2 Responses to “ How Did The Opium War Affect China’s Economy? ”

1. Fox News is the best! on August 6th, 2009 8:36 am

   with the abolition of the “Canton System” and the opening of the five treaty ports, foreign trade flourished. the treaty ports which lay on the southeastern coast of China between Shanghai and Canton, gave Western merchants access to the most developed area of China where the economy was liveliest. Western merchants mainly bought silk and tea from China. the export of tea from China increased to 42,000,000 kg in 1855 from only 7,500,000 kg in 1843, an increase of more than 500%. the export of silk rose to 56,000 bales in 1855 from 2000 bales in 1843. with the increased demand on Chinese silk and tea, the tea and silk producing regions around the treaty ports expanded and benefited from the foreign trade. more and more farmers abandoned the production of food stuffs to produce silk and tea. as a result, food prices were driven quite high. at the same time, Canton was no longer the only port for foreign trade. with the opening of five other ports, the inland boatmen and coolies, who transported goods to Canton from other areas before the Opium War, lost their lively hood. the unemployment group swelled and became increasingly poor as the price of food increased. however, freight traffic along the Chinese coast boomed. Chinese vessels joined in, and bought licence in Hong Kong. inland traffic was replaced by offshore traffic.
   the flourishing trade activities provoked a monetary crises. the sheer volume of the trade resulted in the shortage of the Spanish silver dollar. the Spanish dollar appreciated so much out of proportion that in 1853, Canton abolished it as an unit of account and introduced the Mexican dollar. the monetary disturbances brought on by the opening of China was enhanced by the internal monetary crises in China. the Chinese copper cash continued to depreciate due to poor administration and inadequate supply of copper. the monetary crises devastated the Chinese financial system. in 1853, paper money was finally issued in China.
   the sector most affected by foreign trade after the Opium War would be the textile industry. for centuries, the Chinese made cloths by hand. with the rush of cheaper Western machine-made products, the home textile industry was almost eliminated. what was left adapted to survive by decreasing the price of the products. however, because the production methods remained basically unchanged, the cost of production was kept the same. therefore the lower price came at the cost of the lower of the living standards of the textile workers. however because Chinese workers had to compete with Western machinery, fundamental changes occurred in the Chinese economy.
   even before the Opium War, a market economy was already developing in China’s urban areas. the old self-sufficient economy mainly composed of petty agriculture and homestead industries was changing under pressure. capitalism was developing in China’s social-economical development. the invasion of foreign capitalistic powers enhanced this change. however, the coming of outside influences did not result in the independent development of capitalism in China, rather it made China into a semi-colonial semi-feudal state. this was so because Chinese industries were prematurely exposed to the outside world. they were inadequately prepared and poorly equipped to compete in the international and even domestic markets. most exporters were small individual producers and most of their profits were taken by numerous “middle man”. Western capitalism greatly changed the Chinese economy. on one hand, the opening of China undermined the basis of China’s self-sufficient economy, the urban handicraft and rural homestead industries. on the other hand, it greatly enhanced the development of China’s urban market economy. such fundamental changes in the Chinese economy inevitably brought changes at the social and ideological levels.

2. Kamikaze on August 6th, 2009 10:26 am

   The opium wars wrecked China. FoxNews, once again, has proven their stupidity and lack of understanding of real world affairs.
   The British developed a system in China that exploited Chinese labor then hooked the Chinese onto one of the most powerfully addictive substances known to humankind. The Chinese were trapped in an inflated, wholly artificial economic system that taxed them first for producing the cash crop, then taxed them again by selling the cash crop back to them at higher prices! This did _not_ strengthen them economically. It did the opposite.
   Some port cities did benefit from the trade, but it wasn’t the Chinese who usually reaped these profits. It was the Europeans who ran the ports, such as the British in Hong Kong.
   The opium trade so devastated China that the Chinese people eventually organized under a nationalist banner. That’s right: the opium wars did so much damage to the Chinese states that they were finally able to unify in an effort to fight against their Western oppressors. Their economy never fully recovered, however (due to interference from a new Western power, America), and that’s how Mao and the communists eventually took control of China.

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