directly, to "study ...all practical methods to maintain a good and friendly understanding" with the Chinese. The problem was that the Chief Superintendent of Trade was not a merchant, but an official of the British Crown holding what today amounts to a consular appointment. As such, he had no legal right under Chinese law to reside in Canton. Furthermore, he was not even given orders to seek such permission. No Chinese emperor had ever accepted the principal of diplomatic representation. If Emperor Xuanzong sanctioned Lord Napier's residence in Canton in his capacity as a representative of the British government, it would have meant the reversal of China's long-standing policy of refusing to receive resident consular or ambassadorial representatives. Lord Napier also had orders to abstain from all unnecessary use of menacing language and not offend Chinese sensibilities. He was to make sure British subjects understood that so long as Chinese law was administered equally and in good faith to all foreigners and Chinese alike, it was their duty to conform to that law. To protect the interests of British merchants, he was instructed to advise and mediate between them and Chinese government officials and to adjudicate cases involving British subjects in China. At the same time, he was expected to be cautious, conciliatory and maintain friendly relations with the Chinese. Under Canton's Eight Trade Regulations however, no contact of any kind was permitted between foreign merchants and local officials; all such communications had to go through the hong merchants. Finally, Lord Napier was directed not to ask for help from the Royal Navy unless absolutely necessary. Had either Napier or the British Home Office bothered to research the situation, they would have realized that no real change could be affected in China without threatening to use the Royal Navy, but to make such a threat was the very thing Napier was forbidden to do. In short, Lord Napier was expected to be mild-mannered and discreet, yet perform all those acts the British East India Company wanted to do but refrained from doing for fear of triggering a hostile Chinese reaction. In a letter of supplemental instructions dated January 24, 1834, British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston directed Lord Napier to announce his arrival in Canton to the Viceroy by letter, an act that itself was against Chinese law. Napier was also instructed to take advantage of every favorable opportunity to encourage the Chinese "to enter into commercial relations with the British Government." This was no small request in light of the fact that the entire concept of Napier's office had no legal basis in China. Lord Palmerston directed Napier to "cultivate the most friendly relations with the Emperor of China," yet gave no clue as to how this was to be accomplished. Lord Palmerston's contradictory orders made Napier's task virtually impossible and effectively triggered a revolution in Chinese foreign policy by simply ignoring its existence. Lord Palmerston briefly touched on the Coast Trade in opium; "It is not desirable that you should encourage such adventures; but you must never lose sight of the fact that you have no authority to interfere with or prevent them." Shorn of its diplomatic niceties, Palmerston told Napier, in effect, to shut his eyes to the matter of opium smuggling in China, the financial cornerstone for both India and the tea trade. He was instructed to ignore that which was strictly forbidden by the Qing Emperor while simultaneously trying to establish friendly relations with him. In short, Napier was supposed to behave exactly as the British East India Company had behaved; pretend the opium trade had nothing whatsoever to do with either him or the British Crown. Finally, suggesting an awareness that at some point in the future there would be trouble in the region, Palmerston directed Napier to conduct a survey of the China coast and select locations from which British men-of-war might safely operate in the event hostilities broke out. Thus hampered by such an ill-concieved set of orders, Lord Napier, accompanied by his wife and children, boarded the British man-of-war H.M.S. Andromache and sailed for China in April 1834.
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